BEST YEARS OF OUR LIVES – YOUR CHANCE TO STAR IN SCHOOL PROJECT

Were your schooldays in Bishop Monkton the best years of your life? If they were, or even if they weren’t, a village project wants to hear from you!

The village’s Local History Group and the Primary School have joined forces to run a project investigating the history of education in Bishop Monkton. The project, which is already underway, will culminate in the making of a film, the publication of a book and the staging of an exhibition next Spring. In addition, the history of the village school will be a learning topic for children in the school during the current academic year. Pupils at the school will be playing a leading role in the project as it unfolds over the coming months.

The team behind the project, entitled ‘Best Years of our Lives’, needs your help. They are looking for your stories about Bishop Monkton school, your memories, your pictures and other memorabilia like school reports. Were you a pupil or did you work there either on the school’s current site since the 1970s or in its previous building, now the Old School House.

The project is particularly keen to uncover the following –

• Families which have had a long association with the school over several generations.
• Any photos, or even better videos, of school events from years gone by.
• Anyone who knows anything about the history of some of the small independent schools which were set up in private houses before the formal school existed.

The project will also take in the story of the Mechanics Institution which, among other things, provided adult education. So anyone who can remember going in there before it closed in the 1990s is also being asked to share their memories with the project.

Mandy Hazel from the Local History Group will be gathering in people’s materials and memories in the first instance. People with stories and material to share are asked to contact the project by emailing Mandy mandy.hazel@virgin.net or calling her on 07497 698287.