Description: Back Row L-R: Mr Beardsley; Mr Williamson (Headmaster); Mrs Wiggington (Deputy Head); Mr Johnson; Mrs Smith; Mr Moore.
Front Row L-R: Miss Flindall (now Mrs Blake); Miss Booth; Mrs Godcliffe; Miss Howe (Mrs Mather); Miss Gray (Mrs Hodgson).
At the time of the photo, Mr Williamson was the newly appointed Headmaster, following the retirement of Miss Greenwood. Mrs Wiggington, Mrs Goodliffe, Miss Howe, and Miss Gray were original staff that had transferred from the old Long Eaton Board School.
Grange school opened in 1940 when the old Long Eaton Board School on the High Street was taken over by the Army. An ultimatum had been given that the Army would occupy the newly built school at the Grange site unless the Board School moved there immediately over one weekend. Later in 1940, Grange School closed while air raid shelters were built in the playgrounds and the members of the teaching staff were helping to make gas masks in the town offices on Midland Street. Meanwhile the children were allocated to certain private households to have basic lessons two or three times a week until the school reopened. The school air raid shelters were still there in 1950.
Photographs very kindly supplied by Patricia June Blake (nee Flindall) who is always called June to her friends but was known as Patricia when she was a pupil at school.