Those were the days ~ revisiting CTSS

17 December, 2011, a day for twelve of the 1971 graduates to remember.

We trod down the memory lane, reminiscent of the fun old days when we were fresh youngsters to the school 45 years ago in 1966 as Form One students.

The two-hour revisit to our mother school began at around 3 p.m. with the morning assembly ritual－3 bows to Confucius and singing of both the English and Chinese school songs. We sang lustily. The ties that bound us to our school remain strong, even though we travelled different paths in life. While most of us have been staying in Hong Kong (21), a number of our fellow classmates had left for the distant shores of Canada (9), the United States of America (4) and Australia (4). So it was great that Rita Chu Kan Ying and Peggy Wong Kam Ling had just come back from Canada and Eric Chu King Wah from Australia and could join us for a wonderful reunion!

Guided by Mr Chan Nai Sum, one of the teachers who started our school in 1963, we were brought to the awareness of the history of the Confucian Academy. We had never taken such a close look at the pictures of Chen Huanzhang and other personnel like Lu Xiangfu and Huang Yuntian which were hung at the back of the school hall. What an amazing initiation!

We then walked up to the classrooms where we spent our youthful days for 5 years, the corridor where we chatted, hanging around to see and to be seen and where we watched ball games in the playground during the recess and lunchtime. We certainly could not forget the corner outside the garden on the fifth floor next to the Needlework Room where we boisterous girls played secret games. We spotted the classrooms where we did last-minute revision, secluded, during study leave before sitting the Certificate Examination in 1971.

On the wall alongside the front staircase was hung the whole-school picture taken in 1967. We peered and picked the old faces back. Adrian Hung Yiu Kwong using his hi-tech camera, took different parts of the picture, hopefully to retain the treasured memories of the good old days when we looked so young and fresh.

The revisit ended with a brief tea-time strenuously prepared by Cannie Tong Wai Lan. She rolled in the cakes and drinks alongside the six bottles of red wine for the dinner that evening all the way back to school. It all should have been much heavier than the school bag she carried at school.

Dine and wine, no more chalk but just talk