The meetings we have held over the past two years, have in my opinion been quite successful, mainly due to all of you who attended, and brought along your precious photographs and exchanged you stories with fellow ex-pupils. My thanks to you all who came to the two events which made the effort worth while, let us hope that the future will bring even more success and more meetings with friends from the past. Any future meetings can only be as successful as long as they hold your interest. Too frequently and you can loose interest, too few and you think those arranging the events have lost interest. Striking the happy medium is always difficult. Believe me I am speaking from many years of experience of serving on various committee's, almost since I first became a patrol leader in the Scouts and having to assist in making plans etc. as to the programmes we would follow. I have always enjoyed doing this sort of work, and these last two meetings have given me a great deal of pleasure, meeting old friends and recalling the past, has been one of the nicest ventures I have embarked on for a number of years. During our last meeting Barry Wall informed me he had booked the Town Hall for a lunch meeting in November and Ted Filer also came forward offering to provide live music. This made all the effort worth while, and I returned home with a clear conscience and a `great deal of satisfaction of mission accomplished'. So if you have any spare time to help organise events in the future, then put yourself forward, it's not difficult especially if you live in the Sudbury area, you only have to contact The Link to put your ideas forward. Just phone David Ford 01394 271307 I hope you will continue to support the people who will arrange any events in the future, if you think you have an idea, then why don't you join them? A little help is worth a lot of pity.' Fresh ideas I am sure would always be most welcome, even if you have the most harebrained idea, in the right hands can be successful. "I must state here and now, I would not take part in a charity swim in the Stour down by The Croft on Christmas day", but who knows someone might! I wouldn't mind a bungy jump from St Peter's but I think I am on safe grounds there, I doubt if the governing authority would allow that (I hope). If you do have any ideas, they can be forwarded on via THE LINK. Would you like to do something special? can we put you in touch with anyone?, do you know anyone who wants to get in touch with us?, or any ex-pupil of the school? If so this would truly serve the purpose of `THE LINK' I am building a register of all those who are interested and those I have had correspondence from by letter or phone, if you would like to add you name please let me know. The first issue of this new Link had a circulation of 29. This tells me there must be more of you out there who can be interested in what we are trying to do and I am sure the circulation could be improved, I even sent one to America to Kay Tyrell nee Bulmer. At the August meeting forty three of you took the trouble to sign a book I had left on the table. Some of you included your phone number, this again proves to me that regular contact is what we are all keen for, with your permission we could publish all names and numbers which you could use as a quick reference for contacting old friends.
|
|
 |
 |
|
|
|
Is anyone out there enthusiastic enough to collate a photographic history of the school? My collection has gone from zero to almost twenty in just over a year and has increased since August. It is amazing what personal memories spring to mind when faces are identified, some can be repeated, some not! David. |
|
|
OH HAPPY DAYS The first person into St Peter's on 7th August was an old friend from Melford, Ray (Becket) Bevis. We immediately started to reminisce about what we thought were the terrible things we got up to as boys, but rapidly came to the conclusion that compared to the present we were quite well behaved. We both agreed that the biggest crime we committed was to lay a ha'penny on the railway Iine, wait until a train ran over it, hoping it would flatten into the size of a penny. We would then try to pass it off in a shop for a pen'orth of sweets, usually being told by the shopkeeper to "git out yew young bugger, I'll tell yar father abewt you, he'll soon give you a ding of the ear". Little stories like this keep me going, my children usually say "oh here we go again", but I have noticed of late, the older ones are beginning to do the same, and their children are saying "we've heard that one before" or they walk out the room with a yawn. It's amazing how small this world is with modern communication and the strange way things fall into place. I am researching my family and am finding relatives in every nook and cranny!! I am also in contact with a second cousin, between us we have given each other a lot of information. After my advert appeared for our reunion in the Free Press, a lady contacted me from Stoke by Clare. She offered to lone me a panoramic picture of the school and SMSS pupils. During our conversation she asked me, "Why living in Felixstowe was I interested in the Mill Lane School". I told her I was born in Melford and attended the school. She then told me her family originated from Melford and the name, it turns out to be the family my second cousin has been looking for. TED FILER REMEMBERS 1943 I've always remembered the time the P.I.B (Practical Instruction Block) Sports Field was ploughed up during the war for farming. The last game of football was while the tractor was ploughing all around us, our pitch getting smaller and smaller as the tractor went round. I was getting more and more agitated as my football was being kicked into the plough and I had visions of my precious ball being cut in two, as the school hadn't got a football. Can you believe it...? Therefore if I didn't take my football to school we didn't have football at sports lessons. My uncle gave me this old football that once belonged to Sudbury Town Football, it was only the case no inner bladder, I managed to get a bladder for it from Pages on the Market Hill so that our class could have a football lesson. That old football when it got wet, being leather and full size nearly broke your ankle when you kicked it far. I headed it once and thought my head had gone through my body. When you think of all the various sports gear the schools have now and fields to play on, we didn't have ONE football. I think we did have a couple of bats and some wickets. For the rounders games we had to hit a tennis ball with our FIST and didn't it hurt if you hit it wrong. The children do not realise how lucky they are today. After our sports field was ploughed up, we had to go to Belle View Park to