Schools are made of stories as well as buildings.  Imagine yourself writing a letter to LRGS in sixty years’ time, I tell our pupils: What stories would you include? 

I received this wonderful letter from Mrs Joy Saunders (1934-2022) shortly before her final visit to the school: 

Dear Dr Pyle,

Please excuse my writing to you at the start of a busy term. I am the younger daughter of a former headmaster R.R. Timberlake, and spent most of my youth living in School House, of which I have many memories. I was four when we moved there and only left in 1958 to get married. I am coming to stay nearby during half term and wondered if there were any chance of my being able to revisit School House after all these years.

We were there during the war, and I spent many nights in the cellar during the bombing raids. These I enjoyed immensely, as we were given biscuits and drinks and I could read my book. There was an army barracks in town, and one icy day some of the tanks came down the hill, failed to make the turn down East Road and crashed into the building under the San. No-one was hurt, but both the tank and the building ended up in a poor state.

I was off school with TB for two years and rattled around the school, behaving pretty badly I think. I cantered my pony over the cricket pitch, persuaded some of the smaller boys to stay off school to spend the morning climbing trees with me and hid all the staff mark books in the rhubarb patch. I think these misdemeanours caused considerable annoyance.

I moved to the top floor and had the butler’s old room. Also on the top floor were two housemasters and the school cook – an Austrian Jewish refugee called Lotte, a wonderful cook, who taught me German.

The rest of the school was my playground. I used the school library, the dark room where I had fun printing photos, and the art room. I played duets with the art master, Bill Rickaby, and learned to play vicious table tennis from a housemaster, Tudor Davies. I wonder if the stuffed animal heads are still in the entrance to the new building. I doubt it. We were once preparing some musical event and went under the stage, only to discover a slightly shabby stuffed crocodile.

Further up the hill were the cemetery (where my pony was found eating the flowers off the graves), the workhouse, the prison and what was then called the ‘lunatic asylum’. Occasionally an inmate of these last three institutions took shelter overnight in our garage. My mother was extraordinarily kind and gentle with these benighted souls.

Anyway, I would simply love to revisit my old haunts, although I am aware that it might not be convenient. Perhaps you could let me know. 

Yours sincerely

Joy (Timberlake) Saunders