Douglas & Mrs Anthony

The following letters written by Douglas Anthony were published in Hallmark :-

December 1982. This Christmas will be my twenty fifth at Lacey Green. The temptation is to bemoan the changes, but the things that matter are as they always were. True there are nearly four times as many children, and houses have been built here and there, but it is still a village and the school is a village school.

Many of thoses who were living here when we arrived are still here, a chat and a gossip still have the same savour and we are daily reminded of the joy and priviledge of living and working in the country.

1983. End of a Chapter.

It is twenty-five years since I was appointed to the Headship of Lacey Green Church of England Primary School. A quarter of a century since we were welcomed by Min & Fred Adams at the beginning of what I expected to be a relatively short stay in a small village school of sixty-five pupils. I hadn't realised then how lucky we were as a family to be in such a friendly place.

There was no chance of my hurrying home from school for there were too many garden gates to stop at, and gossip and pleasantries to be exchanged. Soon came the first of three extensions and numbers rose to an eventual peak of two hundred and fifty. Then we installed the swimming pool, there were sports and open days and Christmases - always something happening - so that the years slipped happily by.

Now the children whose parents I first taught are in school and it is so satisfying to see their names in the register, linking not only with my past but with generations stretching back for a hundred years or more.

By the time I leave at the close of term I will have welcomed two thousand and seventy-four children to our school. During that time there have also been thirty-eight teachers and one secretary who shares my retirement after twenty-four years of service.

So it is the end of a chapter but not, I hope, of the story. We are staying where we are and will continue to meet with the many friends we have made in one of the loveliest parts of England.