Named after Awinnie and Chiara
Awinnie was part of our French fast track class – the most iconic class in school. Her energy was infectious, classes were just so much fun with her. Who could forget the Impossible Quiz races during French lessons? We would try and beat the Impossible Quiz Book using the computer suites in French (in the Sixth Form block, mind you, we had the privilege of entering the building legally in Year 11 as we needed to use the equipment for A-Levels – this was all much to the chagrin of the Year 12s and 13s!) This was all whilst Mrs. Louchart wasn’t looking. She never caught us – but she lost her mind when she caught Oisin showing his presentation starring Eli the Dancing Pig which he made years prior.
One of the most fun memories in school was the trip to CERN in Year 13 in Geneva. By far the highlight of the year, Awinnie, Alice and I would hang about in the beautiful Swiss city – ending up sitting next to each other on the flight. Card games in the hotel, and sneaking out into the night, hanging out by the lake, even though I had a bit of a cold. I still have that pizza box lid from the trip, when we all decided to go for dinner to bring up to the hotel. Mr Holden did his best to keep us herded, it was an eventful trip for sure (including one person forgetting his passport!)
If only Awinnie was in my Further Maths class. What could have been? Eh, I still would have flopped M4.
We have occasional contact on Instagram, I recently bumped into her at Liverpool Street tube!
Wasn’t it great when the Ds and As finally intertwined with the Es, Ns and Ss at the start of the GCSE era. Getting to share classes with Chiara (and Lauren) was a ton of fun. Right there for one of my most favourite times in school – Music GCSE, where she would find it hilarious when Mrs. White would tell me off for playing music on the keyboards using wacky instruments. ‘Jacques, stop playing the banjo!’. Often about when I spent many lunchtimes in the music computer suite writing my sonatas, Chiara of course got her very own fugue, as requested (but always intended). When Lauren and I stayed after school to make use of the pianos to practice our duet performance for GCSE, she was amazing good company.
Named after the Biss Family
Going back to my primary school days, The Biss family were very close to me. My mum and dad worked so could not pick me up from school. I would instead spend the afternoons after school with Marisa, my classmate, her brother Ciaran, being looked after by their mum, Sharon. So many memories came from that household, and there were a few times where on the rare occasion that my dad was available to pick me up, that I wanted to hang out with Marisa and Ciaran instead.
Every Monday was the trip to the Savacentre at London Colney, where she would let us spend up to 40p on sweets (I always went for the Sainsburys Basics bag of lollipops, which would last Ciaran and I the whole week). Three biscuits after school, bourbons and custard creams.
I got to play so many video games with Ciaran and Marisa – Ciaran would introduce me to games like Super Mario 64. I can’t forget the drama where I erased his save file, with 85 stars collected, because I wanted to frolic in the castle courtyard, my favourite spot, without the scary Boos floating about. We spent a lot of time at the fishing lake playing Zelda: Ocarina of Time. We also played more violent games – Grand Theft Auto III, and a game where you caused havoc at a shopping centre using a flamethrower (the name escapes me).
Marisa had the PS1 instead of the PS2, so we got to play some Crash Bandicoot. She eventually bought a Dance Dance Revolution homekit, mat included, where we tried to beat the hardest songs (failing miserably). We watched Tracy Beaker and The Weakest Link together. Marisa was into ghosts and the supernatural, and she scarred me mentally by coming up with a scary story about my coming demise until I forgive three nuns in the mirror. Even listening to ‘Help’ by The Beatles conjures memories, where I lent her my guitar for her rock performance in the talent show impersonating The Beatles.
The Biss family would introduce me to one of the most influential games in my childhood – Chip’s Challenge (by Chuck Somerville). They had a Windows 95 computer with the entertainment pack – including the skiing game where a monster would appear out of nowhere with the intent of gobbling you up (and this happened every time). Chip’s Challenge, however, intrigued me the most (possibly due to the digital numbers on the side of the screen). They played the game the classic way, noting down the passwords to all the levels. It’s a shame none of them could get passed Level 9, Nuts and Bolts, literally the first proper level of the game (the first eight levels were tutorials). A section of level where they needed to navigate an ice rink surrounded by fire always ended up in failure. One day, when Marisa and I continuously ended up burning Chip to a crisp, the game gave us some sympathy and allowed us to skip to the next level. With pen ad hand to note down the passwords, The subsequent levels were a little easier. Level 12 was insane, where Chip needed to collect 652 chips in total. Level 13 stumped us, but the solution was so simple, all you had to do is hold the down button (the level name gave a hint – Southpole). We managed to get up to Level 16 before we ended up stuck again.
I decided to download the game on the computer at home and discovered that the game had 149 levels in total. The internet had a list of all the passwords for each level, and I was excited to give Ciaran and Marisa a ‘present’ (a printout of all the levels and passwords). There was also a guide by Richard Field which proved useful for solving some of the levels Better yet, there was a level editor where you could create your own challenges for Chip. This led me down a deep rabbit hole, I would end up designing over 1,000 levels for the game before I would even leave primary school. I am infamous in the Chip’s Challenge community as being the person that created the largest custom levelset for the game (though most of the levels were pure trash). I haven’t touched the level editor for over a decade at this point, but the endless days creating levels was a big childhood memoir.
The Biss family lived on the other side of Potters Bar – and there were a group of other kids in the vicinity which we would hang out with (we played outside a lot, it was the early 2000s). Scooters, bikes, roller skates, roller blades and skateboards, they had it all. At times, even Jordan would come to hang out, he lived about a 15 minute walk away. We had a lot of fun, I’m so glad I got to spend a lot of time there.