play football. That meant a march down from the P.I.B. Now this particular games teacher, if we were not orderly and quiet enough for him, would turn us around and march us back for some distance before we could proceed again. I have known this to happen twice on the journey. On one particular time we were so noisy for him, we got up to the gates of Belle View Par k and he marched us all the way back again, I think we got about a quarter of an hours game that day. We didn't get a game at all if in the preceding lesson we displeased him - that made us all very happy... Teddy Filer That'll larn ya Ted! (Ben) ART LESSONS I remember that in 1944 my last year at school, if any pupil had a particular flair for any subject, you could have extra tuition. I loved art lessons, so Mrs Thompson took me for that. She was in the Woman's Institute and she encouraged me to go in for a. poster competition, for vegetables for the W.I Produce Show. I won it and was presented with art paper and pencils for first prize. It does not sound much today, but during the war art paper and pencils were a very nice prize. Thanks to Mrs Thompson she gave me her own paint box to use. Now Mrs Thompson lived at Kings Hill Cornard Road and she rode one of those old funny "Upright Ella" bicycles with the basket on the front. She used to make me laugh when she rode into the playground on it. I was laughing about this with one of my mates during regular art lessons and she called me out front and asked me "what was the joke Filer?". now I liked Mrs Thompson, so I couldn't tell her the truth-I just said "it was something in a comic Miss" I'm sure she did not believe me, but let me off.... Teddy Filer They certainly were Ted (Ben) ROY. A. WILLETTS REMEMBERS I was born in Sudbury March 1931, at 29 Plough Lane, my Gran lived further down near the dairy. I started my schooling when I was three years old at Mill Lane School as did my brothers and sisters until the school was rebuilt and renamed Sudbury Modern Secondary School. My years at the Mill Lane School were of the nursery type. A very strict teacher named Mrs Rice kept us busy each morning until lunch time when we all sat around a table to eat a frugal meal and a drink of water, after which we were marched outside to the toilet even if we wanted to or not. Every afternoon we were made to lay down on beds made from metal and deck chair material for one hour after which we helped to fold the beds, then we were allowed to play games until a family member collected us and took us home. I was there in 1943144/45, You gave me Barry Walls telephone number, I contacted him and it turned out that my sister Phyllis who is two years younger than me was in the same year as him. Roy Willetts Its a small world Roy (Ben)
My brother, who was a scholar here, is now a soldier in India. Every month when we have the LINK, we send it to him because he is very interested in it, and likes to know all about the interesting things that happen at the school. Lillian Cecil (Here's greetings to Tom, Ed.)
On the day we broke up for Christmas we had a concert. I enjoyed Myself very much. I liked, especially the play by the "Nitwits". It was very good. There were six boys dressed up as girls, and one as Father Christmas
Do you find yourself scribbling odd notes or memories down? I have written 140 pages of memories of my childhood for my family to read: where and what we played; stories of the war years; and the excitement of watching planes take off and landing at Acton Airfield. Memories of school days in Sudbury and Long Melford and also the number of shops and what they sold, the acre's of land put down to allotments. Now not only in Melford, but in most Villages these quaint little shops and their owners have gone and are now filled with antiques. When I was still at school it was my duty to chop firewood and kindling, not only for the kitchen range, but also for the copper down the yard. I well remember helping my mum chop up a solid oak drop-leaf table to fuel the copper. I wonder what that table would fetch now in one of these upmarket shops? I have even seen the same style dinner service we had when we first got married in 1957, I'm not old enough to be an antique? (I know just what you're thinking). I shall have to clear out my loft space, who knows I might find my pot of gold I've been looking for most of my life. I was once offered a job in the first antique shop in Melford, Maj. Horne the proprietor, promised he would personally teach me the trade including restoration. We had just started to buy our first house, but the drop in my earnings would have been difficult to manage, I refused his offer saying "I could not see any future in antiques in Melford" That's been the story of my life. I do think our generation has seen more change than any previous generation, some good and some not so good!
PAST ENJOYMENT
On the day we broke up for Christmas we had a concert. I enjoyed myself very much. I liked the play by the "Nitwits". It was very good. There were six boys dressed up as girls, and one as Father Christmas.
AN INVITATION
A NEW GREENHOUSE
A new greenhouse costing £110 has been erected on the School Gardens. It can be used for many things including tomato growing. It can be shifted from place to place, and it is in a very sunny position at the moment.Eric Martin September 1937
THE NEW SCHOOL
This new school and all its surroundings were strange to me when I first came here, but now I am beginning to settle down. The lessons are a bit difficult, but now I know how to do them, The teachers and the other girls are friendly, also they are helpful, and I know I shall be happy here.Pearl Brown
IMPRESSIONS OF MY NEW SCHOOL
On 6th September 1937 after the Summer Holidays, I did not return to my old school in North Street, but had to do to what was formerly known as the Council School. This is now the Sudbury Senior School, elder scholars having been transferred from North Street, and younger children from the Council School, to North Street.I did not welcome the change, as I had got used to my old school, but I son changed my mind when I found my new school a delightful place, and as days go by I like it more and more.
Have you a school memory?
|
|
 |
 |
|
|
I often take a side step and attempt my hand at writing poetry, a subject I have always loved. I was encouraged by Mr Peter Sheperson during an English Lesson and was allowed to continue the following week to complete what I had started. I did submit it as an entry for the School Link, but it was considered too long. As you will gather I can ramble on a bit, I wish I had kept a copy, I cannot recall even the first line, here is one I wrote when feeling homesick for my place of birth and that of my ancestors, children and grandchildren.
|
|