The Link

Issue No:-1

 WELCOME

Hello fellow pupils, this the first School Link for quite a number of years, will I hope bring back some memories for you and also I hope, will keep you informed as to what your old friends/pupils have done and are doing with their lives, I hope it will also with your help, bring back some humorous or sometimes more serious topics which you can share with ex pupils and friends. The Link could also act as a communication for making contact with lost friends, I personally have found a few and am in regular communication with them, faces and voices from the past have come back to life, some have not changed at all, some have, in the nicest context, changed beyond recognition, some of those young boys have grown beards where `bum fluf' once grew, the opticians have made a fortune out of most of us, the girls, now beautiful mature women, have better hair colour than us boys and look a lot younger than us, I think on my next visit to the buxom blonde who cuts what little hair I have left, I shall ask her to tint what's Ieft, perhaps that will make me feel a little better, but I doubt whether auburn hair would look suave and sophisticated on a rapidly shining head, perhaps a whitewash will suit . When I look in the mirror my face has not changed since a boy, my hair I admit has slowly changed its colour, so why have your faces changed? beyond my recognition "sounds a bit like a mystery story doesn't it" then you started recalling your stories, your childhood faces flashed across my in-built memory screen, I then remember who you are and some of the antics we got up too, every day since, a new memory comes to the surface (where have I put my glasses and keys?) sorry about that but I can remember things from my childhood better than what I had for breakfast two hours ago, anyhow it's getting close to teatime then off to bed (that can't be right, I have not had my dinner yet).

 SUCCESS

The recent meeting of ex pupils at St Peters, held on 7th August 2002 proved beyond my wildest expectations, that a lot of you out there are as interested in the `old school' as I am. I took part in many humorous and some a little more serious conversations with a lot of you, but not enough. I could have listened for ever to some of the stories that were being recalled, unfortunately I was relying on my tape recorder concealed in my top pocket, I tested it before you all started to arrive but must have hit the wrong button or switched it off instead of on, when I returned home I sat down to listen to the tape, all I heard was my own voice saying `testing testing' so this first School Link will be a bit thin. These modern things are very useful in the right hands but sometimes they go beyond my ability, until quite recently the closest device to a computer I have mastered is a ball point pen!! how far have you advanced? I hope a bit farther than I. This failure of the brain not, the tape recorder may also affect the distribution of Photo's if you have not received yours with this Link or know anyone who has not received theirs please do not hesitate to contact me via:-

Please "click here" to send a message.

to make acontribution to `The Link'

Have you any stories for The Link? it will only be as successful as your input, please send me any `gobble de gook' you want to write about. Who were you special friends? who were your favourite teachers? who were your least favourite Teachers? (be careful what you say on that one!) I heard a lot of stories good and bad on that subject! Your stories need not have a direct relation to the school, perhaps you are a member of an organisation or club which you could write about, any subject will not be out of bounds apart from politics and religion, subjects which we all have our own personal views on and do not
need expanding in a communication such as this. If you know anyone at home or perhaps overseas who would like to receive a copy or perhaps contribute a passage, please let me and them know. The Link will only be as successful as you make it !!!!! As I have previously mentioned, your response to the get together went far and away beyond my expectations and I apologise for not realising that so many of you would come along, had I known I would have created more space in
St Peters for you to move around. Counting the faces on the group Photograph, plus the three of us who were taking pictures and I know some people drifted in had a look at the photo's and left, we had attracted well over fifty visitors, that makes fifty stories so come on get your pens and paper out and get writing, you must have scores of stoies to tell.

I was pleased that the majority of you agreed that we have now got the ball rolling and must not let it stop here, communication between old friends has been established and the future is in our hands. I have had several phone calls since the meeting and all agree that it must not now end here.
During the meeting Barry Wall informed me that he has booked the Town Hall for a lunch, with accompanying music, at this point get yourselves a pen a and make a note in you diary,

 THE FUTURE IN YOUR HANDS

Now let us look to the future, what format would you like any future meetings to take, I think the recognition of faces on Photographs is very important, untortunately you caught me out on the 7th August, I had laid out recognition papers but there was just not enough room for you to look at them properly and add names, I have added a few but not enough. Mr Dave Bullard loaned me a small booklet which we were all issued with before going on a School trip to London, we had our Photo taken with Col. Hamilton the then Sudbury MP. This little booklet contains the names of all who went on the trip, the booklet was too fragile to lay out with the picture, I have now copied it so if another Photo recognition session is held I can supply the names to help you jog you memory. This Photograph was the beginning of these meetings, it vas published in the Free Press bygone days section, the photo was supplied by Roy Adams. Just after its publication I was lucky enough to make contact with an old playmate, we arranged to meet after approximately fifty years, we sat in my car (last time we met she was probably on the back of my old bike) on Melford Green in the pouring rain exchanging family Photo's and stories, then I produced the Picture which had been published in the free press we sat for ages trying in vain to put names to faces, her comment "I wonder what all these faces have done with their lives" prompted me to suggest we try to meet some of them. With the generous help of Barry Wall during his week of Sudbury History held in St Peters 2001, we put on a small display which proved to be very popular, we thought it worth while
to attempt it again this year but as a special meeting for S.M.S.S. I hope you enjoyed it and most important 1 hope you met up with some old (that's an unkind word) friends.

 THE FUTURE

 

'There is a lot of potential especially if we can encourage some of the younger generation who attended the Mill Lane School even in its days as All Saints Middle School, they are the ones who can carry the memory of the school building on, who knows. Perhaps the head of the present school would allow us to have
a look around the school it would be just as important to the pupils to know that people as old as us went to a school on the same site as the first school was built in 1846, enlarged and extended in the late 1930s then pulled down in the I990s to make way for housing and a new school.

 PAST AND PRESENT

Reading some old School Link Magazines 1937-1939, makes me realise how much progress we have made. The first telephone was installed during this period, the number was 92 and the fear the children had when being shown how to use it in the headmasters office would make our grandchildren laugh, what child over the age of ten or twelve has not got a `mobile phone'. The road in which I live in Felixstowe has three schools, many is the time I have seen the pupils walking along, one on one side of the road, one on the other holding a conversation by `mobile phone. I don't know how they can afford it. I carry one but purely for emergency use, I'm not on my own, I have several friends who admit to the same.
I will copy a few of the writings of these old links in the future.

I would like to thank Anne Fitch for throwing herself into the kitchen and to all who helped to clear the tables away.

A very special and sincere thank you to Brenda Jolly nee Townsend, Anne Fitch nee Rippingale Olive Byham nee Braybrooke for their very kind letter and the contents therein.
Please send your memories on any subject you like and I will attempt to make up a Link on a regular basis, but this again will depend on your input. If you know of anyone who would like to receive a copy in future please let me know.

                                             David Ford,

                                    9 Maidstone Road Walton,

                                    Felixstowe, IP11 9EE

                    or Contact via:- Derek Parsons. Please "click here" to send a message.

FINAL THOUGHT

We cannot live in the past but we can remember it!!
We can also remember the School Motto

 

HONOUR BEFORE HONOURS

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