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Ben Peyton's Old School ................................................................................. .....

Pool School and Community College (with thanks to JimsGirl for text and pictures)

This is the school than Ben Peyton attended from 1988 - 1993. His older brother Jamie attended from 1986 - 1991... as did I, Jimsgirl! Ben’s older brother was in fact in my English class, and probably some other classes too, but I can’t at this moment recall those faraway days...*sigh*. Jamie, according to Ben, is now a doctor, and me... I work in a college situated just behind the older building pictured, known to Pool School students as 'The Maths Block'.

Pool School is currently on two different sites the 'Old Site' and the 'New Site', meaning that pupils have to cross a busy road via a rickety metal footbridge that many people claimed was falling *down* over ten years ago! I’d hazard a guess that the average student must have to cross that bridge around a thousand times in their five years there - well, it certainly felt like it! Luckily they’ve now been given the money to relocate the Maths, History, and Computing rooms over to a brand new building near the 'New Site'.

I’ll impart a few bits of Pool School culture, to give you just an idea of what Ben might have experienced there:

1) Running from history/maths lessons just before lunch to the 'chip' window where you could buy take-away bags of chips. In my day they were 25p for a small bag and 35p for a big bag - which was never recommended as you wouldn’t be able to *move* for the rest of the day if you ate them all!

2) The 'wet' room in the Maths block for when it was raining - where I *wasn’t* when I nearly got struck by lightning in 1987!!

3) The uniform - black and white. I reckon Ben would have just escaped the brown and gold that we used to have to wear. Lucky him!! [Brown and gold? Nice...]

4) Running from English/Science/French to try to get to the chip queue first... (Pool was a very chip orientated school!) ...and the cry of "Anyone not want chips?" when the upstairs take-away was waiting for a fresh supply to come up in the lift.

5) The fire-drills on the all-weather pitch in *all* weathers....

6) Going to Carn Brea Leisure centre for swimming and badminton....

7) The grassy area for rounders, cricket and athletics. I’m sure Ben did brilliantly, all I recall is a) throwing a javelin *backwards*, b) getting hit in the knee by a rounders ball going at high speed, c) actually winning a 100m race!!
In fact, if Ben remembers the whole school cheering on a very tired, rather overweight female plodding round the field in the 800 metres race in either the 1989 or 1990 sports day....that was *me*. Oh, if only I had been seven stone twelve *then*....

8) Some of the more memorable teachers...the music teacher (naming no names, he knows who he is...) with the comb-over, Mr Spencely the Science teacher with the old red mini, Mr Brown, the drama teacher, who I’m *sure* Ben must recall....Mr Lamin ("Don’t Panic!!!"), My Howarth, Mr Woodall.....the list is endless. They were all a bit bonkers in their own way...... And Mr McGarr.....ah, schoolgirl crushes, eh?


I hope this has given all Ben’s fans a bit of an insight, and if you’re looking in, Ben, I hope it’s brought back a few memories. And say "Hi" to Jamie for me!