Island Life Magazine Ltd August/September 2009 | Page 32

life

ISLAND HISTORY

150 years of
Yarmouth youth
As the town celebrates the saving of its school, a
wartime evacuee shares her memories and the everyday
concerns throughout its history are revealed
By Roz Whistance
“THE Germans decided to mine the Solent just

been robbed of this element of Yarmouth

as I was in hospital having my tonsils out. My

society.” He pointed out that the school had

parents couldn’t get to see me in hospital,”

opened before education was compulsory for

recalls Edna Emery, who, as Edna Sturgess had

all children, when in 1854 a Catherine Lee

been an evacuee in Yarmouth during World War

had donated the land for a school. Mr Shaw

II. Edna recently paid a visit to her home of

quoted from some of the school’s remarkable

four years, calling in to have tea at the primary

log books, in which successive head teachers

school where she was then billeted.

had kept a more or less daily record of events

It was a timely visit. Yarmouth School had just

since its foundation in 1852. The tradition

thrown a party to thank the community for

was begun by its first youthful headmaster

its part in resisting its threatened closure, and

Frederick Charles Spray, whose portrait hangs

Edna’s memories added to the delicious soup of

in the town hall, and the minutia of happenings

history that the community had assembled as

recorded have the power to draw the reader

part of the celebrations.

back in time.

As the bunting flapped and the Pimms flowed,

“Some four or five children were absent this

Chairman of the School Governors Kevin Shaw

afternoon,” writes Frederick Spray. “I think

said: “It would have been a tragedy if we had

they often persuade their parents to give them

Mrs Beryl Miller, Head Teacher at Yarmouth School with her granddaughter
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