Mr and Mrs Forshaw presented a bronze figure on a onyx plinth for progress. The interesting point about the cup presented by Roberta Gibson's father is that she was only with us for about a year before returning to Canada but the friend who was interested in our having a school was giving lessons to a little boy in Montreal and in talking to his mother discovered that his sister Katherine had been to The Spinney. There have been several coincidences like that in the history of the school. One of our parents called on the British Consul, I think, in Tangier and mentioned that his business had been moved to Great Bookham in Surrey during the war and the Consul said his two little girls had been at school there at The Spinney. 'Yes' said Anthony's father, 'my little boy is there now.' But I think one of the most interesting occurrences was when 1 was in Kenya staying with Judy Dibdin and was going on to stay at Kericho. She happened to know that a husband and wife were driving down there next day and asked them to take me. In the course of conversation on the way they asked where my school was to which Judy said she had been and when I said 'Great Bookham' they exclaimed that that was where some cousins lived and their little boy David was at The Spinney then. That was in Miss Lindsay’s time after she had taken over from us.

When the school first began the first two pupils lived in Fetcham and came to school by bus but in the September term when our numbers increased I collected those from Effingham and Horsley in my mother's Morris car. Joy was the furthest to come by bus from East Horsley till two terms later she became a boarder. As soon as more pupils came from Little Bookham, Effingham and Horsley we first of all hired a car and driver whose name was Kettle which became a well-loved name by the children. We then bought a 12 hp Wolesley car which he drove for a year or two until a serious illness obliged him to give up and go into hospital where to our sorrow he died. We then had one or two unsatisfactory drivers until Wise came in the Spring term of 1938 and was with us until the outbreak of war when he was called up.

In April 1939 we had our Parents Day when all exercise books, record books, drawings, handwork etc were on view. Mademoiselle Berger said good-bye to us at the end of this term and returned to Switzerland after two years in England. April 28th was The Spinney's eighth birthday and we were visited by seventeen Old Spinneyites. In the beginning of the summer Mlle Heiniger joined the staff in MIle Berger's place.

In the summer of 1939 Rex arrived at the school! Rex was a golden Labrador-retriever puppy. We already had a black cat called Anthony and a black and tan rough-haired terrier called George who was my special dog. My brother bought him for me for half-a-crown from among a litter of puppies in the Army barracks at Borden and he was named after King George VI. When we first went to The Spinney Eleanor had a beautiful little purebred fox terrier which she called Punch. He and George were very good friends and used to go hunting together, usually in the grounds of Southey Hall. Unfortunately Punch liked to go further afield and he got out one day when everyone was busy and got run over.

During the summer holidays the likelihood of war again became very apparent. On September 1st the evacuation of London school children to rural areas began. Three LCC schools came to Bookham and the children were billeted in various homes. One of them was the Strand School but no arrangement had apparently been made for the masters. Three of them were offered accommodation at the Rectory and as our Autumn term would not be beginning until later we offered to take three more. Mr. Brady was with us for a short while until he and his wife took a furnished house in Fetcham, Mr. King who had left his wife and baby Ann Pat in Devonshire brought them up to stay with us till Christmas when they also found a house, Mr. Cregeen stayed until the end of the Spring term.

On Sunday September 3rd war was declared. A note was handed to the Rector as he went into the pulpit to preach and after making the announcement to the congregation he added the advice that gas masks should be carried wherever they went. It had been arranged that in case of air raids the study should be made our refuge room, so preparations were made there in which the three masters helped. The doors and windows of the Preparatory room leading into the stud y were fastened and pasted over and the windows were made safe with sticky tape and crisscross strips of paper. Owing to his work as a Red Cross man Wise was often unable to work at The Spinney so much help was given in the garden by the boys from the Strand School.

On October 7th we collected fruit and flowers as usual for the Harvest Festival for although the children from St John's Waterloo were now in Exmouth their Vicar told us that some people left behind would be glad to be remembered.

On October 24th we were sorry to say goodbye to Mile Heiniger whose parents had wired for her to return to Switzerland. She left early in the morning for a gathering point in London with hundreds of other Swiss nationals but was not allowed to say where she was going. She took food for a couple of days but all books, papers and photographs had to be sent to a depot in Liverpool to be examined lest they contained any secret message to the enemy. They were eventually returned to her in Switzerland after the war.