Couldn’t forget Rochelle, Marisa and Ciaran’s older sister, who was attending secondary school at the point where I started staying round Marisa’s. Rochelle generally lived in East Barnet with their dad. Rochelle and I didn’t get along at all (she would always be teasing me), but my best memory was when Sharon was struggling in traffic, Rochelle, Marisa and I would walk home (guitar in tow). We sat outside the house, Rochelle badly trying to play the guitar).
The Biss family themselves aren’t on this line though – this line is dedicated to a couple of pets they kept. They kept a lot of animals, much to my jealousy (my dad hated pets). Who could forget Fudge, the beautiful ginger tabby. They kept two gerbils, and when they passed away, Sharon would instead get them a gorgeous pet rat instead (we would have to lock Fudge away when letting Ruby out of the cage). Ruby was one of my favourites, she always loved running around the living room. Ciaran would also own a pet giant millipede (to which I forgot the name) who enjoyed crawling about – an interesting compromise when Sharon explained how complicated keeping a pet lizard would turn out to be (there was an exotic pet shop not too far from where they lived).
Bessy, however, was the dog owned by Keith and David, friends of the family at the time, who we would spend a lot of time with as we often went round their house. I also remember a time where Sharon would dogsit a dalmatian. Let’s not think about the giant snail, as well as Ciaran’s snail collection, kept in a metal box with lots of grass and salad. Oh, and the tadpoles that Ciaran kept in a plastic tub in the garden, with the intent to raise frogs, his favourite animal at the time. Leaving this tub outside would prove to be a terrible idea as it left the tadpoles sitting ducks for birds looking for their supper. So irate Ciaran was with the loss of his tadpoles that he wanted to shoot the birds with a BB gun!
I would love to know how the family is doing now.
Named after Pearce
I remember distinctly when I first met Pearce. We were both assigned to teaching group N. We ended up sitting next to each other during our first science lesson, where Mrs. Mukherjee, our science teacher for the year, sicced a surprise test on us, to gauge which level we were all at. Pearce and I would discreetly confer answers to boost our grade.
I don’t remember too much from that early awkward era of school, the 2005 autumn term, where I wasn’t particularly socialising with my peers. During some lunch breaks, I would try to find Ezinne and Oladayo, who had ultimately found their own friendship groups, and sometimes hung out with Suraj and Alec if they were about.
It was during spring term when I returned from Freetown, new hair, who this. I branched out, started hanging out with my classmates instead of pretending to be a Northern Line train during lunch. Pearce would be part of my new social circle, after he, Gabriel, Charlie, Josh, and I worked on a group project in an R.E. lesson. It was a great synergy, and we continued to become good friends. I was invited to his birthday party in Year 7. Ironically, I was a 5-minute walk away, but staying with my aunt for that half-term period, her being a Jehovah’s Witness at the time, she couldn’t bear the guilt of taking me to a forbidden birthday party.
In Year 8 and 9, there were times when we were inseparable; Physics teacher Mrs. Fradley once likened us to E.T. and Elliot after we both got detention for not handing our homework in on time. When teachers allowed us to sit where we wanted, I would often be sat next to Pearce, doing many group projects with him. Force magazine, the presentation on Michael Palin, doing each other’s homework, it was endless. I can remember Pearce and I causing mayhem in Geography with Mr. Payne.
Pearce was the guy to toughen me up. A wet wipe I was in Year 7, often bursting into tears when things went wrong, Pearce was disgruntled – and most impatient of my group whilst the others just stood awkwardly. I needed that tough love; starting in Year 8, my tear ducts were used far more sparingly – exceedingly rarely in school. I much needed that.
Wednesday afternoons after school were spent in the library (his sister would be doing some extra-curricular activities until 5, so Pearce would hang around in school until then – living close by, I joined him where we would play games on the library computer. Mrs. Compton was much more lax with computer gaming after school, unlike lunchtime where anyone caught playing games would be forced to log out. Super Mario Starcatcher, Super Mario Revived, Bubble Struggle, Rebubbled and the Slime sports games were our favourite games to pass the Wednesday afternoons away, sneaking in a pack of dyna stix sweets to keep our energy up. Gaming is tiring, haven’t you seen the pro-gamers lately? Note that I may have had a couple of after school detentions, which I covered up with my regular stay at the library…
I went round Pearce’s a couple times during school – Gabriel, Pearce and I would work on a project for history, filming a video (I can’t remember what for). The night ended up culminating in watching nutty movies (Freddy Got… you know what) late at night.
We had our rows but always made up (we’ll put SmartcardGate, our biggest argument, long behind us). When classes mixed up for GCSEs, Pearce was thankfully still a semi-regular classmate, in Food Tech and Spanish. We cannot forget d forget his classic cheese sauce (which he left for me to take home, my dad enjoyed the green pepper and cheese concoctions). Spanish GCSEs was fun too, with our rap battles (with the hilarious time where Alex Dadswell wrote his rap on paper ready to perform, full of profanities, being caught by Ms. Kremer and getting a stern talking to by Mrs. Lord), as well as always being a witness whilst Ms. Kremer berated me. After Year 11, however, dropping Spanish, our last class together, Elliot and E.T. were generally separated.
Through my friendship with Peter, in 2016, Pearce and I reconnected again, our closeness returning to the glory days. Elliot and E.T. were back. At one point, Pearce and I lived a 5-minute walk away from each other, so we would spend evenings at the Boogaloo pub or at Muswell Hill, not forgetting dinner at the late Chicken Shop (I truly miss their rotisserie chicken). We also went on holiday together (with Peter) to Milan. I’ve been round his house many times, getting to know his housemates, some of his fellow co-students at uni. Pearce and I have been out on the town frequently.
