Friendship Without End

Jackie Jones, a part-time medical secretary from Essex, England, met up with her old school friend, Heather Gooch, three years ago, after finding her through the Friends Reunited website:

I have known Heather since we were five, but we lost touch when Heather left school at 16, to work as a waitress, and I stayed on to do A-levels. We’d been such good friends at school, I was curious to see what she was doing and hoped we would renew our friendship. When I saw an article in the paper about the website Friends Reunited, I joined straight away. It was very easy to use. You create your own password, and then look up your school and the year you left and it gives you a list of names.

I was very excited when I found Heather’s name on the list. First we e-mailed each other, then we talked on the phone and made a plan to meet up. We hadn’t seen each other for 23 years, but there was no awkwardness. We took up exactly where we’d left off. It was incredible. It was like we’d never been apart. We still have lots in common: we laugh at the same things, like the same music and our lives seem to have taken similar paths. She’s my best friend again. We feel like we’re going to keep in touch forever now.

We’ve met up with a few other friends through the website as well and last year we organized a school reunion. Nearly forty people came, which was lovely.