If you enter St John’s churchyard in Frome from Gentle Street, one of the first sights you encounter is a heavily weathered white Portland stone bench.
This commemorates one aspect of the town’s generosity during the Second World War and was placed there in gratitude by those who received it.
The pupils and teachers of Coopers’ Company’s School were evacuated, along with one and a half million others, during the first weekend of September 1939.
Their destination was to have been Taunton, in Somerset, but through a mix-up, the school’s inhabitants ended up in the small Wiltshire village of Ramsbury.
Although trying to make the best of the situation, it soon became apparent it was unworkable and so the headmaster was given a choice of three places to move to.
One of these was Frome and duly chosen, the school arrived near the end of the month and took over the recently vacated grounds of Frome Grammar School.
The site allocated to the school consisted of seven large converted army huts, adjoining Northcote House, and although not ideal, was logistically suitable.
If the local populace welcomed the school with open arms, it was reciprocated, and both staff and students quickly integrated themselves in the community.
Members of staff joined the town’s Home Guard – as did many of the boys when they became old enough – while the school also raised money for local groups.
The latter was mainly through performances by the school’s Dramatic Society, an early production being one at the Grand Cinema near the beginning of 1940.
The several hundred locals who were billeting staff and boys were invited free of charge, while profits from the remaining tickets were given to the Frome WVS.
Another production, performed later in the war, received a good review from the Somerset Standard, with the newspaper calling it ‘a truly riotous farce.’
The author of the play – entitled Murder in the Study – was actually one of the boys from the school and the newspaper named him as Cpl Wingfield, ATC.’
Corporal Rodney D. Wingfield would be one of those instrumental in organising reunions in Frome of the school’s old boys during the years after the war ended.
He would, however, become more well-known as the creator of the Frost novels, later adapted into the hit TV series A Touch of Frost, which starred David Jason.
Along with the reunions, the school wanted to offer a more permanent reminder of their presence during the war and their gratitude to the Frome people.
This initially took the form of two teak seats presented in 1951 – which lasted until the early 1980s – before the present-day stone bench was installed in 1999.
Its inscription reads: ‘Given in gratitude to the people of Frome who generously opened their homes to the schoolchildren evacuated from London during the war, 1939-45.’
Mick Davis and
David Lassman
