THE summer holidays will feel longer for four long-standing Okehampton College teachers this year — they all retired from the profession at the end of this school year.

Steve Blackmur, Alvin Diaz, Lorna Sheffield and Tony Beveridge all stood down last Wednesday.

Assistant principal Jean Harris had nothing but praise for the quartet: 'The four teachers have all been fantastic here at the college, and we'll miss them.

'They have all provided such a great service for Okehampton College, and we hope they all enjoy their retirement.'

Mr Blackmur totalled up the cumulative number of years the four have given the college: 'I've been here thirty-six years. I came in 1975, along with Mr Beveridge. We started on the same day!

'Alvin has been here twenty-seven years, Lorna twenty-one. So it's about a hundred and thirty-seven years for all four of us — a bit scary!

'The daily contact with my colleagues and children is probably what I'll miss most. You're bound to miss the enjoyment you get out of that. But I certainly won't miss the early mornings in winter, and the lunchtime duties in the rain — or the marking on Sunday afternoons!

'I have many fond memories. Ski trips, pantomimes, taking rugby trips away with groups of students. Those are the things that stand up in my memory, the things we did outside the classroom as much as the things inside it.

'And, of course, the kids who have done particularly well in your own subject — those who have gone on to get medical degrees, PhDs, and being part of their growth.'