DRINKSTONE SCHOOL AND VILLAGE: A SUFFOLK HISTORY by Sheila Wright Greenridges Press, 2005. 274 pp. illustrated.

In this book Sheila Wright has made excellent use of her long experience as a teacher and her personal knowledge of the school, its pupils and their parents, to provide an in-depth survey of education and life in this small Suffolk village over a century and a half. The narrative is supported by many high quality illustrations, including some very clear maps made easier to read by the large A4 format, many well-chosen quotations from the documents used for the research and also some very useful appendices containing extracts from County Directories by Kelly, Morris and White and, very helpfully for genealogists, the full attendance register from 1880 to 1942.

The book has a somewhat unusual structure in that the history of the school and the village is interspersed with chapters devoted to personal reminiscences by those who knew the school for one reason or another or to discussion of particular sources. Readers should not be worried by this as the arrangement works well and continuity is maintained. Moreover, it allows respondents to tell their stories in their own ways and permits a full consideration of some rich primary material. This includes collections of old exercise books giving a vivid impression of the learning experience of almost a century ago, or the Church Monthly between 1905 and 1907, which paints in much of the social background. Here are to be found descriptions of a mass outing to Yarmouth for 700 people, a summer fete at Drinkstone Park featuring a 'motor gymkhana' and, less happily, reminders of how the less well-off depended on charity in the form of 'coal tickets' and 'clothing tickets' distributed by the rector. The chapter on the restoration of an old cottage in 1921 also provides evidence of the derelict condition of some of the tied accommodation for farm labourers, dispelling the myth that slum dwellings were a purely urban problem.

External factors of various kinds have influenced the school in its long history and these are given their proper place in the account. The controversial side of church controlled education comes through strongly, for example with mention of the failed Liberal Bill of 1906, intended to repeal the 1902 Balfour Act, which had brought LEA financial assistance to the voluntary schools. On the question of when schooling became 'free for every child everywhere', it was not as suggested in chapter three, 'within two years' of Forster's Act of 1870, because even as late as 1894, three years after the supposed ending of fees in 1891, a Government report showed that there were still 800,000 fee paying pupils in elementary schools. Landmarks in national history such as the two world wars and the coronation in 1953 are seen through the eyes of Drinkstone pupils and their school managers.

More recent aspects of school life are also included, such as the belief in selection for secondary education by tested general ability which the author links to the long and patiently waged struggle during the more prosperous 1950s and 1960s for modernisation of the school's equipment and its antiquated and sometimes offensive facilities! The story is brought up to date with an account of the final closure for economic reasons in 1986 and of the school's transformation into an attractive private residence.

Above all, readers will find this enjoyable book to be an eloquent witness to the high quality of learning and teaching found in this small village school which, despite its relatively meagre resources, provided through the dedication of its teachers a secure and successful learning environment for its pupils over many decades.

Nick Sign

You can find the Sufflok Local History Council's website at http://www.suffolklocalhistorycouncil.org.uk