What are alumni doing now? Charlotte Hayward, Class of 1981

I came to Thorpe in 1979, one of the first girls to board after the school went co-ed, with one suitcase and a lacrosse stick I never really learned to use. What I did learn was how to argue - properly, with evidence - in a history classroom where half the class had grown up in another country.

After Bristol I was called to the Bar, and I have spent the forty years since in commercial disputes, mostly for clients who are themselves on three continents. TASIS is the reason none of that ever felt foreign.

These days I sit on the London hub's committee. We meet four times a year, and the best evenings are the ones where somebody from the Class of 2019 asks me what Thorpe was like before the Internet. Come and find us - the next London drinks are on the events page.