After meeting at Waitaki Boys' High School five decades ago former head of senior English Derek Bolt, of Motueka, and financial author and former pupil Martin Hawes, of Queenstown, got reacquainted yesterday.
The pair were in Oamaru for the 1966 third form class reunion.
An assembly of about 60, including 40 old boys and their partners, and several former teachers, gathered for a reunion at their alma mater yesterday.
About one-third of attendees had remained in North Otago, but most had travelled to the reunion from across the South Island and several had come from the North Island or Australia.
Mr Bolt (81) taught at the school from 1967 to 1976.
He went on to write and perform in the TV series Solo in 1984, and in 1985 he won the trivia show Mastermind.
"The best 10 years of my teaching life were spent here,'' he said.
Mr Hawes, originally from Timaru, who was a boarder at the school in 1966, remembered his double periods of English with Mr Bolt fondly. Mr Hawes said while sometimes the boys he knew were hidden behind the faces of the men they had become, their "mannerisms and the way they speak hasn't changed''.
And neither had the school, he said. Walking through the old halls, he was struck by "how many of the traditions have been retained''.
As term two ended yesterday, reunion co-organiser David Ruddenklau said many of the reunion attendees had opted to stay in the hostel where they once met 50 years ago.
"I don't think we'll get caned for talking after lights out like we used to,'' he said.
