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If you were in our care after 1979, your records may also be held by your local authority. To obtain these records please approach them directly. See Directgov for contact details.

The Care Leavers Association provides advice and information for those who have been in care and for young people currently in, or leaving, care. To find out more about your right to access your care records, please contact the Care Leaver’s Association .

keeping in touch

Enjoy this correspondence from three of our Old Scholars!

Phillip Pegler, from Worcester writes of his wartime memories...

My brother Robin and I were at [the Spurgeons children’s home in] Reigate from 1939-49. We went through the war years experiencing the Battle of Britain, rumblings and reflections of the London Blitz and then those flying bombs, Doodlebugs, which forced us to Wales for six months before returning to Reigate.

There, as before, we made most of our own amusements such as reading, chess, draughts, five stones marbles, etc. We ran soccer and cricket teams to a good standard. Competition for places was high as it was a chance to get out.

The Spurgeons school was excellent. The staff under [our popular headmaster] ‘Pop’ Holt were top rate. [Our history teacher], as an example, had a unique way of teaching history. Long after I left school I could remember dates of Kings and Queens even though I wasn’t in his class, but on the other side of a curtain dividing two classes, both serving as part of the dining hall. These were wartime conditions.

Not long after leaving Spurgeons I did my two years’ National Service in the RAF during which I was sent to Pershore for a six week exercise. There I met Brenda, now my wife. We have been married for 54 years and have two grown-up children, Judy and Clive.

Brenda and I are both 77 years of age... and hope to enjoy many more years of happy retirement.

Extracts from a letter from Eddie Thurlow who has written a book entitled ‘To be a Spurgeon’s boy’

I am very proud of being a Spurgeon’s boy ...

The staff at Spurgeons were all lovely people. Miss Castell was a darling, so was Dr Green, and not forgetting Mr ‘Pop’ Holt who started the rabbit keeping and the gardening. Lovely man that he was.

Dr Green was the headmaster who wrote ‘Sequimini Optima’ our School Song. You couldn’t go wrong could you! The best of everything.

That is why I have had such a lovely life – working with ‘Bertram Mills Circus’, then onto the

merchant navy and then the army – the Parachute Regiment.

“I loved my time at Spurgeons, I learnt what discipline really was all about, that’s why the army and merchant navy came easy to me. Spurgeon’s matrons and masters taught me ... how to behave in the public eye.

I cannot speak too highly of Spurgeons. “Sequimini Optima has been my motto and this has been my aim - a Spurgeon’s boy forever.

Audrey Peck (nee Ball) telephoned Spurgeons to reminisce about her time at Spurgeons’ Home in Reigate from 1945 until 1950.

She remembers midnight feasts, hiding behind shrubs, woolly vests and swimming with a rope round her waist, as well as when school uniforms were navy blue and gold (for Sunday best) before being changed to turquoise.

Audrey remains in contact with her school buddies ...

Audrey’s working life has been varied, and included beadwork, being a nanny to a vicar’s children, working outdoors with plants and flowers, catering in a factory and being a WRAF mechanic.

While in the Spurgeons Home, Audrey mentioned not particularly enjoying cleaning shoes!