Islington Tribune - by MARK BLUNDEN Published: 6 July 2007
School’s slice of history
PUPILS at a Holloway primary school were transported back in time on Thursday. Staff and children at St Mary Magdalene School, in Liverpool Road, dressed in 1940s-style clothes and even had a visit from a former pupil who started at the school in 1929.
It was all part of celebrations to mark the end of an era at St Mary Magdalene.
At the end of this term the school will be bulldozed. After the holidays, pupils will be the first to move into the all-ages St Mary Magdalene city academy, sponsored by the Diocese of London, which is being built on the primary site. Much of the primary was destroyed during the Blitz. Its current buildings date from 1954, although there has been a church school on the site since 1710.
More than 100 former pupils attended a barbecue, called Down Memory Lane, on Thursday. They included former teacher Simon Marsh and ex-pupil Jean Carter, 81, who helped cut a giant cake featuring the school’s crest. Pictured: Jean Carter cuts the cake as headteacher John Stewart, dressed as a 1940s policeman, looks on with pupils, from left back row, Phoebe McMullan, Roshann Ramdeen, Ben Nathaniel-Curtis, Darren Smith; front row, Bailey-Simone Sabaroche-Samuels, Dylan Connelly, Drew Gray-McIntyre and Jonathan Roggli.