The primary school here occupies an elegant Edwardian building near The Flying Cow. Our village’s first place of learning was a Sunday school founded by the Reverend Hugh Worthing, who also instituted the monthly parish newsletter, The Country Herald, which is still running, albeit in a substantially altered form. The Sunday school met every week at the vicarage, where the youngsters would read passages from the Scriptures and play themed games such as ‘Hunt the Widow’s Mite’ and ‘Pass the Ark of the Covenant’. Worthing was a strict taskmaster, who used to have his pupils recite such edifying verse as:

In contrast, Mrs Worthing refreshed her visitors with cucumber sandwiches and shortbread, accompanied on hot days by apple juice made from vicarage orchard fruit and by soup on cold ones.

Not everything went smoothly for the new school. When it started, one villager saw an easy way to influence the local boys and girls in a manner opposed to that preferred by the vicar. The witch disguised herself as a middle-aged assistant teacher and offered her help. The vicar accepted with pleasure.

After a time, however, he became suspicious, as the children seemed to be having difficulty distinguishing right from wrong. They started answering him back. Then they started playing tricks on him such as putting maggots in his teapot. Then they started stealing things. The final straw was the mysterious disappearance of some china plates and silver cutlery. One Sunday afternoon, he told his subordinate he had to go to town on business and was leaving the class with her. The witch smiled too loudly at this news, for the vicar had no intention of going to town at all. He took a walk for half an hour, before bursting back into the vicarage unannounced to find his aide and her charges engrossed in a game of ‘Pin the Christ on the Crucifix’. Instant dismissal was the result and the vicar, once bitten, did not appoint a replacement.