Note from Peter:
What a wonderful evening! On behalf of the organising team, many thanks to all the people who came and made The Reunion evening such a success. I hope that everyone enjoyed it as much as I did. It was sheer pleasure to be able to meet up with so many old friends.
Here are a few details for those of you unable to get there. In the long classroom (Mr Learmond’s in my day) at the front of the school, Val Mott and her team laid out a feast of finger-food. Also in there, Terry Mumford demonstrated the website. In the infants’ classroom (Mrs Hoare’s, but previously Miss Seager’s and, earlier still, Miss Morgan’s) we had Sheelagh Chapman’s marvellous ‘Then and Now’ competition, with 17 of us to identify from photos taken way back then and more recently. Also in there Lynne Marshall distributed copies of the latest edition of the newsletter, ‘Small Beginnings’, that she’d edited with Bob Avery. In the large space at the side that used to be two classrooms (Miss Riley’s and Mrs Horner’s, previously Miss Brown’s) divided by a wood-and-frosted-glass screen, we had displays of photos and books and school/village documents. Also in there, Doris Chapman and her husband, David Bracci, ran their stupendous raffle. To give you some idea of the number of prizes that people had so generously donated: it took over 20 minutes to complete the draw. At the back, David Bailey and Bob Avery set up a projector and screen that gave us a rolling display of photos from the school and villages over the past 100 years. So, there was plenty to eat and drink and look at as well as scores of people to talk with.
All this within the marvellously bright and vivacious environment of Cotton Socks Day Nursery, whose owners, Dawn Harvey and Richard Harvey, made us more than welcome in our old school.
In all we had about 90 of us there, roughly the same as the number of pupils at the school when I left in 1950. We don’t know the exact number for Saturday, as not everyone signed in, but there were about 20 more people than in 2004, ie less than the estimated 120+ of 2002.
We had attendess from all over – Jackie Murrell arrived from Spain. Others had come from as far away as Cheshire, Plymouth, Felixstowe, Colchester and West London, and from as close as 100 yards from the school. On the day I said that David Clarke, at 85, was the oldest in attendance this time, but that position should have been attributed to Doug Harradence, at 88, closely followed by Cora Harradence, at 87. Between us all, as Arthur Chittock remarked, we must have covered every year of the last 50 years plus of the Old School’s existence.
Best wishes to all and here’s to the next time,
Considerably more photos from this year's event!
