Reunited thanks to the Gazette (From The Oxford Times)

Reunited thanks to the Gazette

4:00pm Tuesday 4th August 2009 in News By Jen Rivett

WITH a bit of help from the Gazette, best friends have been reunited after almost 50 years apart.

As part of a special birthday gift for his wife, 65-year-old Maurice Slattery asked readers for help to find her best friend, Margaret Brown, known as “Meg”, who used to live in Spring Close, The Leys, back in the sixties.

Mr Slattery’s wife, Jill, 67, formerly Jill Fife, and Margaret were the same age when they went to teacher training at Bletchley Park Training College, in January 1960, and did a two-year course.

After the course ended, the pair moved away, and lost contact. Mrs Slattery returned home to Croydon, Surrey, and Ms Brown went back to Witney.

Mr Slattery, of Hassocks, Sussex, said: “The paper came out on Wednesday, February 18, and by 9.30am, I had received emails that led to a phone conversation with one of the readers which, in turn, led to a phone conversation between Meg and Jill.

“Amusingly, the lady who rang was a friend of Meg’s sister, Hilary, and as she read the paper with the picture of the 18-year-old Meg, she thought it was Hilary.”

Last month, the long-lost friends met in Ms Brown’s home in the Brecon Beacons. Mrs Slattery said: “It was as if we had walked back into the room after five minutes and carried on where we had left off.

“Not 50 years.”