I’ve recently been looking through some family papers and I’ve found a school report going back to the summer term of 1939. It’s from St John’s School, Billingham and concerns my late mum Doreen Birtle nee Wright. She was doing well as her class position of 3rd out of 43 indicates.

Strangely the only subject in which she topped the class was in Nature Studies. Well the years passed and in 2001 Doreen was very proud when her granddaughter was awarded a first class degree from Cambridge University. In Natural Sciences of course.

Photograph and details courtesy of Martin Birtle.