When 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 Norris, met regularly for pub lunches.
But since the pandemic, their interactions have been limited to phone calls.
It made the timing of their vaccinations - which were coincidentally booked in on the same day by South Reddish GP practice - a very special moment.
Pat, a great-grandmother of five, told the Manchester Evening News : "We couldn't wait to get the vaccinations. We were just really glad to have our turn. It means a lot to have done it with friends.
"Even thought we've not been able to speak we've known through lockdown that we were at the end of a phone and we speak all the time.
"We all know each other's families and it was just so great to see them again."
Pat added: "We first met at primary schools when we were five years of age.
"There were gaps when we were raising or families, but we got together again. We've just kept in touch all ths time.
"The last time we met up was in February but we all phone one another and if anybody isn't well we are always there."
Pat said she happened to mention to Cath and Mary that her vaccination appointment had been booked in for Friday - and they had received the same dates, with appointment times with 10 minutes of each other.
Grandmother Cath Torrence, whose husband Kenneth died in 1989 aged 50, from cancer, said it was 'brill' to meet up with her pals.
She added: "We've spoken on the phone but haven't see one another.
"I've got arthritis and high blood pressure so I've had to be very careful during the pandemic - you have to be don't you.
"Not seeing my family and friends for 12 months has been hard. But I'll wait for my second vaccination and see how we go from there."
Coronavirus vaccine supplies in the North West of England will be cut by a third next month, the NHS has confirmed.
The weekly sum will be reduced to 200,000 by the second week of February for regions including Greater Manchester, Lancashire, Cheshire, Merseyside, and South Cumbria, the BBC reports.
The Health Service Journal explained the decision was due to national shortages, and would allow other regions in the country to catch up in prioritising the most at-risk groups.
However the Department of Health said the vaccine programme was 'on track' to offer first doses of the jab to those in the top four priority groups by mid-February.
