'I had no idea how good my education was'.

IAN (Del Raye) Threadgill writes: I WAS amazed to see the photo of a circa 1954 class from Stainby Boys' school, most especially because, in my time (from 1958-1963) at this school we always knew Dennis Maingot as "Charlie Mango". He is written in the passage as "Chadie Mango". Is this just another Chinese Whisper, or a misprint? I had no idea, while I was at Stainsby, just how good an education I was receiving, but I was appalled at how badly I was treated where my music was concerned. I was a very talented boy soprano, but was never once chosen as a lead. Nowadays I am selling vast amounts of CDs for charity.

I was showing my wife the Stainsby photo, and she saw herself in a photo on Page 31.

John, from Ingleby Barwick, asked for some help with names of the pupils from Archibald School.

Well, my wife can remember some of them, so here goes. Girls, looking from the left, Barbara Davison, Susan Hazel, Sandra Theakston (my wife), Joyce Wilkinson, Lydia Marron and Gillian Almond (?).

The boy in the middle of the centre table is Kenny Cook, and the two boys at the front, far right are Tony (?) and Raymond Ingles.

I hope this is a help to John, as I think my wife enjoyed looking through the photo too.

Great aunt 'blacked up' for carnival IN response to Mrs E Howard's memories of the St Hilda's Carnival (Issue 80) Keith Foreman can confirm that the lady who blacked up was Florrie Watts. "She was my great aunt," he writes.

"Florrie was the eldest of eight children of Robert Watts and Margaret Ellen Broomfield.

"Not only did Florrie dress up, but sister Susannah, better known as Nan Flanagan, would dress up as an indian squaw whilst husband Francis Flanagan would dress as Ghandi and have a goat in tow. He won many prizes at fancy dress parades.

"The Watts sisters Nan and Ethel (Cunningham) followed their mother into the early recycling business. It was called in those days second-hand. "There will be many readers who can remember Mrs Flanagan's shop in Cannon Street and also that of my grandmother, Ethel Cunningham, who had shops in Cannon Street, Union Street and the final shop in Diamond Road. The Union Street shop stood where the Shipmate pub now sits