Margaret Kay & Maria Pieri (1966 Notre Dame)

Margaret

I taught for two years along with Maria in Drumchapel before moving to Cumbernauld and teaching there until 1973 when I left teaching to look after my family.

We moved to Germany where we lived near Munich and I was involved in setting up and teaching in an English speaking kindergarten. On returning to Scotland, I began teaching again and completed an Open University degree in psychology which sparked an interest in children with emotional and behavioural difficulties. I worked in this very interesting area of special needs until last year. During this time I kept in touch with teaching friends in Glasgow and with Maria, Frances Harrington then living in Winchester and Anne Asenjo McCabe who had moved to Vigo in Spain.

Maria

After graduating and completing a two year probationary period at St Lawrence's Primary School in Drumchapel, I went to Hong Kong to work for the Ministry of Defence as a teacher in Victoria Barracks Junior School. During my time there I met many expat Scots, several of whom were graduates from Glasgow University and Notre Dame.

On my return to U.K. I taught for 10 years at Battle Abbey School in Sussex and the remainder of my teaching career was spent in Brighton and Hove High School. Throughout my travels I had kept up with friends and family in Glasgow so on retirement it seemed natural to return to Glasgow. This I did in 2003 and continue to meet regularly with 'old' classmates.

When we realised that 40 years had passed since we had graduated we felt that it was important to mark the occasion and so we contacted Sarah Richardson at the alumni office. She dealt with a venue, mailing, payments, caterers etc and certainly took the lion's share of spadework.

Our reunion took place in August at the Wolfson Medical Building with 60 graduates came to the lunch from all over Britain (and beyond). We had a wonderful day and many memories were shared. We also caught up with 40 years of news so the noise levels in the building were high! The day was deemed by one and all to have been a great success and we are already thinking of the next one, perhaps to mark 45 years, who knows?
 
With the demise of St Andrew's College( Notre Dame, as was ), we thought we were taking on rather a gargantuan task when we decided to organise the reunion. The Alumni Office input made the task rather an enjoyable one as we realised how keen people were to meet one another again.

We would recommend to other year groups that they contact the Alumni Office when they set out to mark an anniversary.