A chance meeting on holiday has led two old Loose school chums to plan a class reunion.

Lynne Allard (nee White) was on holiday on Portugal where she bumped into Sue Brattle, who was temporarily living there after leaving Hong Kong, before returning to West Malling.

The two women were classmates together in Miss Arnold's class at Loose Primary School back in 1966.

They started talking about the good old times, and when one of them produced a school photo, the competition to remember everyone's names began.

Mrs Allard, who now lives in Aldwick, near Chichester, then lived with her family in Berwyn Grove, Loose.

She said: "I look back fondly on my schools day, though I know not all of my classmates do. Miss Arnold had a tough reputation and was not beyond throwing the board rubber at you if you misbehaved."

But what she recalls about her teacher was her patience and the extraordinary lengths she went to one year to help the girls learn the art of dress-making.

It was something that would stand Mrs Allard in good stead years later when, after a false and rather unappealing start to her working life as a secretary, she switched to starting up her own business in design.

She said: "I was at Loose from 1959 till 1966, because at the end of the infants, they made me stay down a year. So I actually got know two year groups."

Later she went on to Maidstone Technical High School for Girls (now Invicta Grammar).

Between them and with the help of an appeal on Facebook, the friends have been able to name 31 of the 33 children in the class.

But Mrs Allard said: "Naming is one thing. Finding out how to contact them is another, especially the girls, many of whom will now be using a different surname."'

'We'd like to track them all down'

"Ideally we'd like to track them all down with the aim of holding a re-union later this year, post Covid."

The names they have so far are: from left, back row: Phillip ?, Brian Amess, Kevin Tucker, Peter Caskett or Crockett, Chris Owen, John Halls, Tony Galbraith, Peter Stevens, Graham Lock, Keith Wright.

Second row: Marilyn Simmonds, Noreen Thatcher, Jane Bowerman, Anne Hoadley, Gillian Ballard, Lynne White, Valerie Manhood, Gillian Osborne, Vivienne Pounder, Susan Wanstall, Vanessa Cochrane.

Third row: unknown, Anne Appleton, Susan Blythe, Susan Pepper, teacher Miss Arnold, Susan Brattle, Nicola Mayhew, Christine Norman, Joyce Hall.

Front row: David Perkins, Colin Hawkins, Andrew Sandham, Nicole Razzell, Ann Blake, Peter Stevenson, Barry Croft and Steven Gilbert.

Anyone who can help fill in the gaps, or who can give the pair contact details for any of the pupils, is asked to email Mrs Allard directly on lynne1709@hotmail.com

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