"Who knows where the time goes?" (Sandy Denny, Fairport Convention).

I find myself in pensive mood as I reflect on it being fifty years this September that I arrived at Killerton House as a three year B.Ed undergraduate from London. I got on the coach which the college had laid on to take students on the eight mile journey from St Luke's to Killerton, not quite knowing what to expect. I suspect Jack Goodall, or maybe, a proctor welcomed the freshers at the front door and showed us to our rooms. After supper I retired to my room, which I shared with one other young man (soon to be followed by a third, a day or two later), and finally fell asleep. I awoke in the morning and opened the shutters to be astounded by the various shades of green which filled the view to the horizon; quite a change from the London suburbs in which I grew up. I spent a happy year at Killerton but moved into lodgings in Exeter for my second year before heading out into the countryside again for my final year; which I spent with a young farming family in Upton Pyne, on the Crediton side of the city. I am still in touch with the farmer's wife, who has been a dear friend to me for some forty eight years.

After my teaching career of thirty three years I retired in 2011 and I have enjoyed my life of leisure ever since. Now is the time to wallow in a little nostalgia and I intend to visit Killerton House once more next Monday (23rd) to see if it has ghosts of long ago walking the rooms, corridors and garden paths of my youth. I shall report back to you of my experience and, I wonder, there might just be a few of the 1974 Killertonians, who are reminiscing like me, also making their way back to the old house for one more sentimental visit.

 Charles Todd

St Luke's College 1974-1977