GLADYS Richards dedicated her entire 40 year teaching career to the children of Feniscowles Primary School.

Now to mark her 90th birthday the school joined together to say thank you.

Simon Haworth and Rachel Kenny met her on her special day...

THROUGHOUT the 40 years Gladys Richards taught at Feniscowles Primary School birthday boys and girls stood on a chair while the class sang 'Happy Birthday'.

But when Mrs Richards returned to the school on her 90th birthday she was spared the ritual - as the 420 pupils packed the assembly hall to give her a warm rendition of the song.

Mrs Richards taught at Feniscowles Primary from 1933 to 1973, devoting all her working life to an estimated 1,600 youngsters who grew up in the Feniscowles area of Blackburn and passed through the school.

Gladys Northey, as she was then, moved to Blackburn from Cumbria in 1933 knowing very little about the town and expecting to leave in two years.

Seventy years later she has been recognised by the present headteacher as a "large part of the history" of Feniscowles Primary School.

In 1933 the school contained 150 pupils aged three to 14.

The infants would still use chalk to write on small blackboards and classes would often contain up to 50 pupils.

But Mrs Richards was immediately taken by the warmth of the pupils. She said: "The school was my life. It was such a wonderful, happy and warm school.

"It had a happy, family and community feel and there are few schools so fortunate. I kept staying and staying and the years went by.

"It was a challenge year after year.

"All the way there has been co-operation between parents, teachers and children."

Mrs Richards, of Livesey Branch Road, who married Ken Richards in 1941, has fond recollections of the children in the early part of her career.

She never hit a child once in 40 years and said: "They were like friends.

"If you just kept them busy and interested you didn't need discipline."

And she said that this high standard of "well-behaved" pupils has continued at the school under the headship of Elizabeth Hargreaves today.

Some ex-pupils remember Mrs Richards, among other things, for the bright dresses she would wear to class and her jewellery.

This week she received a birthday card from a 70-year-old former pupil which said 'From your scholar'.

Later in her career she taught many of the sons and daughters of pupils from her early years and recognises the names of the grandchildren and even the great-grandchildren of her ex-pupils in class today.

Mrs Richards, who had no children of her own, also received a special birthday party at the Dunkenhalgh Hotel in Clayton-le-Moors which was attended by old friends and family.

Headteacher Elizabeth Hargreaves, who Mrs Richards has known since she was eight-years-old, said: "It is very important to celebrate Mrs Richards as she was such a knowledgeable teacher.

"She knows so much about the history of the school and she is in fact a large part of the history of the school."

The special day was organised by Jackie Lightbown, a next-door neighbour and friend to Mrs Richards, whose son Jordan is a pupil at the school.