We welcomed Mary Smith to our November meeting to tell us about school life during WW2, arising from two fascinating recent discoveries made while she was headteacher of Maidstone Girls Grammar School in Kent. The first was the uncovering of an extensive set of tunnels used as underground classrooms, and the second was the discovery of an exquisite set of paintings created as the war unfolded. These are the work of a wartime art teacher, Helen Keen, who set out to document the lives of school pupils and their teachers in paint and pencil as the war unfolded. Her paintings and sketches provide a unique and intriguing insight into wartime school life, often poking fun at yet another set of regulations. Mary’s talk was absolutely fascinating and it was wonderful to hear that she had managed to track down so many ‘old girls’ who had attended the school during this period and gather their oral histories.