Listen and read the memories of Kelvin Favell who attended Hartford School between 1956 and 1963.

“My first teacher was Miss Hibberd who was wonderful. I then moved on to Mrs Kath Binge who did more than anybody to instill in me a lifelong love of sport. She gave me every encouragement and was a lovely lady. We played football or rounders down ‘The Pits’ although Miss Perry, the Headmistress, would not allow this if there was the slightest sign of rain. Miss Perry was my teacher in the last years and was very keen on music and movement this often supplanting my beloved sports’ lesson. My aversion and dislike of dancing has never left me. This could have been made worse by one such trip to the Village Hall ( again, rain had stopped play) for music and movement when Adrian Yardy – the boy carrying the records – dropped all bar one. The survivor’s tune, either The Lancers or Circassian Circle has never left me! Mum was not too keen on music and movement either – we pranced and danced in our underpants!

Some of the teaching was almost by proxy. My good friend Richard Cook and I wanted to study algebra. We were told to go away and find out! We were also fed a quite considerable number of T.V. and Radio programmes.

We were quite adventurous. During a nature lesson pressing flowers Richard and I mentioned that there were some yellow flags opposite Hunter’s Down. Given permission we crossed the Hartford Road – not many cars in those days – to accomplish our mission.

School milk deserves a mention. It was always warm and a dislike of warm milk has stayed with me. However, school orange drink, difficult to obtain, was wonderful! “