***School***

Mrs. Barker was my form teacher in the 4th year at Grange Middle and was one of the teachers who actually spoke to us as young adults. She is no longer teacher but is a Councillor for Grimsby.

I'm sure Mark Dunn and I held season tickets for his detentions. He was our third grade maths teacher and nothing Mark and I would do could we get away with. It seemed that Brian had his own built in sensor and could literally see all.

Things mellowed after Mark and I joined the Boys Brigade (come on, we were 12 years old!) and it turned out that Brian attended the same church, Laceby Road Methodist. Years later I got to know Brian's youngest son,----, for a while.

Mark Devan (formerly Dunn) has been one of my best friends all the way from being 5 years old. As far as we were concerned one day Rachel Hose would be mine and Nicola Lee (Rachels best friend) would be his. Not a chance but we weren't deterred.

He was my partner in grime and we would have all our time taken up by writing lines for Mr. Leonard. Ahh Happy days!

It was Mr. Leonard, (boo hisss!) who we figured had something to do with putting us into seperate classes and from then on we kind of lost touch even though we went to the same school.

At 16 Mark joined the Army in 2 Royal Anglian, and seems to have done very well with tours of the Falklands (baaa!) and Northern Ireland.

Now he's home, having left the army and is looking to do better for himself in Grimsby.

Mike Stafford and I were also very good friends for a very long time at infants and middle school. Not having seen him for a few years I couldn't say what he's doing now.

John Carty (formerly Surtees)lived on the way to school so I would call for him on a morning time and it was in our later schooling years we'd play truant and just stay at his house.

We went to Birmingham when we were 18 to see Iron Maiden and got great stageside views (recorded with a camera smuggled down my trousers).

Now John's Married to Sue and they have a baby girl who was born in 1987. Since leaving School John joined the Merchant Navy and has been sailing the world for the past twelve years.

Stephen Kirk lived around the corner on the way to school and was a real energetic young kid. Unfortunately he moved to Lincoln years ago and we never kept in touch.

Mr Hill (I've no idea what his first name is) was an influence on my life mainly as he taught art, which was my favourite subject. He was also the villain who caused me to hurtle down a steep hill on a field trip to Derbyshire when I was around 8 years old.

I'd followed another pupil up this hill as we were all hill walking around Derbyshire and as soon as we were spotted he bellowed up that we should get down at once and as just like a regular teacher he was counting down. I started running and fell tumbling all the way to the bottom of the hill whence I was lifted immediately by him with one of his hands while the other flew in the general direction of my posterior. I was further chastised by my father on returning home for losing a torch that he'd lent me for the trip during the fall on aforementioned hill.