NEWS that Churchfields School is to finally be rebuilt has spread across the Atlantic to a former pupil who used to attend nearly EIGHTY years ago.

Ralph Smith, who now lives in the Canadian province of British Colombia, wrote to the Guardian after seeing our coverage online to ask whether any of his former classmates still live in the area.

Mr Smith said: “It would be very interesting to know how many of those rather serious looking young people are still living in the Woodford area and just what they've been up to since those early days.

“I can still recall many by name - there's Ronnie Brooker who gave me a book on my seventh birthday and which I still possess, Ronnie Hopkins the son of Detective Hopkins at Woodford Police Station, Kemp, Cook, Wheatley, Parsons, Pickett, Burnet and Trice who I last heard was farming in the Midlands.

“There are others in the following list from a later class but to whom I regret I cannot attach faces with absolute certainty!”

“Having a Welsh headmaster, the capable and distinguished Mr Walford, there was a great deal of singing in the school - much of it of a patriotic and inspiring nature the content of which often developed into subjects for discussion and instruction in the history, geography or religious classes.

“Sadly, I suspect some of my memories are of young men who never lived to raise their own families - their may be a War Memorial at Churchfields School for all old boys who fell in the wars since the school opened in 1875 but I cannot recall it.

Perhaps if one doesn't exist some thought could be given to including one in the new building.”

• Do you recall any of Mr Smith’s classmates? Call reporter Crystal Wilde on 07500 105 941.