Tributes to former Croft School headmistress

TRIBUTES have flooded in for Lorna Wolfe, a former teacher and headmistress of The Croft Preparatory School in Stratford, who died earlier this month.

Lorna was born in 1944 in Penzance, the younger child of William and Eileen Gray.

She lived with her parents and brother in nearby Newlyn and Mousehole and attended the primary school in Newlyn.

She and her brother were much in demand to be sitters by members of the Newlyn School of Painters, particularly Dod Proctor.

She often recalled the agony as a child of sitting perfectly still for the artist, failing which her fee of sixpence would be forfeited.

In later years many of these pictures fetched in excess of £20,000 at art auctions.

After passing the 11+ exam she went on to Penzance Grammar School from where she won a scholarship to Trinity College Dublin. She graduated in 1966 with a masters degree in English with French and had notions of becoming a news reporter.

This was born out of an invitation to join news and TV crews on helicopter trips to watch the RAF and navy bombard the oil tanker SS Torrey Canyon which had run aground off the Scilly Isles spilling over 30 million litres of crude oil on the English and French coastlines. However, she eventually decided to spend some years in France improving her spoken French, living both in Paris and Sanary sur Mer on the Mediterranean coast.

She then returned to the UK taking up a position to teach English and French at St Philip’s Grammar School in Edgbaston.

It was while there she met Andrew, her future husband, through mutual friends. They eventually married in Penzance in 1969, living in Birmingham but later moving to Stratford, where Andrew worked as a solicitor.

In 1971 their first child Rosalind was born followed in 1974 by Madeleine.

Both children attended the Croft School then located in the town centre.

Lorna joined the staff in 1978 to teach English and French. When the school moved to its present site on Loxley Road, she was appointed head of English and French and then in 1990 became headmistress.

She was enormously proud to be head of the school and took a great deal of pleasure in raising its profile in the local community and the wider educational establishment. Her passion for helping children accomplish is now reflected in the library at the school that bears her name. During her time as head, she also became quite well acquainted with the acting fraternity whose children attended the school.

Outside school, Lorna loved to go to the theatre and to restaurants and to walk in local gardens with Andrew and her friends. Her love of all things French meant she travelled as often as she could to France where she would immerse herself in the culture and refresh her acquaintance with the language.

After retiring, Lorna enjoyed travelling throughout the UK and Europe as well as further afield with her husband, family and friends.

In 2004 the first of her three grandchildren, William was born, followed by Arthur in 2006 and Francesca in 2012. Lorna took great pleasure in their upbringing and was delighted when they too took up places at the Croft.

Lorna and her husband had a house in Mousehole, the Cornish harbour village where she spent so much of her youth, close to Penzance where she and Andrew married. Over many years, she, Andrew, family and friends had countless happy times there, enjoying all that Cornwall offered.

A post on the Croft School Alumni page has seen many people post memories of her time there and the high regard in which she was held.