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Your Webmaster is Guest of Honour at Friends Reunited 5th. Birthday Party on July 19 2005.

By Dermot Graham

It all started in the autumn of 2000 when I received an email from a Julie Pankhurst, who had just set up, along with her husband Steve and Steve's business partner, Jason, a new website www.friendsreunited.co.uk and she had been searching the Internet for websites about schools and education etc. giving me a link to the new website.
I was so impressed by the then fledgling website that I added Swanage Grammar School to it along with my name and details. Therefore, I was the first ex-pupil to register on Friends Reunited from our school and now there are approximately 500 ex-SGS pupils registered! A few days later, I sent an email to Miles Mendoza, who does a spot, "Website of the Day" on the Steve Wright Show on BBC Radio 2 on weekday afternoons. To my surprise, a few days later he reviewed it ( mentioning my name!) and, like me, was full of praise for it and apparently that evening, the website died many times as many thousands of listeners tried to log on and so Steve and Jason worked throughout the night to upgrade the server and managed to bring it back to life every time it died! Because of your own webmaster's small contribution to the success of Friends Reunited, I was invited to their Fifth Birthday Party held at Queen Elizabeth Girl's School, Barnet (Julie's old school). After all the press, television and media people had departed, all the guests went to a Thai restaurant, the Emchai, in High Street, Barnet and we all enjoyed an excellent meal and had a very sociable time.
I would like to convey my sincere thanks to Julie and Steve Pankhurst (Co-founders of Friends Reunited) for making me feel so welcome and being so kind and friendly and also to all the new friends that I made on that memorable day, not forgetting Elizabeth Sheahan, a Press Officer of Friends Reunited, who sent me the invitation and helped me out in many ways. And, last, but definitely not least, my thanks to Katharine Hosier (Minutes Secretary, SGSA) and her husband James, who very kindly provided me with overnight accommodation on July 18 and drove me to the Birthday Party the following day.

A rather windswept Dermot sitting next to Julie Pankhurst, with husband Steve to the right of the photo and Steve's business partner, Jason to the left of the picture and at the back is Michael Murphy, CEO for Friends Reunited. (Press Photo).

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To find out the full story, please click on the link below and it will take you to the Press Section of the Friends Reunited website.

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