A FORMER teacher is urging past pupils to scour their attics for photographs and memorabilia to help celebrate 300 years of a North-East school.

Dame Allan's School, in Newcastle, is marking three centuries of learning next year and former head of English Eric Smith is producing a history of the school for the occasion.

Mr Smith, 68, of Bolbec Road, in Fenham, has found some former pupils who have given him stories and photographs of their time at the school, which he is bringing together for a book and an exhibition.

But he wants more old Allanians to contact him, particularly former pupils of Dame Allan's Girls School, to help chart the centuries of change.

He said: "The book will be a picture of the school as a very human place where people lived, worked and learned, or didn't, as the case may be."

Former pupils include Ian La Frenais, who wrote the television series Porridge, The Likely Lads and Auf Wiedersehen, Pet and the captain of the QE2 ,Commodore Douglas Ridley.

The school was set up in 1705 by Dame Eleanor Allan as a charity school for 60 poor children - 40 boys and 20 girls. It now caters for fee-paying pupils.

Mr Smith also wants to trace items for an exhibition at Newcastle Central Library to mark the school's anniversary.

He hopes to complete the book by February.

Anyone who is able to help can write to him c/o Dame Allan's School, Fenham, Newcastle, NE4 9YJ.