Grammar school girls invited to reunion

FORMER pupils at one of Derby’s girls’ grammar schools in the 1960s are invited to a reunion next month.

Organisers Sue Riley, nee Gould, and Rosemary Hope, nee Wootton, are keen to trace all their fellow pupils who started at Parkfields Cedars Grammar School on Kedleston Road in September 1961.

The get-together will take place from 12 noon until 4pm on February 24, at Mickleover Golf Club. A buffet will be available. Partners are also welcome.

Sue said: “Obviously it would be fantastic if any former teachers were also able to attend. It is amazing how many ‘old girls’ either remained in Derby to work, or returned after having spent a few or many years elsewhere. We would love to locate these people and help spread the word about the reunion.

“We decided to organise this event, partly because it will be fun to exchange memories and catch up on the intervening years, but also because it is 50 years since the majority of us left the school and 2019/20 will see us all approaching 70.”

The girls would have been pupils at the school when the original Old House was devastated in an arson attack on the night of February 5-6, 1965. Four classrooms were lost, as were the head teacher’s room, the staff room, school office, library, prefects’ room and the book and stationery store rooms.

The school was eventually moved to a new purpose-built school on the Mackworth Estate.

For more information about the reunion call Sue on 07718207062 or email riley_susan@hotmail.com

Left, Parkfields Cedars speech day in 1962. Above, prize winners at speech day in 1963. Sue Riley is standing, third from the left. Right, the school’s Old House in 1962.

Parkfields Cedars friends on a youth hostelling trip in 1965-66. Standing, from left, Liz Gill, Liz Oliver, Janet Brocklehurst. Seated, Pat Allsop, Sue Riley, Jill firth and Pam Allen.