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But I couldn't miss this.

The school, the building that is, is one hundred years old this year. So to mark this, today, we took a photograph of the entire humanity associated with said building. That would be about fourteen-hundred folks.

The time scheduled was to be two-thirty, so I wandered up to join in the fun at three. I was a wee bit surprised at what I saw.

I'm not sure what I expected, what I didn't expect was that there would be cameramen hanging out of windows and nobody in the playgound. I headed inside. There were plans onboard it seemed but they were a bit behind time. I went for a fag.

After half-an-hour or so we had the kids and the staff out, shivvering in the wind. Teachers were screaming and pointing, trying to get their class to where they should be.

There was a carnival atmosphere; ie the kids were high as-kites and the staff without care-of-kids responsibility were hob-nobbing.

We all had to squish into an area, an area defined by round black-plastic markers. This took some time and some work from those who had megaphones. Oft they [the megaphoners] took attitudes that conflicted with one another.

Eventually it was done, the photos were taken and it was time for us to get back inside. This, in itself was a bit fraught -- fourteen hundred people, two entrances.

Afterwards I walked home. With a warm feeling inside, one that I suspect that everyone who had taken part shared -- that we had done something together, that we had shown that we were a team, that we were all a part of the same something.

And, soon, we will have a photograph of our sharing. It might not mean much now but in the decades to come many of us will look at that photograph and remember what we felt today.

A sense that we were a part of a greater whole. A footprint on the path on the road that we all tread together.