Ditton Priors School

Shrewsbury Technical High School was created in 1957.
In many ways it was a visionary move to create opportunities for pupils from outlying areas of rural Shropshire; as well as the county town.
For my part it was an exciting voyage of discovery, an opportunity to reach unbelievable horizons. Alongside traditional academic subjects we were offered a palette of learning with eye-opening variety, delivered by a dedicated group of teachers. Now in our mid seventies, the original stock meeting together over a cup of coffee from time to time, often reminisce about our mentors who weren’t that much older than us at the time.
Sat at my desk on the side of an Austrian mountain in 2019, at the end of a long career in the arts, I could never have anticipated speaking fluently the German language we were taught by Mr Ibram. At the age of 11 we thought it was incase there was another war.
Here is an old photograph taken in Ditton Priors school 1957 just before Myself (Chris Davison l.) and John Cartwright (r) moved on to Shrewsbury Technical High School to continue growing up in an exciting world.
Ditton, in those days, had bus services to Bridgnorth and Ludlow. Shrewsbury had a bus link on Tuesdays (market day) : a Corvedal Motors service driven by Mr George Childs. (I remember the telephone number on the back of the green and cream coach : Ludlow 23.) John Cartwright and I became residents of Nearwell Hostel in Abbey Foregate along with other students from South Shropshire.
How times have changed. Taking advantage of freedom of movement as members of the European Union, I now travel to Innsbruck from Gatwick in 1hr 20 mins for €40 and carry out a lucrative business as a matter of right. As the UK has decided to withdraw from EU wide treaties, sadly things will change.

Chris Davison, Tim Davison, John Cartwright 1957

Chris Davison. September 2019, Austrian Tirol.

St. John the Baptist Church, Ditton Priors