FORMER classmates at a Witney school have been reunited after more than 50 years.

Witney Grammar School’s class of 1955 met at the old school, now Henry Box School in Church Green for a day of memories.

The 28 former pupils reminisced about their old crushes, teachers, nicknames and the ghost of Henry Box himself.

Organiser Mike Ray, 66, of Ducklington, Witney, said: “It was brilliant.

“I was surprised because I didn’t know whether people would be nervous, but everyone talked to each other.”

Former pupils came from Southampton, South Wales and as far afield as the US for the March 20 reunion.

They were shown around the new school building by deputy headteacher David Bell and were shown pictures of their school days.

Mr Ray spent about five months tracking everyone down using the Internet and the electoral register, and had managed to find 46 of the 61 pupils in their year.

Anita Ryder, 67, of Cogges Hill Road, Witney, said she had not seen some of them for 55 years.

She said: “We didn’t stop talking for six hours.”

And she asked their guide about the ghost of Henry Box, who founded the school more than 350 years ago.

She said: “I asked if Henry Box still appears and he said yes. Children have been in the old library and they’ve found pens scattered on the floor, and they didn’t do it.

“We thought nobody would have mentioned it but they do know about it. Henry Box’s ghost lives on.”

The former pupils were also joined by former art and English teacher Isabelle Spencer, now 82 and living in Beach Road, Witney.

She said: “It was lovely to see everyone again. They were dead scared of what they would look like, but they chatted away like magpies.”

She joined the school in 1946. It was her first teaching job.