AT the age of 80, it’s a pretty long time since they left school.

But school day memories were just as fond for the group of former classmates who met for a reunion at The George Hotel in Huddersfield.

Mabel Dowling, Denis Quarmby, Marjorie Wilde, Muriel Mitchell, Marion Jordan and Muriel Pennington – all now aged 80 – were together in school from the age of four to eighteen.

They attended Helme Junior School in Meltham and then all went on to study at the former Holme Valley Grammar School, now Honley High School.

Despite leaving school 62 years ago, the group have kept in touch and have enjoyed getting together every few years to catch up and reminisce.

Marjorie, who now lives in Shepley, said that she and her schoolmates had a great time sharing fond memories and stories over lunch at their latest reunion.

She said: “We had a lovely time meeting up and talking about school days. We have kept in touch, but the last time we all got together was five years ago, so it was nice to see each other again.”

They started at Helme School together at the age of four, when there were just 50 pupils at the school.

They then went on to secondary school together, where most of them stayed until the age of 18.

After school, most of the friends remained in Huddersfield, while Marion moved to Cheshire and Denis made his home in the Isle of Wight.

The classmates have held big reunions to mark their 70th, 75th and 80th birthdays and always have a fantastic time getting together and gossiping about their schooldays.

Marjorie said: “We have a lot of happy memories from our time at school. Things were very different then, we all started at the age of four and the school was very small.

“We had quite a few laughs– we were laughing about how we all used to be terrified of the headmistress and how she would whop us with the cane for talking!

“We really enjoy getting together, hopefully we’ll have more reunions in the future.”