Pearce had an amazing sense of humour – probably one of the funniest people in the year. I read his yearbook entry in his voice and it just makes it that much funnier.
Pearce, hope you’re OK bud.
D'Souza Bridge • No. 14
Named after Ezinne
Ezinne and I knew each other even before Owens. Joining our year group at Pope Paul at the start of Year 5 – great timing, getting the privilege of having Mrs. Hodgetts as our teacher, who often let us outside to play games. Always very friendly and humble, we became good friends quickly, and I introduced her to the Sophia gang.
Both from African families, my dad, and her family became quite close – lasting long after our graduation from Pope Paul. My dad often came down to offer computer and network solutions at the business where Ezinne’s mother worked. We’d stay around each other’s houses ever so often – always with the TV on Toonami – Iheanyi always wanted to watch Dragonball Z!
Ezinne, like myself, was learning the piano, and we both made it through the Grade 2 ABRSM exam with a distinction!
What a joy that Ezinne would be joining me at Owen’s – it was amazing to find this out on the fateful day, March 1st 2005. We ended up in the same form group, but eventually, within Owen’s grounds, didn’t spend too much time together after the first week, finding our own friendship circle. That is, until sixth form, where I would spend many a lunch time in the common room where we would play cards and boardgames – Ezinne often took part too – it was good to become closer again nearer the end of the Owen’s days.
We chat fairly regularly on Facebook to this day.
Ezinne
Named after James
James was indisputably one of the smartest students at Owen’s. Only two people in the year had the gumption to take five full A-Levels – Further Maths and French Fastrack was the way to achieve this. James was one of them.
James and I chose identical A-Levels – hence we would end up in Chemistry class and French together (though clearly, I wished he was also in my maths class too). Our results, however, were where our stories diverged. I am almost certain that he managed to attain at least 4 A*s, if not all 5. I did not. Further Maths really ended up being quite the moil, especially in Year 13, where I struggled with unit FP3 and especially unit M4 (Mechanics). Being put off by the atmosphere in the classroom, I crashed out with a C grade for Further Maths, brought down by the thumping U achieved in M4. Yes, a U. I utterly despised M4, and every single topic in the syllabus – moreover, I couldn’t really stand Mechanics overall, floundering whilst trying to understand all its concepts. Relative motion was lunacy, harmonic motion was confusing – admittedly, I didn’t even bother to study M4 at all, focusing on getting top grades in Chemistry and Physics, which I actually required to meet my conditional offer for university.
I always really did like James’s frankness. We would call him Monsieur Pointilleux – a nicknamed coined by Mrs. Gillingham, everyone’s favourite French Teacher. He made sure to voice his opinion; with humour, of course, he would always tell me to ‘grandissez’ – i.e. grow up, justifiably, I was always a little bit too immature throughout secondary school. We all did like James – certainly our French class, where he was always a memorable character
It was during the A-Level days where James and I became very good friends; we both lived nearby, often heading to his house to play games or watch the Transformers movies. James and I would often head to parties in Finsbury Park, where much of my friendship group at the time lived (once we even bumped into Mr. Hamilton-Hynes on the train home!)
Cannot forget the iconic birthday party at the late Aquasplash for his 16th, already nostalgic for event parties, where we used to always end up at Roller City in Welwyn.
James, all I’ll say is, I disagree fervently with your opinion on the Super Mario Bros. series. A true Sony fan, James could not stand Nintendo’s mascot and his games (once arguing that Mario Kart ripped off Crash Team Racing), even though Mario Kart predates even the first Crash Bandicoot game by four years.
We have spoken on Facebook sporadically, though we did meet once when we were both at university, at Dante’s, an Italian restaurant in Potters Bar.
James Fung
Named after Gabriel
Gabriel Glider is one of two line names I have taken from the original Conapega system. The original Gabriel Glider line was coloured light blue (as I avoided the name Victoria seeing as there were no Victorias in our year). Intended as the fast line, and named as such (not entirely sure where Glider did come from, perhaps from Chip’s Challenge, where gliders were one of the enemies in the game), mirroring its London Underground counterpart, it was nothing really of the sort.
I remember distinctly when I first met Gabriel. For our first R.E. class of the year, I could not for the life of me find where the classroom was, even whilst deciphering the school map. Gabriel was in the same predicament. We laughed as we finally figured out how to get to the lesson, the obscure classroom ending up being accessed via the balcony above the main assembly hall! Gabriel and I sauntered into the classroom, about 5 minutes late. Mrs. Blaskett, one of the more patient teachers in the school, was very understanding.
The Freetown re-invention during Spring Term meant a lot of time spent together in class, often doing group projects in class. We spent many a lunchtime just hanging around school. At that time, he was obsessed with Ecko streetwear. Donning his White and Red Ecko zoody during non-uniform day, I wanted to copy his style, longing to join the trend. I would beg my mum to buy me Ecko T-shirts as a treat when she came back to England to visit me.
That very jumper will always be immortalised, in that famously iconic (and somewhat cringeworthy) picture of yours truly wearing it, trying to look gangsta at Hayley’s 13th birthday party – making a gang sign with my hands. Photo edits of lightning bolts added by Gabriel himself.
Once Gabriel outgrew that jumper, he would pass the Ecko down to me. I suppose being one of the shortest boys in the entire year group came with its advantages. I was so chuffed; I wore it as often as I could. Turning up to non-uniform day with the renowned jumper, with a Billabong shirt and fresh K-Swiss strap trainers, I felt like the coolest kid in school, taunts of ‘chav’ from gauche older students couldn’t even come close to bringing me down. I would buy a few more items of Ecko gear, but alas, we all grew out from that phase eventually (Illya made the abrupt, striking jump from gangsta to indie).
