leaving the school that she allowed him to begin school one year early. Mrs Elizabeth Page recalls that she was quite overawed on her first day at school with so many children crowded into the building. The scholars were seated on long benches placed in a series of steps; as they grew older they were moved higher and higher up the steps. The school log book, kept since 1922, records all visitors, events and repairs. Many entries report the difficulty of keeping the building warm in winter, often the temperature was only , and it was not always possible to light the fire because of sulphur fumes and smoke. A regular visitor was Sir Charles Harvey of Rainthorpe Hall, but in March 1927 a far less welcome visitor paid a call. A ferocious bull took possession of the playground, and Kenneth Riches and Herbert Sayer were sent to remove it! In the same year three boys earned notoriety in a different way, for on 22 November the punishment book records that Harold Riches (12), Arthur Hurry (12), and Fred Larter (11) received 'four strokes on hands and buttocks for milking Mr Curson's cow when standing in a meadow ... and for telling lies about it'. Elizabeth Page remembers the annual school outings, paid for by Sir Charles Harvey, train journeys from Flordon to the seaside, her first sight of the sea. School concerts were held in the theatre at Rainthorpe Hall. Frances Rayner recalls starting at the school in 1939 when Mrs Cross was head teacher. All the children attended Sunday schools, the church school was taught by Alice Matthews, and all her pupils were in the choir. At the outbreak of the Second World War the school had declined to fourteen children and was the smallest in the Deanery. With the coming of evacuees billeted out in the village, the numbers of scholars swelled, and a shift system had to be introduced, the village children attending in the mornings and the evacuees in the afternoons. Later, most of the evacuees were taught at Tasburgh Hall by additional teachers. The 1939–45 World War started early in Tasburgh, for the parish council minute book records a request from Depwade Rural District Council in 1937 to appoint three air raid wardens. This done, two stirrup pumps were purchased to deal with incendiary bombs, and three more were given by the RDC. By