I started at St Johns in the Summer term of 1966 aged 8. I had come from the mixed junior school at RAF Benson and an all boys school seemed more like a club than a school. Mr Dean was a wonderful head master and I will never forget his violin playing. I am embarrassed to say that my attempts to learn from him came to naught partly because my mum wouldn't let me practice in the house but mostly because I only lasted one term.

I started before the infant school and new lunch hall were built. I remember a large wooden structure in the South East corner from which a rudimentary tuck shop was run. The tuck shop was run from the fixed bench which ran all round the inside of the building and bags of crisps or puffs were sold straight from the cardboard boxes they had come in. I don't remember anything else being sold though. It is always this building that I think of when I hear the expression "See you behind the bike sheds - don't bring you mates!" This is even though it wasn't a bike shed and you couldn't get behind it.

The lunch hall in the southwest corner of the playground was a small wooden building. I remember the long tables in the hall and that it was not big enough for us all to eat at once so that there were two or three sittings. Outside the lunch hall the playground was sloped and became treacherously slippery in the cold of winter, probably more so because the snow was packed and polished up by the lads.

I remember the prefabricated huts on the west side of the playground where a wonderful old male teacher gave us the rudiments of science. I remember him sucking through tubes to teach us siphons and putting a little water in a oil can and we waited while it was heated up until the water boiled and steam poured out of the opening. When he judged that the time was right and most of the water had gone he screwed the cap on and we waited again. Slowly it cooled and the vacuum pulled the sides in with much banging and metallic creaking.

The main building was a central hall and all the classrooms were entered from this one large room. We entered the school down a passage to the northeast and there was a passage to the northwest that led to the headmaster's study and the staff room. The only kids to use this were naughty boys and the milk monitors.

School milk was wonderful. I always liked milk and I remember being able to get a second or third bottle of milk sometimes. I also remember being milk monitor and being appalled by the amount of milk that was left in the bottles to spoil and go back in the crates. I was not really surprised when Thatcher stopped school milk a few years later.

I remember the prefabs being pulled down one hot summer and a huge pile of earth being left in their place on which a lot of us played and in which some boys tunnelled.

I seem to remember these tunnels being tolerated for a long time and being the cause for dates and taunting of the less intrepid boys like myself. Access to this mound was eventually banned though I can't remember if there was a reason. The new building being constructed fascinated us all and I don't remember that there was too much to separate us from the builders and the vehicles apart from space and our caution. It would be a lot different now.

Football was played in the playground most breaks and lunchtimes and I remember an indentation by the front gate where marbles could be played and won or lost depending on luck and skill. Bubble gum cards were leant against the school wall and others flicked at them to be won or lost. When the autumn came we also played conkers and come quarter to four there would be a race to the Crinney to look for the days fresh fall of conkers and to throw sticks at those still obstinately hanging.

I remember roads being painted on the playground one year for cycling proficiency and there being a few climbing bars towards the wooden shelters. There were just three horizontal bars and I always thought them boring and hardly ever used them. There was also a tennis court painted on the playground by the main building though I think this was later.

The paddock round the back of Tapping was rarely used but I remember sports day in the Summer was held there. I wasn't very sporty but I remember making advertising posters for it.

I remember the Kine Croft or Crinney where we sometimes played games in the summer and came to watch the girls coming out of the girls school on our way home after lessons. We would also play on the trees and the hills around the Crinney and were drawn to Macney Brook.

The Brook was wonderful. Rotten trees on it's banks were the home of stag beetles, the brook itself provided frogspawn for the school in spring and I remember the shock of finding leaches sucking the blood out of my leg! The sight of water skaters, stickle backs and frogs always fascinated me and I cannot remember how many times I got scolded for getting my shoes or wellies full of the water of Macney brook. I still feel sad when I see the dry earth that surrounds the Crinney where this living stream used to be.

While I was there the new dinning and assembly hall was built joining the main building through what used to be Mr Everett's classroom. This new hall had new kitchens on one side and the new infants school on another.

When these buildings were completed St John's became mixed and the girls school was closed. It was about this time that the building of Firtree School was completed as well.

Mr Dean was the head master and Mrs Foster the head mistress of the junior school when that opened. Her son Laurence became a friend of mine and we still keep in touch though I haven't seen him for years. Mrs Foster moved on to become Head of the school in Cholsey and I believe that she still lives in Cholsey, though not in the schoolhouse.

I remember Mr Griggs who taught the last older kids and I loved his classroom as it was so full of light with that big window. We used to get exhibits from museums and I remember being enthralled by a model of Weylands Smithy.

I also remember doing a project on previous schools in Wallingford perhaps for an anniversary of schooling in Wallingford? This was in my last year would have been 1969. The only school I remember clearly was in one of the big houses down Castle Street. Perhaps this was to mark an anniversary as well! I was also at St. John's for the first moon landing and one of the boys bringing a model of the Saturn V rocket that he had made from a kit.

Wallingford Railway station was closed by this time and it made a great playground though I'm sure we weren't supposed to play there! I do remember going on a special train from Wallingford to Cholsey which was run one carnival.

I passed the 11 plus and went on the Wallingford Grammar school which has sadly fared less well than St John's.

There were moments of sadness but the years at St John's were generally wonderful years of discovery and growing up and I have carried these memories with me throughout my life. I have often walked past the school and wondered what it now looks like inside all these years later and with adult eyes.

I also have a book which claims to have been won for the Easter Quiz in 1970 which is signed by Mr Dean.