Ecko and Gabriel would be the subject of my first game – Gabriel’s Ecko Hunt – a completely broken game where Gabriel would have to defeat enemies (mostly from Mario) and collect Ecko emblems – eventually ending in a final showdown with Waz. (Don’t ask, I never got to programming the final battle).
Gabriel invited me and a few other classmates to his Bar Mitzvah. It was a grand, all-day event, with a service at the local synagogue, a tour through London on a hired Routemaster bus, culminating with a grand banquet at Gray’s Inn. I still have the yarmulke for the event in my room to this day.
Other than the Bar Mitzvah celebrations, I would head to Gabriel’s house a few times working on several school projects, including a group history project, where we spent the night watching YouTube videos and South Park. Peanut Butter Jelly Time was the latest obsession.
By Year 10, choosing to do different subjects for our GCSEs, we only had English class together. Gabriel and Fiona kept me sane during the boredom of studying Great Expectations and The Merchant of Venice. After GCSEs, our brotherly love, bounded by Ecko, dissipated with the passage of time – only really seeing each other at the many parties at Old Owens. By this time, we had found new social circles entirely.
After school, I remember bumping into him at the Faltering Fullback a few times – this was a common haunt for Old Owenians back in the day – where I mostly shared a drink with Peter and Pearce.
But as always, big up the Ecko.
Wisenfeld • No. 7
Named after Nick (and Ross)
Heaselang is the second of two line names taken from the original Conapega map. This line was devised late in the development of the original system, being the last line created before the fleshing out of the Jacques A, B and C lines. The line ran from Heaseside to Rosslang, hence the name. Through the crazy map where all lines were put together, it was ultimately a pointless line, primarily made to connect existing stations to artificially add more interchanges.
Ross, I’ll admit, though we were friends, we weren’t close, per say. I only met him in Year 10 when he would be present in a few science classes. He was a very friendly lad; one thing I do remember of him was me always taunting him – saying ‘it’s only football’ – I presume I must have made fun of him when he was taking football way to seriously in P.E. (and supporting his team). He signed my shirt at the end of Year 13 with ‘football is important’.
Nick however, was a closer friend during school. Part of the original ‘N’ group, he was also a fellow Frenchman – though both of us were from completely different sides of the country. Corsica and Paris are literally opposites! We spoke about French comics (both being fans of Titeuf), but never had conversations in French. He would flat out refuse to do so, much to the chagrin of Rebecca, a true Francophile who wanted to hear a full French conversation. Needless to say, we both ended up doing French fast track. I sense a theme here.
Nick and Pearce were also close friends, especially after school. Hence, before the era of lockdowns, when I saw Pearce most often, Nick would often join us for a few pints (I even ended up at one of his house parties).
Hease Park • No. 22
Named after Rebecca
With me being French and Rebecca loving all things France, we were destined to become close friends in school. I first met her in Year 7, a casual friendship at first, as we were in different teaching groups, but she caught on to the fact I could speak fluently in French, so always was up for a conversation. France… and scooters.
Rebecca thankfully was a fellow classmate more and more throughout the years, ending up in my French class in Year 8, so we were able to become good friends. Even with being French, I had my issues with the lessons, mainly being known to Ms. Sweeney of always forgetting my accents in written assignments. I wasn’t getting the top grades as you’d expect – even though I could speak French well, written French was a different beast. Rebecca however mastered everything very quickly.
Year 10 was where we would hang out regularly, spending lots of time in the corridor in the IT block.
Amongst the funniest memories was her and Sarah, unannounced, coming round my house. Taking an afternoon bath, whilst investigating who was knocking on my door from the upstairs window, they saw me with bubbles on my arm. They stayed for dinner, and Rebecca’s new nickname for me was bubble bath boy.
French for me was over by Year 12; Ms. Gillingham offered Further French lessons in Year 13 for us early graduates. Already suffering through Further Maths, feeling despondent; there were times where I was just tempted to take one of these extra lessons, re-living the highlight of Year 12 - our amazing little class. I did give in (after a lonely maths lesson), bringing a cake to the lesson – only to find that instead the Further French group was studying in the library. Ms. Compton did not catch us in the act!
By the end of school, my social life was spent in Finsbury Park, a place with a lot of meaning to me now (as it also was the place where I would spend time playing baseball. Spending my 17th and 18th on the Stroud Green Road (the latter bowling at Rowan’s), Rebecca was invited – and most of the group was living in the area. It made me a little jealous as a Potters Bar resident, where the most exciting hangout is the McDonald’s. So much to mention, house parties at Oisin’s, hanging about in Finsbury Park – so many memories. I brought them all up, Rebecca included, to a couple of barbecues to show them all that it was happening at Potters Bar too… sort of. My barbecues, Old Owens – come on.
We would meet up semi-regularly after school, once returning to Rowan’s one evening, ending up at a Chicken Shop at 3am! We usually met up in Islington Angel and must have done half the restaurants along Upper Street before lockdown.
Though living abroad now, whenever I travel to France, Rebecca and I always try to meet up for dinner and drinks!
Kennaugh Green • No. 13
Named after Caterina
Part of the original Sophia Gang. As with the others, Caterina and I had our periods where we would exclusively spend break and lunch just the two of us. She was proud of the fact of having her birthday on the same date as the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II. She was the one most willing to join me on my infamous train games.
