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Yvette Barnett is a European travel guide with a lawyers degree. She's also a former post-grad student from Falmouth College of Arts' creative writing course.

So what did she learn from Friendsreunited? And how did it make her feel? This article first appeared on the independent Internet magazine Hackwriters.com

Ever wondered what happened to your old classmates from school? Did the school bullies really end up in juvenile detention centres as the headmaster predicted, or did they become directors of dot.com companies?

Now, thanks to the newly developed website, www.friendsreunited.com, you can discover what happened to the class of '81. After hearing about the site I admit I was curious. I wanted to know what happened to everyone once they'd shed their acne and passed through puberty.

To enter the site is easy. First you register, they e-mail you back with a password, and then you gain access to the site. Nothing could be simpler.

I was hoping for complete anonymity when I logged on. I didn't want to tell anybody that I'd snooped through the notes posted on the board by my former contemporaries. What do I care what happened to my classmates? After all, nobody ever kept in touch with me once I'd left town.

But I was wrong. The minute you register, your name springs up on the notice-board with the word 'NEW' in dazzling yellow letters beside it, drawing anyone's attention to it should they have missed it when they logged on to the site. The minute I saw the letters, I felt like a rabbit caught in the headlights. It was like being the new kid in the class all over again.

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