Joe and Phyllida visit Paston Sixth Form College

Yesterday, 25th January 2017, Joe Stirling and I visited Paston Sixth Form College in North Walsham in Norfolk.  Notable alumni include Baroness Shepherd, Stephen Fry and Horatio Nelson!   We were there at the invitation of Naomi Hardman, teacher of English.  Some students had been studying the play ‘Kindertransport’ by Diane Samuels and here was a unique opportunity to meet and hear a real ‘kinder’. The timing was to commemorate  Holocaust Memorial Day on 27th January.  It was a long drive through misty winter drizzle but it was so worth it.  About sixty students and staff members packed the classroom to hear Joe talk, eloquently as ever, about his early life in Nazi Germany.  I controlled my powerpoint slides before taking my turn to address the audience with, hopefully, inspiring tales of studying Biography at UEA, meeting Joe and ultimately turning his remarkable life story into my debut biography – my first book with my name on the spine!  Dreams can come true!  Everyone was welcoming and delightful and we even received a Paston College Teddy Bear each as a gift!  (and chocolate).  We sold 12 signed copies and were treated to a buffet lunch by Principal Kevin Grieve in the Nelson Room of the historic and beautiful main college building. Here we met with eight students, two of whom had grandmothers who had travelled to England on a Kindertransport.  The conversation was lively and informative.  Joe and I both enjoyed ourselves very much.  These lovely photos are courtesy of Jodie Rice.

joe-stirling-2joe-stirling-talkphyllida-scrivens-2signing-2

 

One thought on “Joe and Phyllida visit Paston Sixth Form College

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. Log Out /  Change )

Connecting to %s