Peter Woodrow

Just discovered this site by chance!

I was at Arusha 1952-4 after a spell at the Junior European School in Burton St, Dar. We arrived in Dar late 1949/ early 1950 from Nigeria and Cameroon and my father was Director of the PWD until early 1963.

My most recent visit to the school, and to the fascinating son of Mrs Fischer, David Read was in 2002 . As others have recorded, both the old " Conquered Meru" boards and the long suffering tortoise are still there, as is that large picture of the Rift Valley mountains which presided over the smell of boiled vegetables and old soup in the dining hall.

The piano, around such unlikely songs as " A north country maid" from northern England were dinned ( the right word I think) into the young East Africans, also survives ,but is mechanically imperfect/wrecked. The school could do with the attention of a band of painters and carpenters to restore it to its former state, but the inmates , in their bottle green kit, look much as we did.

Memories of the place, the " safaris" to and from it, ( remember one of the Stewart girls falling out of the train and being lost for a day or two circa 1957?) and the teachers are still very vivid, as is the love of that de Beer lady, (matron in the Junior Block) for wielding the the taki. The staff were certainly mixed,- some very kind, and others, well, less so. Mrs Fischer had, beneath that very dominant exterior, a heart of gold.

Interesting to see Torsten Mollers contribution, - I knew his sister Nina and brother Mike well and we just happened to meet getting off a plane in Copenhagen around 1982.

An idea might be to compile a chronological list of alumni from all the correspendents memories with their dates and last known sightings so that we could try to track down a few more of them?