Old Friend

In the 1970s when I was 12, I was best friends with a girl called Mary. We both came from expatriate American families and were very close. Her family moved back to America and although we kept in touch for awhile, I last saw her when we were 14. After that we lost touch entirely. 14 years later, having trained as an actress, I was appearing on breakfast television to promote a drama series I was in at the time. During one of the ad breaks, a floor assistant handed me a piece of paper which said "please call Mary your old school friend" and gave a London number. The assistant said that she had called the programme to leave the message for me. I was astonished and called her straight away. It turned out she was now living in London and was in post-graduate training as an actress herself (we had never discussed our future careers when we were 12). She had (unusually) switched on the television to get the weather report at the exact moment the camera was on me during the brief interview. It was pure coincidence she saw me and recognised me. She had no idea i was still in the UK (having assumed our family, like hers, would have eventually returned to the US) and no idea I was an actress. We had an emotional reunion, and our close friendship was renewed!