Two-day break at home. On the 18th I called in on my cousin Barbara and her husband Roy after I’d had my hair cut at Reepham. Wonderful garden. Nice to see them after so long.

Today we marked the end of an era by going to Sue E’s farewell party at Tuckswood School. Tuckswood seems to keep drawing me back. It was the first school I went to when I was about 4 and it was a newly opened nursery school on a spanking new postwar council estate. Then we moved to Coventry. Eventually we came back after my father died, but I was then high school age and I went to the City of Norwich School – about a half-mile from Tuckswood.

But when I was going out with Dot and she left college, the first school she taught at was … Tuckswood. Later on, when we were married, she taught there again under different heads and eventually became deputy to Sue E. They got on exceptionally well and Sue encouraged her to become head at Alburgh, but of course there still links through Sue and the Norfolk Association of First and Primary Heads, which usually had meetings there. Now Sue has finally retired. The school hasn’t changed much since I first went there: interesting building. It was quite an emotional afternoon.

The picture of course is of Sue and Dot, who gave a really good speech.