The 1978/79 academic year was an odd one at St Mary’s. The school was literally a building site and everything was gearing up to the amalgamation in September ‘79.

Those of us who joined in 1977 were just finishing our second year and pondering what life would be like when the girls from St Joseph’s Convent joined us for our third year.

Several songs remind me of the end of that second year – June and July 1979 – Squeeze’s ‘kitchen sink’ play-in-a-song Up the Junction; Blondie’s Sunday Girl, I Don’t Like Mondays by Boomtown Rats and the extraordinary Are Friends Electric? by Tubeway Army.

After that summer, the school would never be the same again.

While I think we largely took the amalgamation in our stride, the situation in the staff room was very tense indeed with teachers at both schools concerned about loss of status.

Though Sue Worthington was offered the position of Head of French in the new school, she decided to leave when her husband was offered a job in another part of the country.

Before she left, she assembled 3A and 3 Alpha and 2A and 2 Alpha for photographs on the grassy slope.

Though blurry, these photographs capture a moment in time and mark the conclusion of St Mary’s Grammar School which existed for little more than two decades.

The top picture shows 2 Alpha. Back row, standing: Wilsdon, Scanlan, Byrne, McMillan, Evans, McQuillen, Staples, Kelleher, Robertson, Nutt, Meilak, Grogan, Whitaker.

Second row: Walton, Deans, West, Belton, McElhinney, Kelly

Third row: Donovan, Lenny, Hammatt, Sue Worthington, Wilson, Miller, Kahn, Money

Front row: McConnell, Thomas, Cleghorn, Littlefield, Azzopardi