A small section of the Notting Hill & Ealing High School 1949 school photo.

I am the one in the center front row (only one wearing a cardigan) right in front of the Headmistress. I do not think this was the Miss Merryfield I remember but an earlier Head.

There are some teachers I remember - 1st and 2nd from left Miss Woolnough and Miss McNaught -both my form mistresses at Skipton House, which was the Junior Annexe - then 3rd to the right of the head -Miss Richards another form mistress of mine an one time. I can remember some of my friends - 3rd girl on left in the front row is Sarah Badel (daughter of Alan Badel the Shakespearian and later film actor) , then Penelope Gardner, Virgilia Thomas, Coralie Chilvers, then ?, ? , Me, Susan Wharton and Penelope Bentley. The rest have disappeared into the mists of time.

Penelope Bentley was a year or so older than me, the daughter of mother's childhood friend Joan (Gorrard) Bentley. Penelope's father was something high up in P & O Royal Mail Lines and they eventually moved to Jamaica. We had been very good friends and corresponded regularly. Sadly, Penelope had a hole in her heart, and returned to the UK to have the pioneering heart operation. She did not survive and I remember father sobbing at her funeral -she was 13. I had never seen him cry before.

Dee Ilyas (nee Tickner)