MY WIFE Jenny and I have attended the East Street C of E school fete for a good number of years now and have never been disappointed.

The high standard of recent years was certainly maintained, even more so with a polished live band playing.

There appeared to be twice as many people there as last year, all smiles and enjoyment.

Nice people.

Occasionally, over the years, we have been able to wander around the classrooms and stir my dormant really old memories. Classrooms so big then but shrunken with time.

I would find old school mates John Brinklow and John Gray, Ken Causeley and Vinnie too all sitting at their desks surrounded by the mists of time amid the eerie soundtrack of our formative years.

I find it amazing discovering something new about a Grade Two Listed building that you think you know so well.

And so it was on fete day.

History tells me that the school opened in September, 1860 and was initially three schools in one.

There was an infants school, a junior girls school and a junior boys school. In the late 1930s the junior boys and the junior girls all went to their newly built “big” schools that were located opposite each other at the top of London Road.

That’s if they did not pass the scholarship exam to take them to the grammar school.

The year 1939 saw the inception of the East Street C of E Primary School that we know today.

I enrolled in 1949 and encountered the good – Brer Rabbit and the not so good – the cane... say no more!

All pupils were allotted a house colour. I was in green which if I remember correctly was Archard.

I remember yellow was Slinn but red and blue escape me.

They were named after previous governors of the school I believe.

Do they still have this team ethos now I wonder or is that thought not a good idea these days as competition may cause upset. I don’t know.

The latter day extensions were part funded by donations and interestingly I and many others like me, having donated, have their name printed on their own individual roof tile in the new buildings.

Well done East Street, number one in my book. I would hope that the late Mr Harrison, my headmaster, would have been proud of this superb gala event.

John Porter, Millway Road, Andover.