A couple of memories, other than the games we used to play (often in the small garden by the playground) – the fateful day when the entirety of Year 5 and 6 was summoned to an impromptu assembly (due to some extremely rough fighting on the jungle gym between the Year 5 and 6 boys) – Mrs. O’Connor was irate and disgraced, and huge punishments were intended. The rest of the term without breaktimes and lunchtimes (at that point, would be just over three weeks) – a cruel concept for a 10-year old. Mrs O’Connor was the most terrifying teacher I have ever encountered. We were lucky not to ever have her as our teacher, the year below had the (mis)fortune of having her for two years. Yet, I still was unable to fully avoid run-ins with her, having experienced two traumatising events facing her wrath, the first which got me into a crying fit for 15 minutes thereafter, with fellow students, unenvious of my situation, having to comfort me (bear in mind, this was over a pencil. Thanks a lot, Christopher).
Some of the boys were nowhere near the jungle gym and its bedlam. Connor preferred not to get involved with such chaos, nor did Marco, who was likely hanging about with Gabriella and Gabrielle at the time. They were accounted for and were excused. But me? My heart beating at the speed of a shrew’s, with eyes wide open, there was not a patch of bravery in my ten-year-old body to claim my innocence. I would be falsely imprisoned.
A teacher, of which I forgot her name, but was rather sarcastic – saved my spring term lunchtimes. ‘Jacques – you weren’t involved, you were out playing in the garden with Caterina!’ Sternly, Mrs. O’Connor excused me – and I couldn’t run out of the assembly hall fast enough. I reconvened with Caterina, relieved that I could at least enjoy my breaktimes and lunchtimes (plus we had more of the playground available to us).
Remember Woolworths? The shop was the jewel of Darkes Lane, until the company went into administration. We all loved going there – many times with my mum after the weekly shop at Tesco, and Marisa and her mum were the same. The shop sold all kinds of things, there was the iconic pick ‘n’ mix section and tons of stationary. Smelly gel pens, fruit-flavoured erasers, Harry Potter jelly beans, it was endless. Caterina introduced us to ‘Quacky’, a fluffy duck pencil case which she took everywhere, even into the playground. We all loved Quacky, and I ended up getting Froggy, a similar pencil case, as well as my own Quacky, which I still own!
One thing from Caterina, which I still use to this day? Very obscure, and I doubt she will remember – but one homework assignment was to create an agony aunt column for the main character based on the book ‘Goodnight Mister Tom’, which we were reading. (As a side note, the first time we read the book, we could not stop laughing due to the main character’s name, ‘Willie’, much to the furore of Mrs. McAllister). Caterina’s column, named ‘Ask a Cat’ – was barely three lines. Mrs. McAllister put the 5cm long piece of paper on the top of a pile of failures (of which there were several) – to be made examples of. All failed agony aunt columns would need to be re-written within the next three days, or face detention. ‘Ask a Cat’ always made me laugh – and for many of my tutorials which I have created for training new employees to this day – I have reused that name. ‘Ask a Cat’ on how to compile Rail Replacement Buses. ‘Ask a Cat’ on how to create Special Train Notices. The cat will always be asked. Thanks, Caterina.
Named after Jordan and Sophia
First, Jordan, my closest male friend in school. From even nursery, I would prefer to hang out with girls. I didn’t much care for football, which the boys would play almost every lunchtime. The girls’ games were far more imaginative. However, Jordan and I formed an unlikely friendship. There were rare times where he would branch out from football and guest the Sophia gang. He was always up for a game of ‘It’ and ‘Stuck in the Mud’. If there was a group school project, I always wanted to work with him.
I stayed round his house many times – for parties and sleepovers. I also got on well with his sister, Shannan. They had such a cool house – a pet boxer (who I was initially terrified of), numerous cats and even a pet tortoise, Speedy. I also remember vividly our trip to Chessington, where I still have the keyring of a photo of us on the dragon ride. From what I remember, Jordan’s mum was supremely friendly too.
‘Sophia, you’re the leader’ – claimed Ezinne. Indeed, she was, of the group I have unofficially named the ‘Sophia Gang’. Obsessed with horses, and with tons of imagination, it was mainly her that decided how the gang would spend their lunchtimes. Often, the game would indeed involve horses – where we pulled our cardingans/jumpers over someone else, imitating horse-riding. Other games involved sitting in one corner of the playground, ‘running’ a restaurant with deliveries (I would often be the delivery man). The place was more chaotic than the places featured on Kitchen Nightmares. Some games could be cruel – one game, named ‘Old Grandpa’, would involve someone chasing the rest of the gang, whilst they hurled insults from afar. I was designated the ‘Old Grandpa’, which I refused to take part in. Sophia was not happy and spent one lunchtime creating the ‘no-Jacques club’, teasing me from the jungle gym whilst Harriette, who joined, led a dance singing ‘Ooh La La’ by The Wiseguys.
I stress, that this was with pure innocence, Sophia often loved to call me the ‘Crispy Worm’, but we turned it around and used that nickname on Niall instead (my archrival in Pope Paul. Likewise with Caterina, we had periods when it was just me and Sophia just hanging out in the fields making up games about horses. I cannot forget the argument we had in Year 3 when Sophia, Caterina and I all wanted to be blue horses for a game – with only one spot available, Mrs. Kane came up with the solution: there can be a light blue, a medium blue and a navy-blue horse instead. Sorted, the marine equines were of different tints but remained united. Commander and leader, Sophia certainly was responsible for many amazing lunchtimes.
Named after Carla
Carla was part of the original Sophia gang, which I met early on in my days in Pope Paul. Of Spanish descent, she was the youngest student in our year group, and quite insecure of that fact.
