“With his diligent interest in recording the history of his home village of Fairfield, it was almost inevitable that well known author David Owen would eventually turn to the story of his old junior school. In the beginning, he writes, there was an educational endowment made under the terms of a will of 1662, although the story really gets under way in the 1880s. This was a period when social conditions were locally very poor and school attendances were hit by epidemics, truancy, appalling winter weather, and probably child cruelty.