Nineteen Fifty Three. The Second World War was long over, the cold war was going strong. East Germans rose up against their communist government and were summarily defeated; their courage foresaw the bankruptcy of the regime that would enslave them for a further 40 years. The Korean War came to an uneasy cease fire. Dylan Thomas died as did Eugene O'Neill. Francis Crick and James Watson described DNA for the first time, Elizabeth II was crowned and Hilary and Tenzing climbed Everest. Blackpool won the FA Cup with Stanley Matthews in the side.

The pound ($2.40) in your pocket was a powerful thing in 1953: it bought you 16 pints of beer, or 15 portions of fish and chips, or 39 large loaves of bread or enough stamps to send 96 letters. The big bookshop seller in 1953 was the Kinsey Report, 842 pages of human sexual behavior; it shifted 270,000 copies. Harry Potter, with no sex, did much better in 2003.

And one hundred or so 11 year olds started their secondary education at Minchenden Grammar School, Southgate. This mostly private site was launched at the 50th reunion of starting school and is for those students and their families and friends. It contains pictures, copies of school memorabilia and anything else that may be of interest to the Class of 1953 - 1960.

So to the first major update. Nice that a group of people who were living closely together over 40 years ago could resume old friendships and make new ones. The first reunion became the second, just south of Tours and then the third in Yorkshire. In between people have kept in touch by mail and a series of mini reunions at The Harvester pub in St Albans. Most of what seems to interest the class of 1953-1960 is each other. What are you doing now? Have you retired?. The site is mostly images of people when they were younger and how they are now. Now that's interesting.