TWO old school friends have been put back in touch after 60 years as the result of a 'Those were the days' photograph in the Times.
Apart from the music teacher Miss Abrahams and headteacher Miss Rockwell, there were only four pupils Beryl had named, including Sid and Pat Bailey, whose father owned a florist in Duke Street.
Sometime after the image appeared in print on July 3 the newspaper was contacted by Pat Bailey, now Pat Hoar, of Tavistock saying she would like to get in touch with Beryl.
Following some investigations Beryl and her husband were tracked down and the two old friends were put back in touch once more.
Beryl said she had left Tavistock in 1947 aged ten and had not seen Pat since the day she left. They had kept in touch initially and Beryl had sent Pat a photo of her wedding, but then they had 'gradually lost contact' and she was 'thrilled' to be back in touch, she said.
The house Beryl was born in is now a bed and breakfast establishment, and she and her husband have stayed there when visiting the area twice in the last couple of years.
Pat said she was 'very pleased' to be in touch again.
'It was just like we'd spoken yesterday,' she said of Beryl's phone call. They had caught up with the latest news and Beryl had since written to her enclosing a photograph of their golden wedding anniversary.
Pat said a gentleman who lived 'just around the corner' from her, who her sister had known all her life and who had died recently, had turned out to be a cousin of Beryl's and, unbeknown to her, Beryl had visited him a couple of years ago.
'She was just around the corner from me and I didn't know,' she said.
Beryl is planning to visit Tavistock again next year and the two old friends will meet up then, if not before.
'I always regretted that we didn't keep in touch, we were such close friends,' Pat said.