OUR story about Primrose Mill, Blackburn, being transformed into a temporary school chalked up happy memories for one of the young pupils.

Frances Schofield, nee Greenhalgh, reckons our photograph showed her own class hard at work in the mill in the early sixties.

The empty weaving sheds became a classroom for youngsters from St Peter’s RC School, while their own underwent alterations.

Said Frances: “I have vague, but real memories of those times when the whole of the school was transported to Primrose Mill. I was six and I remember a huge, heavy sliding door that divided the juniors from the infants.

“I remember the dinner ladies bringing green table cloths down at dinner time, and the desks were pushed together to serve as dining tables.

“I remember, too, taking a frog to show in a jam jar and it was placed on the window ledge for the day, before being released on the way home.

“We trialled a new method of learning maths using something called “Cuisenaire rods” and I loved them, while my favourite book in the class library was Peter Pan.”

She also recalls: “There was rat poison in the toilets on circles of paper on the floor. Can you imagine the health and safety regulations accepting this now?

“Sister Margaret taught us in preparation for our first Holy Communion with such conviction and enthusiasm, and when the time came to move back up to school, we were given the treat of carrying things up the slope to the newly-renovated school.”