In the 1960s and '70s the 'brain drain' was in full swing. Over thirty years later how many of our school
pals have decided to remain 'ex-pats'?
Of 171 former-pupils who registered their current address on the MSN Groups 'DownerGrammarSchool' website during the early 2000s, 32 of them, 19%,
claim to be domiciled abroad. The pie chart below shows in which countries our once-compatriots purport
to live.
With the fairly limited sample-size the result can only ever be a crude indicator - for instance one is aware,
from FriendsReunited, that former-pupils also live in Holland and, tantalisingly, Brazil. Then there
is 'Seth Efrica' - an exotic destination for our more intrepid, aspirational
peers. No one in the sample group
claimed to live on that continent, but one pupil ('60-'67) went to Cape Town in '72 and remains there, very
contentedly, to this day.
One surprise is that no-one claimed to be domiciled in France - perhaps the punitive (income-) tax regime, the
debilitating bureaucratic processes or the increased propensity for motor vehicles to collide, is a concern. Or
could it just be that, despite Mr Dean and his merry (wo)men's best efforts, the language really is an insurmountable barrier?
Footnote: Although not included in this crude survey, Cynthia Prentice ('64-'69) wishes to declare that not
only has she resided in France … in Paris in fact … she so loved it there that she stayed for over
25 years - tant mieux Cynthia!
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C.P., 2007