Dear Jacqui, began the email message. "Do you remember me?

We sat next to each other in Mr Osborne's class when we were aged nine. Did you grow up to be very tall?"

"Dear Simon Garwood," I replied. "Yes, I remember you. I was such a lucky girl to have you as my desk mate. All the other girls were so jealous. I'm now 5ft 8in, by the way."

"Dear Jacqui," returned Simon. "I'm now 5ft 10in and a bit but I tell people I'm 6ft. I weigh more than I should and I'm losing my hair. I have a job in IT, which is dull but it pays the bills."

At this point, the thrill of hearing from an old junior school friend began to lose its sparkle. I remember Simon Garwood as being a clever, fresh-faced boy who wanted to be an astronaut.

At the time I probably fully believed he would make it to the stars, especially as I knew I was destined to marry David Cassidy.

I may not have fulfilled my ambition but I could have held on to the image of Simon on a space mission if only he hadn't, like me, registered on a web site called www.friendsreunited.co.uk For those who haven't heard of this, it is a web site dedicated to helping you get in touch with old school pals.

You give some scant details about yourself and you join a list of others from your alma mater who have also signed up.

You can contact them through friendsreunited, or they can contact you.

It's not so much a clever idea as an obvious one. Most people I know have been registering to see what would happen.

Like me, however, what they're probably realising is that those precious memories of several decades ago lose their glow when you find out what really happened to your classmates.

Simon Garwood is by no means a failure. He's told me he has three kids, a wife and a skateboard.

And that he's not suffering a mid-life crisis. But what would happen if I were to remind him what he was like as a child? Would that spark a crisis?

It would be far worse if we were to see each other again. Growing old with friends you spend a lot of time with is tolerable.

You probably haven't even noticed each others' greying hairs and expanding paunches.

But growing older apart and then seeing each other after a gap of 30 years, is pretty terrifying.

It would be like some horrible spell had been cast on us, wiping out all the glorious teenage years and nearly two decades of youthful attractiveness.

And what would we talk about? The only memories Simon and I share are those that filled the brains of nine-year-olds.

I might be able to describe his old pencil case. And I think he once helped me with long division.

Simon might remember the day he teased me for having the biggest feet in the class (I certainly haven't forgotten it).

And then we'd have to drift into polite conversation about the state of our current lives and how much less fun it is sometimes to be a grown-up.

Of course, I could have resisted the urge to join friendsreunited, and thus spared this heartache over my childhood memories. Perhaps I'm hoping to hear that one of my contemporaries really did live up to their own expectations.

Or maybe I could lie about myself and tell everyone my married name is Cassidy.