20 years ago John Wilson wrote a letter to himself at Thornden School in Chandler’s Ford.
Now, a 33-year-old journalist from the University of Winchester, John opens the letter, which was kindly corrected by his teacher 20 years ago.
You now have the privilege to follow John while he takes a hilarious and poignant trip back to 1994, to capture his teenage self in Chandler’s Ford.
What were John Wilson’s dreams 20 years ago?
Twenty years ago, when John was an Year 8 student at Thornden School in Chandler’s Ford, he dreamt about being a millionaire, not poor, and being married.
John wrote the letter in 1994. It was still sealed, and the content was a mystery. Facing the camera, John showed the names of his school friends written on the back of a brown A4 envelope. “Have their lives gone to plan?” John wondered.
Letter Opening
In a video titled “Letter Opening”, John sat on a bench at the Rec at Hiltingbury, “our local park”, John said, where he used to play football with his old school friends (and “talking about girls we fancied…”).
Then at time 2.03 into the film, John started opening the letter. “My life in 1994. Diary Entry, John Wilson, … Letter to myself for 20 years’ time.”
John conducted a project called ‘Dear John’. He interviewed his long-lost school friends at Thornden School.
I’ll not spoil your joy watching this amusing, heart-warming video clip (18 minutes), so I won’t reveal more.
So far, John has interviewed these old school friends:
- Alex Ross (Toss, Licks)
- Jamiel Nurmohamed (Jez)
- Simon Tomlinson (Si, Tumb)
- Michael Talbot (Talbot)
- Michael Douglas
You can catch up with John Wilson and his interviews of his old school friends at Thornden School in 1994 in his WordPress blog post: Dear John.
You can follow John Wilson on Twitter @snoop2003.
About John Wilson
John Wilson is a BJTC (Broadcast Journalism Training Council) award winning multimedia journalist. His work has been published on The Guardian, Southampton Airport website and Italy Star Association.
John Wilson grew up in Chandler’s Ford. He went to Thornden School and Barton Peveril College. He completed a linguistics degree at The University of Manchester in 2003, and later studied MA Journalism at The University of Winchester.
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That was fun. I still have my school reports from 1947-1951 but I do not think I will publish them.
I used to write stuff to myself when things were difficult and I still have some of it. Looking back, some of it is scary but just writing it helped keep me on track.
Our University batch still meet once a year so many old friends are still around. Now we have to find a hotel which can cope with Zimmer frames and forgetful old codgers. One of us however, decided to change sex at the age of 70. She still looks like a second row forward. I wonder if she wrote a letter to himself 20 years ago. (We really need some gender neutral pronouns.)
I can relate to you when you said writing helped keep you on track.
I find writing a good way to help me become more introspective and observant. Some articles are good for sharing on this website, but some are private.
I often encourage writers on this website to continue writing – write as a habit and treat it seriously as a commitment. When you treat writing as a priority, you’ll find the time to achieve it.
Writing can be catharsis. My advice to bloggers / writers – just keep writing, but you don’t have to publish it if you don’t want to, as the process of writing itself can be rewarding to yourself.
Glad you enjoyed it Mike. Positive to hear that you and your old uni mates still meet. I find it just needs someone to take the lead and most of my uni mates are up for meeting despite family and work commitments. Janet, I found the whole process of making this article and what my old friends said very therapeutic and cathartic. It answered many questions for me.
I recently arranged a reunion in Essex for colleagues from my first job. We had 80 people there from all over the country. Some had not seen each other for 30 years. We were all growing up together, parties , weddings etc. Everyone wanted to go and can’t wait for the next one.