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Retiring teacher goes out with a bang

AN UNUSUAL birthday request ended with a Guernsey teacher being given the honour of firing Castle Cornet’s Noon Day Gun yesterday, the same day that she retired from school.

Teacher Sarah Day marked her retirement, having taught at four local primary schools, by firing the Noon Day Gun yesterday. She is pictured with castle keepers Shaun Marsh and Stuart Falla. (Picture by Peter Frankland, 34824053)
Teacher Sarah Day marked her retirement, having taught at four local primary schools, by firing the Noon Day Gun yesterday. She is pictured with castle keepers Shaun Marsh and Stuart Falla. (Picture by Peter Frankland, 34824053) / Guernsey Press

Sarah Day is known as ‘Mrs Morris’ at Melrose School, where she has taught since 2013.

She said that it was about 10 years ago, when she turned 50, that a friend asked her what she wanted to do to celebrate.

‘I said that I wanted to be fired out of a cannon, but it was too expensive and too dangerous,’ she said.

But the friend remembered her wish and, 10 years on, arranged for her to fire a cannon, rather than be fired out of it.

Ms Day’s career ended where her education had begun, at Melrose and Ladies’ College. She had started teaching in Japan and Australia before moving back to Guernsey in the late 1990s, since when she taught at three primary schools – Vauvert, Castel and Hautes Capelles – before going to Melrose, where she was a Year 6 teacher and head of maths.

As her final day in the classroom came to an end on Thursday – the last day of term for the private schools – she was preparing for an evening celebration with colleagues at the Peninsula by joining them and school leavers for the traditional ‘leavers’ swim’ at Vazon.

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