direct to your inboxWhen Pat Brooks, Cath Torrence and Mary Halisey met in the first year of primary school they formed a friendship that was to last a lifetime.Through the decades of celebrations, commiserations, raising families and losing loved ones, they have always been there for each other.So it was only right that 74 years after their childhood meeting, they were together to receive their Covid jabs in their first (socially-distanced) reunion since the start of lockdown.The three pals from Reddish, who will all turn 80 this year, live alone after they each lost their husbands - making the series of lockdowns particularly isolating.Before lockdown, the trio and seven other friends who attended St Mary's School on Dodge Hill in Heaton.