Browsing through people's memories brought back those schooldays of my own. I am thinkng back mainly to the years 1945/46/47, and to the wooden buildings of the school.

These glorified hutments had both roof and underfloor spaces. It would be wrong to give the latter the name 'cellars' for they were far too low in height for that to be applicable. These underfloor realms were accessible from various rooms with trapdoors. Equally, access to the roof was gained from certain r ooms.

There were two groups of boys, bats and rats, who spent part of their lunch hours clambering about in these . I was a rat. We brought overalls to School which we hid until lunchtime when we hurriedly put them on and went down under the floor. I can r emember very clearly making our way under the toilets and finding the stiffened and dried remains of a poor cat that must have been unable to escape. There were occasions when boys only just succeeded in returning to room level and in dusting themselves o ff before registration and the arrival of a member of staff.

Sometimes, I have thought of those escapades at Prescot when, as a headmaster, I have interviewed pupils in my office, for what appeared to be outrageous behaviour, and have been able to temper my punishments with some sense of humour. R.S.Briggs would have taken a very different view of the event had he caught us in what was, I suppose, a quite unacceptable activity.