WELCOME to the Echo Memories blog. The Echo Memories column in The Northern Echo on a Wednesday is about the local history of Darlington and south Durham and the Tees Valley - anywhere, really, that takes our fancy, and the fancy of the readers.

It generates a great number of responses, which usually roll on and become another article. Some of the responses get used in full; others get squeezed.

This blog, hopefully, will become the Echo Memories raw material, the dummy run for a future column. It will allow people to comment before the article has even appeared, such is the wonder of modern technology!

To start with, I'm going to upload some of the responses to last week's article about Eastbourne School in Darlington.

The school was opened on September 28, 1936, but is now nearing the end of its last term. In September 2009 it is due to be replaced by an academy. What will happen to the building then?

The council intends to demolish. Afterall, it is very difficult to find a new use for an unwanted school.

But a school is a treasure trove of childhood, a repository of time that can never be recovered. You can't drive a bulldozer through that, can you?

The first to respond was Alan Dixon from York: I went to Eastbourne School from 1938 to 1941. If the building can be economically used for some useful purpose, keep it but if not there is no point.

George Welford was a firm but fair headmaster. Pupils had a healthy respect for him as was the usual situation with people in authority in those days. Not like it is in most cases today. In my last year at school I was the Head Boy of Havelock House. While there and after leaving I was a member of the Army Cadet Force reaching the rank of Cadet Sergeat, the headquarters being in the school. The unit was the 7th Darlington Cadet Battalion, the Officer in Charge being George Welford. So I got to know him quite well until I joined the Royal Navy in 1944.

After leaving the Navy in 1947 I undertook training and eventually became a(what was then)Cost and Works Accountant. Now called Cost and Management Account.

So my time at Eastbourne served me well and provided a good background which I was able to take advantage of in later years.

Some years after leaving school, while the war was still on, my sister joined the girls school as a teacher. One of her duties was to take a turn at fire watching some nights.

Several times I did it for her and she paid me I think about half a crown.

I recall that there were four house plaques in the school hall, two at each side of the stage.

I can recall the names of three of the houses, Havelock, Stanley and Vane but can't recall the name of the fourth one.

I was at the school four or five years ago at a conference and the plaques were still there then. I wonder if they still are?

If the school is to be demolished I wonder what will happen to them. I would quite like the Havelock one.