The decision to demolish Gosford Hill School, Kidlington, and rebuild it has sparked many memories of its near 100-year history.

Readers recalled a book compiled by former teacher Terry Tossell to mark the school’s 75th anniversary in 2007 in which he recorded its wartime roles.

Pupils played their full part in the ‘Dig for Victory’ campaign, growing vegetables in the school grounds for 150 children who stayed for school dinners.

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Mr Tossell wrote: “The digging and hoeing had been done to such a standard that in 1940, the first harvest was impressive - two tonnes of potatoes were dug up as well as a bumper crop of swedes and other root vegetables and eight varieties of brassica.”

Other pupils helped the war effort by picking potatoes on local farms and collecting scrap metal and waste paper.

The children had plenty of time on their hands because they were sharing their school with evacuees from East Ham Girls’ Grammar School in London.

Gosford Hill pupils had lessons in the morning and the East Ham girls were taught in the afternoon.

The end of the war brought relief all round. Pupils and staff were given a holiday on VE (Victory in Europe) Day, to join the numerous street parties.

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In peacetime, the school made national headlines when a group of pupils went on strike in 1960 in protest at having to leave Gosford Hill and take their GCE exams at Northfield School, Littlemore.

Other former pupils remembered teacher Ian Smith, who put the school on the sporting map when he took charge of not only maths but football, cricket and athletics.

Soon after his arrival in 1955, football teams won the Oxfordshire Schools’ Shield and Cup, the first and only time a school achieved the double in the same season.

The school’s sports teams went on to enjoy further success in later years under his guidance.

Tony Steele, a pupil from 1958 to 1962, sums up the school as one to be “revered and admired in equal measure, with class sizes occasionally 40-plus and discipline imposed rather than negotiated”.

He recalls: “Sport was taken extremely seriously and brought about some remarkable team and individual performances, highlighted in the mid-1950s by the captaincy of England schoolboys rugby by Gosfordian Martin O’Connell.

“Headmaster Joe Ainley and his wife Dora, who taught music, lived in Mill Street, Kidlington, and both knew how to wield the punishment cane and unpick conveniently blocked eight-hole recorders.”

As we have reported, Gosford Hill, which opened in 1932, is one of 400 schools across the country to be redeveloped under the Government’s multi-billion-pound school rebuilding programme. Work is due to start this summer.

Former pupils and staff and their families had a chance to reflect on the school’s past at a recent ‘memories evening’.

Gosford Hill School is part of River Learning Trust, a multi-academy trust made up of 28 schools in Oxfordshire and Swindon.

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About the author 

Andy is the Trade and Tourism reporter for the Oxford Mail and you can sign up to his newsletters for free here. 

He joined the team more than 20 years ago and he covers community news across Oxfordshire.

His Trade and Tourism newsletter is released every Saturday morning. 

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