Through the round window.....

.....Once upon a time, when the world was young and the firstborn and the-boy-in-the-attic were a lot smaller than they are now, there was a rumour running rife that their school was haunted, strange lights being regularly spotted after dark on winter nights when the teachers, dinner-nannies and cleaners had long-gone home. The truth however was rather more prosaic, it turned out the then headmaster had apparently had a falling out with his wife and he'd temporarily moved into the school along with a camp bed and a small yappy dog of indeterminate breed;-)

But the mystery of the (since bricked up) round window through which those ghostly lights were seen remained....until yesterday, when I discovered that on 17 August 1914 the school was 'requisitioned on account of the outbreak of war', not opening again until September 1919. During that time, pupils were transferred to a nearby school and it was instead used as a military base and barracks, at one point housing a machine gun pointed towards the sea. Mind you, I could be wrong, the machine gun might have been on that flat roof......

A machine gun emplacement.....hmmmm, I'm surprised the school didn't ask to retain it after hostilities ended!

For obvious reasons I haven't shared the location.....'defense of the realm'/official secrets and all that;-)

PS.....Have I mentioned how much fun I'm having/time I've wasted with that months subscription to the British Newspaper Archive?