ON October 7, Beechust Hall at Soham Village College reverted to its former guise of the assembly hall of Soham Grammar School. A total of 97 former pupils of the now defunct grammar school, which amalgamated with the neighbouring secondary modern to for

ON October 7, Beechust Hall at Soham Village College reverted to its former guise of the assembly hall of Soham Grammar School. A total of 97 former pupils of the now defunct grammar school, which amalgamated with the neighbouring secondary modern to form the current comprehensive in 1972, gathered for their annual school dinner.

Guest of honour was the newly-installed principal of the village college Dr Carin Taylor, while the main speaker of the evening was Rex Waller, who taught Latin at the school from 1949 to 1960.

Mr Waller recalled some of the amusing events involved in some of the school productions he was involved in and reminisced about some of the characters, both staff and pupils, that he met.

Plans are already in hand for next year's event which will be on Saturday, October 6, 2007. More details will be on the old boys' website: www.sohamgrammar.org.uk

Phoenix Club

MRS Kinnear welcomed members to the meeting at Keith Leonard House on October 11. The speaker was Keith, a wine consultant from Pieroth Ltd in Newmarket. Keith talked about the company and the wine it sells, and where the wine is made.

Members were invited to taste nine different wines, which included a sparkling wine and a sherry. This was served by his colleague Neil; Jannice had provided a selection of cheese and biscuits to serve with the wine. Mrs Powley organised the raffle and also read out a letter from Emmaus thanking the group for the donation. The next meeting is on Wednesday, November 8, when the speaker will be Billy Baxter.