MISSING . . .
THE DAILY MAIL offers readers a unique opportunity to re-establish contact with long-lost relatives and friends. Each week, MONICA PORTER features the story of someone trying to find a missing loved one, as well as a tale of people reunited. This column is produced in conjunction with the voluntary tracing service Searching For A Memory, run by Gill and John Whitley. TeRRY LUCY is looking for his old school friends from Ratcliffe Primary in Stepney, east London, who won the London Schools’ Under-12s Chess Championships for several years running in the Sixties.
‘I have the names of all the team, and would love to locate them,’ he says.
‘Our head-teacher, Mr Ronald Brock, was a Lancaster gunner in World War II. his plane was shot down over Germany and he spent two years in a PoW camp, where he perfected his chess-playing skills. On his return, he became our head teacher.
‘I cannot remember a day when Mr Brock was not there. he dedicated his life to us east-end kids, and was a great character, smoking his pipe from 9am until the bell went at the end of the day.
‘I can still see the haze of smoke blowing from it out the window.
‘he passed on his chess skills to us — and he insisted everyone had to play. We weren’t any good at football, but when it came to chess, there wasn’t a team in London for three years who could beat us. We won the 1966, 1967 and 1968 Under12s Championships.
‘It would be great to find Colin Brockington, Keith Middleton, Graham Lindsay, Glen Dobinson, Keith Ross, Jimmy Lewis, huriya Tahsin, Lesley Delaney, Steve McKay, Susan McKenzie, Iona Coare, Susan elmore, Graham hodge, Tina Brown, Tina hales, Paul Rogers, Terry Bowley, Steven Kramer and John Mackenzie.’