My First Day At School

A Memory of Bovey Tracey.

The old arch extends the boundary wall of the Baptist graveyard and juts into Abbey Road. The Primary School is further along the road. On my first day at the school, in 1942, the new infants were enrolled for the morning only. I can remember my mother standing under the arch with a group of her friends waiting to meet me and walk me home. I remember hugging her with a sense of enormous relief that the morning had passed. Several of my ancestors are buried in the Baptist graveyard, and you can see an eave of my grandfather's old house through the arch.