I was responsible for two fashion fads in Pope Paul, which some of the girls were obsessed with (both fads lasted no longer than a week, mind you). I adored the game ‘Neopets’ as a child, and spent many rainy days fixed to the computer, with the goal of painting my pets exclusive colours. All of my pets were exclusively Acaras and Wockys, cat-like pets, Kougras, which resembled tigers, and Nimmos and Quiggles, which resembled frogs (my obsession with amphibians stemmed from hanging out with Ciaran). Nimmos were my favourite, and like all neopets, came in different colours. I would print pictures of them, cut them up and distribute them to my select group first, starting the ‘Froggies club’. You entered the club and were then able to take part in exclusive Froggie games, by acquiring the pictures of them from my pile of printouts. Carla was the second in command of the club and encouraged the Froggie games.
It was Year 6 which I was closest to Carla, as we spent time in the garden playing silly homekeeping games (running a hotel). We would be each other’s boss, taking it in turns every day.
Six years after graduating from Pope Paul, we would meet up again at a memorable party – Ezinne’s 18th. An iconic party, Ezinne did a much better job of keeping in contact with Pope Paul alumni than I did – and several of them were invited up to Old Owens. Jamie, Carla, Kristina, Georgina – it was so good to catch up after all these years.
Named after Oladayo
Oladayo and I were friends before Owen’s, similarly to Ezinne.
James left Pope Paul near the end of Year 3, so there was a space available for a new student to join our year group before year 4, that place was taken by Oladayo, whose family recently moved to Potters Bar. It’s always daunting starting a new school, I was in this very position starting the spring term of Year 2 – but like myself, Oladayo did not struggle to find new friends within Pope Paul. She would attain membership in the Sophia Gang, but Oladayo found herself in other friendship groups as well.
Similarly to Ezinne, mine and Oladayo’s families were quite close – living nearby, hence Oladayo’s family would often come round for barbecues, which my dad loved hosting. This even continued after Pope Paul and Owen’s! We would often help each other out (sometimes I would head to Oladayo’s after finishing school in Year 7).
Oladayo would not be in Owen’s for long; in Year 9, the family would be moving to Nigeria (my dad and I attended the family’s leaving party); though after a few years, she would move back to Kent. During Year 13, she spent two half-terms round ours, where Oladayo and I helped each other with studying our A-Levels. I made sure to arrange a fun week both times, arranging meet ups with Ezinne and Rebecca.
Oladayo and I still speak on occasion, I was around to help with her job applications during the lockdowns. She seems to be doing very well now
Our friendship started before school and lasted after school. Hence the two lines which extend to Barbica City were named after Ezinne and Oladayo. This was always the intent when I had the idea to include Pope Paul within the map.
Oladayo
Named after Sarah
I did not know Sarah until Year 10, our friendship groups before were classrooms apart. She would however be part of my Spanish GCSE class, and often hung out with Rebecca, who I started to hang around with more often at this time.
I found her fun and intriguing. The obvious memory I recall: she was gifted a ‘Kooky Klicker’ pen from a friend. These were the cartoony pens with crazy rubber hair. ‘Buckthorn’ was the pen’s official name, being part of the pirate range of Kooky Klickers, though in the spirit of Spanish GCSE, Sarah would rename the pen ‘Tocar’. Tocar had green, white and blue strands of hair, googly eyes, a purple headband with white dots, and donned a sword. The pen became a bit of an icon in our group, Sarah loved that thing. One fateful day, however, would see her misplace the pen in the library, and could no longer find it. Someone must have stolen it. One lunchtime, when I headed to the library to print some homework out, I saw Sarah and Alice designing a ‘Missing poster’, with a crudely drawn Tocar from memory. A reward was promised. I found the idea hilarious – I adored Sarah’s sense of humour. I would then design my own posters (finding a picture on Google of another Kooky Klicker which vaguely resembled Tocar) to help the cause. We stuck them around the IT building.
I was dedicated to rescuing Tocar and reuniting them with Sarah – so I went as far as to create the Find Tocar website, with a forum and blog no less, and a game planned (which was never created). The website featured suspects and a guestbook to discuss the cause. At this time, I was able to locate the true picture of Tocar, so created even more posters. Sarah was initially very grateful and loved the site, but with more posters on the way, the joke quickly ran thin. Sarah would start to remove some of the posters from the wall. Perhaps I was too intense for her. Our friendship quickly soured, and she ended up getting very annoyed by my presence. I was however determined to be her friend because I found her so funny. I tried to get advice from Jess and Rebecca to see how we could be friends again, but to no avail.
Continuing on with naming things after Spanish verbs, Sarah would keep two pear cores – naming them Buscar and Bailar. I followed suit with my red nose – calling it Sonar. Sarah was not impressed with me copying her idea, so took my red nose and threw it into the lake.
Eventually, our friendship was rebuilt by the end of Year 10. Towards the end of school, we would hang out, often at social gatherings in Finsbury Park, Oisin’s parties and the odd free period in school where we got lunch on Darkes Lane. We have met up a few times with Rebecca, Oisin, Abi, Jess, Rosie et al – sometimes we have the odd chat on Instagram.
Indeed, Find Tocar is still up on my website – those were the days.
Sarah Parkinson Avenue • No. 18
Named after Kristina
What do I remember of Kristina? She was the most kind-hearted of the Sophia gang, with a propensity to fidget (annoying Mrs. Philips, one teacher who took a disliking to me), and never without her hearing aid box in class. I would often see her at Tesco, playing with some of the figurines in the toys section whilst her parents were shopping.
Drama often came about within the Sophia Gang. One time, I would be the subject of scorn – Sophia had planned a game called the ‘Old Grandpa’, and I refused to take up the role of the Old Grandpa, prompting Sophia to start the temporary no-Jacques club. Kristina refused to join in, standing by my side in protest of this club.
