Past pupils of Seer Green School asked to share memories for 150th anniversary celebrations

Look through the log books at Seer Green School and you'll gain a real insight into rural life not only in the school, but in this village, which is nestled between Beaconsfield and Chalfont St Peter.
Recorded are the trivia of the day to day, but also major events in history such as the outbreak of both world wars.
And what strikes you is the ways in which children's lives have changed - but also the ways in which they are similar.
Take a look at the register in 1864, for example, and you'll find some familiar names.
Raymond Payne, Albert Worley, Kate Harding, Elizabeth Swallow; these are all names that would fit in to any classroom in 2009. What's fascinating is that their descendants are all still living in or near Seer Green, and many are at the school.
Even then the head teacher - the first governess was Miss Humphries - was required to do plenty of paperwork, particularly with regard to attendance rates, which she reported on every day in beautiful script.
In September 1889 she reported: "Re-opened the school after a five week holiday with very bad attendance. Sixteen children are away on account of Scarlet Fever, for those who are not ill either live in infected houses or are afraid to come." She added that: "Jane Shepherd died very suddenly last week."
Although there were around 100 children on roll until the middle of this century, attendance was typically around 60 per day, with children taking time off for acorn collecting, beating for the shooters, or helping with the harvest.
The signing of the armistice at the end of WWI is recorded, with the children given a day's holiday in order to collect money for blinded soldiers and sailors.
When WW2 broke out the start of the autumn term was delayed by six days to allow arrangements to be made for 50 extra pupils who had been evacuated, many of them from Brentford in London. The head reported: "Tables and trestles were borrowed from the vicarage and chairs from the village hall."
At the end of the war Victory Day was marked with sports in the field which still adjoins the school. "Each child received a message from the King, a chocolate ice-cream, four cakes, lemonade and orangeade."
But it wasn't until 1951 that the school's most infamous head, Marjorie Trufit, took charge. An eccentric woman, who took lessons in dressing gown and curlers, she was feared by many. Within two months she had excluded three boys from Ponds for damage to the school garden. But she got her comeuppance; eight years later, after a complaint was made, she was officially reprimanded by the governors for being "discourteous and irresponsible."

Text books belonging to Maude Boon, a pupil at the school in 1904, were discovered recently in a house in School Lane, Seer Green.
The books were found by a relative when he cleared out the house after Tony Gross, who was Maude Boon's son, died last year.
The collection of books, dating from 1904 to 1906, are written in immaculate script and include lessons in mathematics and handwriting.
A dictation about the increasing importance of the railways was written by young Mary on February 28th 2006.
It reads: "Railways have completely broken down the barriers, which separated town from town and district from district. Travelling is no longer a luxury of the rich, it is the common enjoyment of all."
On the same day Mary learned how to work out the interest on £100 over a year at two per cent, and how to make a pancake.

Seer Green CofE School is planning some special celebrations to mark its 150th anniversary in June.
But what would make it really special, according to head teacher Olwyn Davison-Oakely, is the presence of former pupils - and the older the better.
The head and her chair of governors, Peter Bingle, are appealing for anybody who attended the school in the past and has memories or artefacts to share to come forward.
They hope to use these as the basis of a display to accompany the celebrations in November.
Mr Bingle said: "We are sure there are parents or grandparents or great grandparents, even though they may now live far away, who will have some very interesting stories."
To contact the school telephone 01494 676344 or email office@seergreen.bucks.sch.uk