BACK in 1988, the teachers and pupils of Pitmaston Primary School in Worcester decided to skip their annual Christmas panto production – oh no, they didn’t, oh yes, they did – and opted instead for a story called Mother Christmas’s Journey.

The school stage was transformed from the freezing North Pole to Bethlehem, with stops in New York, the African jungle, Australia and London, as Mother Christmas took along mince pies and helped Father Christmas deliver presents all over the world – all without leaving Malvern Road, St John’s.

There’s a page of pictures from the show, which sadly failed to make the West End, in our Pitmaston School file and one of young Gemma Chapman is reproduced here. Not sure what Gemma’s part in all that was, but if you had the choice between the jungle, New York, Australia or London, you might settle for a very young Pearly Queen.

Anyway, the whole shebang showed the imagination of all and sundry at what was Worcester’s first primary school to open after the Second World War. It began life on March 1, 1948 in an old manor house in Malvern Road called Pitmaston House, next to the large open space PItmaston Park.

With the growth of the St John’s area, it had been established to relieve the pressure on the existing schools and on the first day 23 young pupils aged five and six were admitted. There was a steady increase in numbers and soon it was necessary to create a second class.

However the old property was in pretty poor shape, having not been repaired during the war years when it was occupied by the National Fire Service. Only two rooms were fit to be used as classrooms, one of them, the former conservatory, became the home of the Admission Class and was known as the Sun Room.

But the potential of the new school soon became apparent, as did the potential of the old house and major alterations and adaptations were made while schooling continued. Every year the school took over a new room until by 1952 every suitable room was in use. Within four years of opening, Pitmaston Primary had more than 200 children in six classes spread across the property.

It became obvious that an expansion of the site was necessary if Pitmaston was to continue to cope and the decision was made the create separate junior and infants departments. The new junior facility was built on the other side of the old house’s large lawn and the project was watched with keen interest by the young scholars.

A report by the headmistress at the time, a lady called Miss Ellis, said: “At last, in 1953, the time came for our two departments to separate. It was with rather mixed feelings that the two pioneer members of staff watched the first of our pupils leave the old house. Along with us, they journeyed through those difficult years and now they were setting foot upon the promised land.”

And the rest, as they say, is history.