Report from the Suffolk Free Press.

OLD classmates who hadn't met since their schooldays were reunited in Sudbury on Friday.

Well over 100 ex-pupils who attended Mill Lane School from the 1930s to the 60s met up at Sudbury town hall.

Reunion organiser Barry Wall is now planning a bigger get together in the spring.

"It was an enormous success. The whole place was buzzing. People had come from as far away as Yorkshire," he said.

`We called 'it the Mill Lane School reunion because the building was known by three different names between 1930 to 1960.

"First it was the Council School, then Sudbury Modem Secondary, then the Boys' Modem Secondary after they sent the girls up to the High School."

The school closed when comprehensive education was introduced in Suffolk, and Sudbury Upper School opened in the early 1970s.

All Saints Middle School took over the site, which is now occupied by St Gregory Primary School.

Former secondary school pupils were invited to call in at the town hall on Friday afternoon where they enjoyed a buffet and dancing to a band whose members included "old boy" Ted Filer

"The main purpose was to get people's names so we can ask them to the reunion next year" said Barry. "More than 100 signed our book."

 On Wednesday 7 August 2002 over 50 former pupils of the school met in St. Peter's Church Sudbury.

Photograph by Derek Parsons

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The Link

As no doubt you will remember! ‘The Link’ was the name of our ‘Old School Magazine’

David Ford wrote two new issues of the ‘Link’ in 2002. They make very interesting reading. You can browse through them here on the internet in their full and unexpurgated edition along with photographs from various sources. If you would like to receive a copy of future publications please contact David Ford whose address is given in the ‘Link’.

Links to the ‘Link’

Issue No:-1 of the ‘Link’ August 2002

Issue No:-2 of the ‘Link’ November 2002

Issue No 3:- of the 'Link' May 2003

On the 17 August 2001 over 40 former pupils of the school meet in St. Peter's Church on the Market Hill, Sudbury.

This was a great succes as the article from the local paper reports.

 

Free Press Photo

Back row: Derrick Earl, Roy Adams, Edward Carter, Peter Rowe, David Ford

Middle row: Barry Wall, Anne Rippingale, Joyce Drury, Audrey Blanden, Anne Blunden, June King.

Front row: Jessie Ford, Josephine Hogger, Pat Layzell.

 Free Press, Thursday, August 30 2001

Last seen together in the school playground.

They last set eyes on each other across a classroom around 50 years ago.
So some blank looks were to be expected when a group of ex- Sudbury pupils met for an afternoon of nostalgia.
Matching the teenagers in the old school photos to the 2001 versions took some doing.
But the 40 or so people who spent the afternoon recapturing the past soon figured out who was who among their old school chums.
The reunion took place in the nostalgia corner at the Sudbury history exhibition in St. Peter's Church.
Photographs from Sudbury Secondary Modern School and Sudbury Girls High School - some dating back to the 1930s - were among the biggest attractions.
Barry Wall, chairman of Sudbury Historical Society which ran the exhibition - and a former secondary modern lad - said: "Some of the people there hadn't seen each other since their schooldays.
I have to admit I hardly recognised anyone at first."
He said the nostalgia corner was one of the exhibition's most popular features.