OUR recent school nostalgia stories are getting top marks from Gazette readers.

They are proving immensely popular and stirring up lots of memories.

Aileen Phillips is the latest person to drop us a line, reminiscing on her school days in Clacton.

Mrs Phillips, formerly Reed and now 64, attended the former Camrose School, in Wash Lane - the town’s last private school, which closed in the 1980s.

So too did brother Brian and older sister Anne and the pictures of the trio were taken in the early 1960s.

Mrs Phillips also went to St Osyth Road County Infants School and Alton Park Junior School before moving to Pathfields Secondary Modern School for Girls (later Colbayns High School and now Clacton Coastal Academy), from 1967 to 1971.

Chelmsford Weekly News:

Siblings - Aileen, Anne and Brian Reed

During her days at Alton Park, as a ten-year-old, she enjoyed a trip to the Isle of Wight, in April 1967.

Then, as a student at Pathfields, she went to France in 1970.

As you can see below, the girls and their teachers even made the pages of a French newspaper.

Brian went to the boys’ school in Pathfields Road while Anne attended Clacton County High School.

In dipping into her picture archive, Mrs Phillips also found one of their mum, Olive Thacker, taken at London Road School in the mid-1930s.

Chelmsford Weekly News:

Class mates - Aileen and her friends at Alton Park Junior School in Clacton

Chelmsford Weekly News:

Island hopping - Aileen sent us this picture of a trip to the Isle of Wight

Chelmsford Weekly News:

Making headlines - Aileen and her friends appeared in a French newspaper

Chelmsford Weekly News:

Special memories - Aileen’s mum, Olive Thacker, attended Clacton’s London Road School in the mid-1930s