Dear All

After what was almost six whole years, Mikey Burrows and I visited the school yesterday. Yes, we visited the palace of memories located deep in the Quantock Forest.

I took the camcorder, and got some wonderful footage, of all the buildings, the grounds and my old dorms in the Old Building.

I am planning to upload some MPEG clips onto my site, and am going to update a lot og the info. The latest news is that the school is NOT, I repeat NOT going to become an Asyl holding centre after all. We met Jules, Duncan and Mrs Peaster, all of were pleased to give us all the news - I would say the truth - about what is really going on.

In short, when we got there we found that it was being used by some weekend holidayers - which is good - and the place is now being promoted as Quantock Lodge, its original name before it became a school. The plan is to promote it as a venue for banquets and receptions, and a mighty fine venue it will be as well - Matron, with a bit of help from good old Mr Langley, has completely renovated the library and the annexes - all richly decorated and garnished with chandeliers. I cannot describe how different it is, and what a good job she has done - essentially all by herself.

I spoke to Matron and Duncan about websites, and I am definitely going to help them with an official one - and if any of you chaps can help in any way - funding, going down to the school for a weekend of decorating, etc - just give her a call or drop her a line - the vibes we got was that they are working hard at making something out the situation - I myself would not like to see it fail. I am sure that every ex-Quantockian will be behind me on this.

All of the Peaster family are still around, and I can confirm that the head passed away around six weeks ago - he had been very ill for the best part of a year, and had been fighting leukaemia for seven years - such was the spirit of the man that I very much doubt any of the pupils actually knew it. Jules, Duncan and Matt are looking well, and Gerry Warriner is still living at the school, still living in his own little world, talking nonsense to all and sundry! Mr Langley is living in Cannington and now does odd jobs around the lodge, and Melvin Hall still makes frequent visits during his periods of leave.

Matron gave us a box of old names of visitors to sift through, and we found a few people from our year - we even got to have a look at the 1986 photograph, which I had never seen until yesterday. The memories came flooding back...

Anyway, I could be nostalgic for hours, but I think I had better leave it until I update the site. I think I may have been a bit harsh on the school in my initial historical report, and perhaps not so hard on a couple of the teachers who according to all we spoke to were intrumental in accelerating the decline of the school.

I will not name names now - but I am sure many of you will be able to guess who the culprits were.

Rick