Did anything really tragic happen at your school?

[TattiePants]

I’ve spent today thinking about a murder that happened when I was at school over 30 years ago. I think it’s on my mind partly because it happened when I was sitting my GCSEs and DS is doing his now but also it’s been in the local news that another loosely connected child murder may finally be solved.

A boy from year 3 went missing and he was found murdered in a nearby derelict house. In the year prior to that, two other children had been killed in tragic circumstances so it was a really horrible time for the school community. Things got worse when a year 5 boy was arrested for the murder and spent months in custody, missing all his GCSEs. Many of us then had to give witness statements as we knew the arrested boy well. It took over 20 years for the actual murderer to be convicted and unfortunately he’d gone on to murder more boys from my school by then.

In all the years my DCs and friend’s DCs have been at school, they’ve (thankfully) never had anything like this. There’s been fights, teenage pregnancies, minor drug offences etc but nothing on this scale. Did anyone else have something really tragic happen when they were at school.

A boy I knew from primary school died of leukaemia when he was in his early teens. I was still at the school and because it was a small village school (around 100 pupils in total) everyone knew everyone. His mother was the lollipop lady.

A boy at my secondary school lost an eye playing with an air rifle with a friend.

Both incidents occurred in the early 1970s. There may have been other things I was unaware of, especially at secondary, but I think I’d have known if there been anything as awful as some of things others have described.

The lads were throwing foil strips at the electric line to disable the trains (just kids making mischief ) Most students who have died young it’s happened after they left school, which is why less people know about it, only those who are in touch with them or see them around