It’s amazing what you remember of people, something they likely have forgotten decades ago. Even something as obscure as an eraser. Kristina owned a bright green eraser – with her initials and a smiley face. I noticed it and ran with it, cutting up coloured paper and making ‘KF Rubber’ collectables. No-Jacques club disbanded the day after it was formed, as the rest of the gang joined the new KF rubber fad. Saved by paper once again.
Named after Peter
Peter and I did not exchange a single word until Year 11. We were in completely different social circles within the year group.
It was online where me and Peter would become good friends, thanks to an infamous Facebook game – Farmville. It was all the rage when it was initially released in June 2009, and with all the statuses about free cows, calls for help with farming, craziness for strawberries, it wasn’t long til I caught on, in late August that year, when the Farmville fever infected my Facebook friends list.
The premise of Farmville is simple, develop your farm, grow crops, and increase your profit and level by gaining experience points, earned from successfully growing said crops and taking care of animals. You had to keep an eye on your farm and harvest crops at the right time before they withered and died. As you advance through the game, you can plant a wider range of crops, keep more animals, and harvest their milk and eggs and grow fruits from more trees, as well as decorating your farm. It’s a simple premise, yet very, very addictive. It soon became a chore, and using a relatively slow computer, one hour would be dedicated, straight after school, for farm maintenance. Harvest all the peas, milk all the cows, pick all the lemons from the trees – click, click, click.
To keep the game more social, you were able to help each other’s farms by helping with harvests, or by gifting items to your friends. Requests poured across our Facebook pages; people who I barely spoke to at school sent me messages begging me to gift them exclusive animals (including elephants and alien cows). My wall became choc-a-bloc with such posts.
After being obsessed with the game for a few months, I decided to call it quits, tiring of constantly maintaining Smith’s farm. I removed all my plots and decorated the farm with art made from different coloured haybales (including creating an effigy of Sonic the Hedgehog). I made enough money in the game to buy a villa, one of the most sought out items in the game. I reached Level 36, I had done enough virtual farming for a lifetime.
It was during this time when I really started talking to Peter, online at first. We both had very reputable, large farms, near the top of the Dame Alice Owen’s Farmville leaderboard (I never did beat Dan Larkan who was at the highest level of all our peers). We would help each other out and always gift each other rare items when we could.
We would see each other most at Old Owen’s parties, especially as in sixth form, I hung out quite often with him and his friends when I had the odd free period.
Peter was great at organising events – being the one to organise the many post-school drinks at the Byng. It was almost like a mini school reunion (and at times, I even saw people from Pope Paul, who I had not seen in over 7/8 years – including Marisa and Jack Jones!)
We have done a lot together since school – we have gone out for dinner and a drink countless times, have been to each other’s houses, and have even gone on trips together abroad, including Florence, Bologna and Istanbul. He remains one of my closest friends from Owens to this day.
Peter was an icon, and boy did our year all know it.
Isn’t it strange that we shared not a single class together in the entirety of Year 7 to 13, but ended up being good friends, especially after school ended?
Rushton
Named after Eireni
Eireni joined teaching group N, a couple days later than the rest of us. I’m not sure why, but we punished her for that fact in Year 7; she faced totally unfair treatment (which cooled down gradually). Ashamedly, I got into the act (trying to fit in), devising the hit song ‘Eireni marries a panini’. I don’t wish to dwell on this further.
Pearce and Eireni never seemed to get along, and yet, their lines intersect four times.
Eireni was however a fantastic artist. Getting to know her better, we shared great conversations about a range of topics, including cartoons and comics – getting the chance to work with each other for one of the group projects. Both nerds at heart.
It was likely in sixth form when we became closer friends – I would often hang about in the common room where we both took part in playing card games and board games.
We both ended up heading to the CERN trip – where she had connections – we were able to see more than planned at CERN. All people who did Physics A-Level are automatically nerds – everyone appreciated this for sure.
Near the end of Year 13, we even met up a couple of times, heading down to Forbidden Planet in central London to read comics and art books for films (with the obligatory Pizza Express).
Eireni was such fun and a great personality - enthusiastic and creative. We chat every now and again, she is a good fan of my maps, so she had to get to a line in Napega.
Moutoussi Town
Named after Oisin
I remember Oisin with the long hair in Year 7. Both not being the biggest fans of P.E. lessons, with Mr. Breeze, Mr. Foster, or Mr. Cotton barking orders at us, we would often be found coasting by together.
We would become closer friends around the time I would start spending lunchtimes with Rebecca, Sarah and Jess, he was also in the group. Part of Maths class for GCSE, where we would sit next to each other, he would take part in the Gameshows in Maths, where I would make Deal or No Deal and Goldenballs gamesets using strips of paper (I still have the tin with the Deal or No Deal set) – we would play with Lauren and Catherine Liu, sitting behind us – much to the chagrin of Mr. Morley – usually a very composed and collected teacher, who out of frustration, ripped up some of my Deal or No Deal set – can’t be Noel Edmonds when Mr. Morley is trying to teach about surds.
Fasttrack French ensured we would be seeing a lot of each other – in what would be my favourite class (in terms of the group of people) of all time. Even when French just got dull (A2 French started to really resemble dreaded English Literature GCSE lessons, as we studied Camus). Through it all, we all had a great time in our class, sad to leave it behind as we completed the A-Level at the end of Year 12.
Of all of the year group, I’d say I’ve been to Oisin’s house the most times. In one of my favourite parts of London, he would host many awesome house parties – such as the 80s night, where I hired a Michael Jackson costume – it was my first house party in quite a while and wanted to make an impression. There were a couple of barbecues too. The house parties continued post-school, one barbecue where veganism was encouraged, however I did not read the fine print and ended up bringing pork sausages… whoops! We also had Jess’s birthday at a nearby pub in 2019, where I got to see many familiar faces from Owen’s again – where we ended up back at Oisin’s! Can’t forget the one evening when our group met up for a birthday, went clubbing in Angel – I was still living in Potters Bar at the time so crashed at Oisin’s place before taking the first train back home.
