OLD boys from Portsmouth Grammar School returned to the area to mark the 60th anniversary of the end of their evacuation.

The old Portmuthians who included local travel boss Peter Bath, gathered at St Christopher's Church in Southbourne, for a service by the Rev Peter Lloyd and performance by a choir from Stourfield Junior School.

Many of those attending became evacuees when Portsmouth Grammar School uprooted to Bournemouth during World War II to escape the bombing.

Others were former day pupils who joined Portsmouth Grammar School after it shifted to Bournemouth for the duration of the war.

There was also the chance to check out a war time exhibition at the back of the church compiled by reunion organiser Rayner Skeet who played the organ during the service.

Later the reunion continued at the Grange Hotel where they had lunch, swapped memories of their schooldays and reminisced about the war.

Later the former pupils now mostly aged in their seventies and eighties, took a nostalgic walk along the cliff top and visited Cliff House where many of them boarded during their evacuation but is now a boarding house run by the Salvation Army.

Mr Skeet said: "It went splendidly. We had a nice welcome from St Christopher's Church and there were quite a few people there. One gentleman came all the way from Sydney, Australia.

"The children sang very well and I think they got a lot out of it too.

"It was very nostalgic looking over the cliffs - that's when it all came home. During the war you couldn't go down to the beach.

"We had a nice lunch. They just talked about the misdemeanours they got up to as boys.

"It was a very strict regime but it didn't stop them from larking about. And some of them remembered the German bombers coming over the cliff top.

"Some of the gentlemen who used to board at Cliff House went back there and were welcomed in to look at the old photographs.

"We had a very interesting time and it was lovely weather."

First published: May 10