A recently unearthed logbook, containing entries from the day Parkgate Junior School opened, on September 11, 1907, provides a fascinating insight into the challenges the school faced.

The logbook, which contains entries up until 1966, reveals that back in 1911 pupils were given a lesson in "What the Empire expects of the British Boys".

By 1940 Germans bombs were landing in Watford and in 1944 bombs actually landed in Sandringham and Parkgate Roads, killing 39 people, including two Parkgate pupils, three old scholars and nine parents.

To read more extracts from the logbook see the Nostalgia section in this week's Watford Observer.