Who could forget the famous lunchbox? An innocent lunchbox caused iconic drama. ‘We have your lunchbox, if you ever want to see it again, leave big bags of crisps in the Physics staffroom’.
Oisin Grove • No. 15
Named after Charlie and Josh
Josh was a fellow classmate in group N, so we became friends early on. Year 9 was where we were closest, sitting next to each other in maths - the two total weirdos at the back of the class. Unbeknownst to Ms. Dennehy, whilst she was teaching simultaneous equations, both of us were busy completely desecrating my homework diary with doodles. With our cast of characters we invented – Chomper Man, Bocaj, Fooblies, Sushis, Hoobs – all innocent enough, but also, Willy Woman, Happy Women, Bape the Sausage, Testy Tube... Osama the Gay…
One day, Mr. Nazir, an eccentric, rather questionable substitute teacher (who often abandoned the maths to give us an education on Jesus), caught Josh doodling one of the less savoury characters in my homework diary. One of countless doodles, but truly offended Mr. Nazir was – my homework diary was seized, to be shown to the headmaster. I was well and truly in deep trouble. Worse, it wasn’t just Josh, Charlotte and Giulia loved to take my diary and contribute to the madness. With space in the diary taken up by Lasks, Picillys, Superclock, Benny Bunny and Pearce’s Pathetic Yoshi, it’s no wonder my homework wasn’t always handed in on time!
I brought on the waterworks, begging for my homework diary to be given back; not eliciting much sympathy. I had a close shave from a very stern scolding by Dr. Davison – Mr. Nazir agreed to return the book of madness if I promised to stop the doodles.
Josh gave me a few ideas for games, this period being my boom of game making. My most infamous game, the ‘Waz Game’ came from his idea, where I tamed some of his madness for the final product – it was the one game I did release amongst my MSN friends list (Waz never did find out about it). I won’t be releasing this game on my webpage, out of respect for Dr. Davison, and for the glaring fact that people do not want to be reminded of their photos from 16-17 years ago. My best game to date, however, was for Josh: Josh’s Shoot Out 2, an FPS shooter where he would shoot… yes… Mario enemies (though I honoured his request to include a few MapleStory enemies for good measure). We spent a few times playing Super Mario Galaxy and hanging about in Welwyn. Also a highlight was the trip to Thorpe Park, where I was far too scared to do most of the rides (the most scary ride I rode that day was the relatively X: No Way Out). I would return to Thorpe Park to complete the more thrilling rides five years later.
Yes, Year 10, the usual suspect in many of these stories. Few, if any classes together, growing older, ending up in different groups. Josh was very musical, knowing how to play several instruments (I think he’s in a band currently), though we had good times, it wasn’t as tight when we were in Year 9.
Until Year 12, where he would be joining our maths classes, coming into our group a few weeks into the year. Brilliant – still with his crazy sense of humour from Year 9, it was great to have him back. We spent a fair bit of time getting on Anand’s nerves, now three against one. It was unfortunate that he did not stick around too long; he was mathsed out only a few months into our intensive diet of eight lessons a week.
Other than the odd chat on Facebook during our university days, we haven’t kept in contact. I think he may be a vet now, not sure.
Eternal Winter • No. 23
Charlie and I share the same surname, so it was inevitable that we ended up sitting next to each other in class, seating plans often being based on surnames. We therefore became friends from the start of Year 7, and soon enough, hung about during break and lunch. The N crew – Charlie and I, as well as Gabriel, Pearce, Josh and Stephen. Doing Year 7 things, like taking the ‘cool way’ to English class (via the back of the old Math and DT block). Many group projects together, wreaking havoc in music lessons, where I had to direct a cacophony of musicians (sans Josh) to survive the recording of our cover of Pachelbel’s Canon.
Charlie's superpower was turning bright red when he was embarrassed... which happened fairly often.
I went round Charlie’s house a few times, where I got to play on the Wii for the very first time – Wii Sports and WarioWare: Smooth Moves. A lot of time was spent in the Howard Centre (once where we spotted Ms. Rossi, wanting to prank her), and a memorable time by the fountain, on the intersection between Howardsgate and Parkway, where we would have water fights with cheap water guns we purchased at the shopping centre. A lot of the popular side of the year (at the time) lived in this town, so who knew where you could end up – once we all ended up at Beth’s.
The most memorable time was the all-nighter at Charlie’s – we would stay awake for as long as possible. Watching South Park illegally, plus any crazy films playing on obscure channels at the time – a go on the Wii, and my sheer panic when Pearce and Stephen tried to submit a definition for the phrase ‘Jacques Smith, class 8OP, 8N is gay’ – they weren’t wrong, but does Urban Dictionary really need to know? As some of us struggled to survive the night awake, pranks were played – by 5am I couldn’t hold it in any longer, ending up dozing off, snoring loudly. They attempted to dip my fingers in a dish of water… thankfully that didn’t work. By 7am, Charlie brought us out to a nearby park to play football… I’m already bad enough fully awake, half-asleep – yikes. Falling asleep while trying to play the Wii – I must have slept hours the following night (missing most of a barbecue my dad was having).
Indeed, the usual suspect – the GCSE era – made us drift apart. After Year 9, that was pretty much it for classes together – the Smiths had been separated, eventually being in different social circles. And so it would be.
Great Smith Street
