School secretary bows out after 27 years with teddy bears' picnic

GRANDMOTHER Pat Coysh shared centre stage at her leaving party with her trusted friend Teddy.

Mrs Coysh, who retired yesterday after 27 years as secretary at Ilminster Avenue Primary – now Ilminster Avenue E-Act Academy – in Knowle West decided to bow out with a teddy bears' picnic. The pupils all brought their bears to an assembly to help raise money for the charity Action Research for Children.

Mrs Coysh, from Hanham, who will be 60 in September said she had the idea after seeing that the charity was marking six decades too with a campaign called Bring a Bear, Show You Care.

"They are 60 and I am retiring. It all seemed to fit in," she said.

Mrs Coysh has lots of bears but Teddy is her oldest.

"He is a year younger than me. My father cycled all the way to Weston-super-Mare to buy him for me," she said.

Mrs Coysh said that when she started at the school in the early 80s, after her two children were in school, she initially intended to stay only six weeks.

But she has remained at the primary long enough to see some of the pupils she knew in her early days there returning with their own children.

"If I stayed much longer, I'd be seeing their grandchildren," she said.

Mrs Coysh was joined at the celebration send-off by her husband Dave, her mother, and five-day-old Dillon, the youngest of her five grandchildren.

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