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I am after any information on Gayton junior school, formerly Littleover County Primary school. The school opened in 1939 and I aim to write the history of the school before the 70th birthday.

Photographs, plans and any information on the Blagreaves area would be most welcome, as the Local Studies library and record office have very little.

Further to the above, I can now state that the book 'History of Gayton School and the Blagreaves area' will be launched (hopefully) in September 2008. Initially the print run will be 250 copies - however, it is hoped that this will be increased. If you wish to be guaranteed a copy, you can subscribe for £10, receive a signed copy and be listed in the subscribers' section. Please contact me on helena.coney@ntlworld.com.

STARTING THE BALL ROLLING

In response to the above appeal from Helena Coney , some personal reminiscences are offered by former Gayton pupil Peter Seddon.

The idea of writing a history for Gayton Avenue Junior School is an excellent one. I'll start the ball rolling with some brief reminiscences from the era 1963-67.

When I attended the school between 1963 and 1967 the headmaster I remember for the substantial part of that time was William 'Bill' Hall, whose son Ian Hall was both a Derbyshire cricketer and Derby County footballer, and much later became one of Radio Derby's celebrated football commentary trio, along with Graham Richards and Colin Gibson. Bill Hall was very keen on both football and cricket - a supporter of Yorkshire and Sheffield Wednesday I believe - so it followed that sport was high on the agenda at Gayton Avenue School.

The school had a particularly good football team at that time, which regularly won the junior-level inter-schools cup. Their biggest rivals were Mickleover, and perhaps their easiest opponents were St. Peter's C. of E. School in Littleover village. Big victories were usually assured against St. Peter's, but the matches were always memorable for the appearance of their 'team manager' and referee, one of their masters, Mr. Taylor, who always wore full referee's regalia for the occasion. He was a stickler for the rules - 'Don't let me hear you saying 'my ball' - say a name, 'Harry's ball' if you want, anything except 'my ball' - in the laws of the game that's a free kick for ungentlemanly conduct'!

Gayton was greatly advantaged at that time by having in the team Steve Powell, a very strong and muscular boy for his age, who later played for Derby County. His father was the former Derby County favourite Tommy Powell. Also in the team in 1966-67 was Richard Rogers, whose father Jimmy Rogers had played 347 League games for Bristol City and Coventry City. So there was a degree of pedigree in that side - no wonder we beat everybody! Quite a few of the team members still live locally. The teacher responsible for football was a great enthusiast - David Brimble - who married the teacher responsible for netball - Miss Christine Sayer - a nice sporting match.

Nor were the school any slouches at cricket. They had regular coaching sessions after school with the very experienced Eric Marsh, who gave prizes of sixpence for throwing and batting contests. The lucky winners usually repaired along the 'jitty' to the nearby shop known as 'Giblins' - run by one Mr. Giblin - to buy penny chews, rainbows, fruit salads, blackjacks or lucky bags.

Teachers from that era were Miss Pether, Mrs. Hewes, Mr. Blears, Miss Birch, Mr. Ashby, Miss Branston, Mr. Brimble, Miss Sayer, Mrs. Tyler and Mr. Goode. Mr. Goode's personal trademark was to organise the annual week's holiday in Guernsey for the top class, quite adventurous for a Junior school at that time. For many pupils it was their first ever time on an aeroplane - not surprisingly travel sickness was by no means uncommon.

Which reminds me of another member of staff I forgot - an important one though - the school caretaker, whose name I think was Mr. Fletcher. His bucket, mop and sawdust would have been useful on the plane. And finally there was Margaret Watts, the school secretary, who I believe took over from Mrs. Christie.

I could write much more about Gayton Avenue school, but for the moment will pass the baton to anyone else out there with anything at all to add.

So if you attended Gayton Avenue School at any time in its history, just click the 'edit' link at the top of this page and start writing. It's as simple as that!

Helena Coney replies - Thank you very much for the information. I will look forward to any photos you may have. One other Derby County connection is with the Rams goalkeeper Lee Camp and his father Michael who was in the football team in the 1950's.

I am having a lot of sucess with people contacing me regarding the school having seen Peter's article in the June issue of the Derby Telegraph's 'Yesterday Today' supplement. So much so that I have decided to include some history of the Blagreaves area, which of course leads to why the school was built in the first place. People's comments echo my own thoughts that Blagreaves tends to get missed out of the history books on Derby and Littleover. So I am now also appealing for photos of the Blagreaves area, as again there is little in the archives! Please contact me even if it is the smallest piece of information!

A correspondent posts the following regarding the Blagreaves area:

The photograph below shows cows on Blagreaves Lane leaving 'Foot's Farm' after milking - they were on their way to their nearby pasture in the large field opposite, adjacent the big old house known as 'Fressingfield'. A separate article on this site offers more memories - see Littleover - When the cows came home on Blagreaves Lane.

Another correspondent adds this further football photograph:

The class photograph below is circa 1962 - Click on the picture for some of the names.

More Blagreaves memories

Les Mortimer has added some reminiscences of growing up in the area entitled Youthful memories of Stenson Road

A further suggestion is to try and build up a record of 'who lived where' along Blagreaves Lane, or nearby. Did you live in Blagreaves Lane or know people who did? If so, and you would like to record the information, please click on the 'discussion' link at the top of this page and record it there. Alternatively, just have a look to see what other people may have entered there.

• Youthful memories of Stenson Road

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County:  Derbyshire

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