A recollection of memories by Andrew C. Bunce (Scarisbrick Hall School, 1969–1978)
Some friendships begin by accident. Others, it seems, are arranged by providence long before we understand their purpose.
In September 1969, at the age of eight, I left behind a small village near Swindon—quiet, familiar, and populated by more sheep than schoolboys—and stepped into the vast, echoing world of Scarisbrick Hall. In a place where only a handful of children were my age, I had longed for a proper football match, for enough boys to field two full cricket teams. Boarding school felt less like exile and more like promotion.
My two older brothers were already there, veterans of dormitory life. From them I learned the essentials: which teachers to avoid crossing, how to navigate the corridors at night—and, most intriguingly, that there was a Pakistani boy named Masood who loved sport and possessed a wicked sense of humour. He was a year ahead of me. “You’ll like him,” my brother said. “He’s from Manchester. His family own a hotel.”
The day my parents left me at school, I turned and walked away without looking back. My mother may have thought me brave. In truth, I was holding back tears with all the stubborn pride an eight-year-old can muster.
A Friendship Forged on the Lake
I met Masood on my first day. Within minutes, it felt as though we had already known each other for years. He was quick to laugh, quicker to tease, and entirely at ease in his own skin.
The following afternoon, we wandered down towards the lake near the boathouse. The Hall loomed behind us, grand and imposing. It was then that homesickness struck, sharp and unexpected. My eyes betrayed me.
Masood noticed immediately.
“We’re stuck here for the next twelve weeks whether we like it or not,” he said matter-of-factly. “Crying isn’t going to get you home any quicker. So you might as well enjoy yourself.”
It was not delivered unkindly. It was practical. Almost philosophical. And for an eight-year-old, it was wisdom beyond his years.
I swallowed my pride-and my tears-and decided he was right.
That simple piece of advice became a quiet rule for life: accept what cannot be changed, and make the best of where you stand. Masood and I remained friends throughout our years at Scarisbrick. We were not inseparable, but the bond formed early and held firm.
At the time, I assumed that was the purpose of our meeting: two boys far from home, learning resilience together.
I was wrong.
Fast-forward to the early 1980s. I found myself living and working in Pakistan with a missionary society—a world away from the Lancashire playing fields where Masood and I had once chased cricket balls.
It was there that I met Suzanne, a bright, warm-hearted young woman from Leeds. She had arrived in Pakistan with the wrong visa—an innocent oversight that placed her at the mercy of formidable bureaucracy.
Determined to help, I accompanied her through a maze of offices and officials. The first man we met was resolutely unhelpful. Rules were rules. Doors were closed.
Fortunately, at the British High Commission, we encountered a man named Mr. Raymond Pearl, who understood both systems and people. With a few well-placed words, he directed us to a senior officer at the Interior Ministry. The visa was extended.
For a time.
When renewal became necessary, we found ourselves once more facing obstruction—again from the same unyielding official. Back to Mr. Pearl we went. This time, he sent us to a different senior figure.
Suzanne and I entered the man’s office, unsure what reception awaited us.
He greeted us politely and, by way of conversation, remarked, “I went to university in Manchester.”
Without thinking, I replied, “That’s funny. When I was at school, one of my best friends was a Pakistani from Manchester. His family owned a hotel there.”
He leaned forward.
“Not the Arosa Hotel?”
It transpired that this very official had spent his first six months in England living at the Arosa Hotel—owned by Masood’s family.
In that instant, the years folded in on themselves. A lakeside conversation at boarding school reached across continents and decades.
The atmosphere shifted immediately. Smiles replaced suspicion. The visa was approved without difficulty. More than that, he suggested extending it until January, so Suzanne could remain through Christmas.
That unexpected extension changed everything.
During those extra weeks, something steady and certain grew between Suzanne and me. By Christmas, I knew. I asked her to marry me.
She said yes.
More than thirty years later, we are still together.
And I have often reflected on how easily the story might have unfolded differently. Had Masood and I not met. Had we not spoken by the lake. Had I not remembered Manchester. Had I not mentioned a hotel without thinking.
What appears, at first glance, coincidence begins to resemble design.
Gratitude for a Place That Shaped Me
Looking back, I see that Scarisbrick Hall gave me far more than education. It gave me friendships that stretched across borders and decades. It taught resilience on the first afternoon I felt homesick. It placed, quite unknowingly, a thread into the tapestry of my future.
I owe much – to the school, to Mr. Oxley, to the teachers who guided us, and above all to God, whose hand I cannot help but see in the weaving of these events.
Life has a way of revealing its patterns only in retrospect. What seems small at the time- a conversation, a shared joke, a word of advice—may echo in ways we cannot yet imagine.
An eight-year-old boy standing by a lake with tears in his eyes could not have foreseen that his friend’s family hotel in Manchester would one day help secure his future wife’s visa in Pakistan.
But friendship, it seems, has a longer memory than we do.
Yet that is how it unfolded.
The Hall brought us together. Time and distance carried us apart. And then, in a moment neither planned nor predicted, the connection returned – not loudly, but decisively – shaping one of the most important chapters of my life.
Life is funny that way – it often surprises you with the connections you never saw coming.
