We recently heard from alumni John and Rachel who met at Hymers and got married in 1999.

We met when Rachel went to Hymers as part of the first intake of girls into the 3rd year (Year 9) in 1989. John had been at Hymers from the start of Junior School along with Rachel’s brother, Stephen. We probably crossed paths before that as John and Steve were in the same class from the intake for junior through senior school.

At this point John was in the 5th year and we mostly saw each other in orchestra, where John knew his place at the back of the violins and Rachel was very sensible up at the front! So began just over 7 years of us passing like ships in the dark where one of us was interested when the other one wasn’t!

There was a brief period of dating after John went to Birmingham University and we often ran into each other when visiting Steve in Cambridge. John once got off a train in Oxford, on the way back from a job interview, to find Rachel, with only a vague idea of where she lived. This was before mobile phones were common, but he still managed to bump into her on the High Street!

We eventually got together in early 1997, got engaged that summer and married in 1999. After a few years in the south of England we moved to the US in late 2003 and settled in New Jersey, 12 miles outside of New York. Originally we planned to stay for 2-3 years, but then decided to stay until we’d had enough. We are still there now, although we moved a bit further out from the city just before the pandemic.

We have three boys, Jack (almost 15), Charlie (12) and Elliot (8). Rachel homeschools the boys and John works in sales for Netskope, a cybersecurity company.