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Remembering the popular head of Oldborough Manor School, Alfred Fuller

Who remembers the former head teacher Alfred John Nelson Fuller?

Well, anyone who ever attended Oldborough Manor School in Maidstone during the 17 years he was in charge there it would seem.

Alfred Fuller, head of Oldborough Manor School
Alfred Fuller, head of Oldborough Manor School

A facebook group exists for past teachers and students of the school in Boughton Lane, off the Loose Road.

It is called Oldborough Manor In Memoriam Group and it is where the group's 766 members recount the high esteem they had for their head.

Alfred Fuller was born in 1906 in Malling. He preferred to be known as John to his contemporaries at Maidstone Grammar School which he attended between 1917 and 1922, and where, apart from his academic ability, he was also a keen sportsman and held the school's 200-yard sprint record for many years.

Before arriving at Oldborough in 1951, he had been head at Boughton Monchelsea and Snodland Schools, and from 1949 had been head at the new Wrotham Secondary School.

When he transferred to open the newly built Oldborough Manor in 1951, he took with him from Wrotham Violet Sedgewick and Jake Dixon as his deputies.

Oldborough Manor School pictured in 1964
Oldborough Manor School pictured in 1964

The school took its first pupils in 1951, although it wasn't officially opened by Lord Cornwallis until 1953.

Mr Fuller championed the prospect of having a school swimming pool and created events to raise funds for the purpose.

In the late 1950s, parents and pupils helped by digging the hole to keep costs down. The pool was opened on May 14, 1960 by British International swimmer Margaret Toms.

In 1965, Mr Fuller was made an OBE in the Queen's Birthday Honours for his services to education. He received his honour on the same day as the Beatles attended Buckingham Palace to receive their MBEs.

Mr Fuller retired from Oldborough in 1968.

A school fete to raise funds for the swimming pool
A school fete to raise funds for the swimming pool

Former pupil Steve Charlton said: "He did such a great deal, striving to make Oldborough one of the most advanced Secondary Modern School's of the time.

"Thank you Sir, for doing so much for us in the '50s and '60s - respect is owed to you by so many from those times."

Mr Fuller died in Southampton in December 1982, aged 76.

In 2007, Oldborough Manor merged with Senacre Technology College to become the New Line Learning Academy, which opened on the same site but with new buildings.

Fun in the completed pool
Fun in the completed pool

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