A GROUP of pensioners are in a class of their own at keeping in touch more than half a century after their school closed.

Shared memories are still as fresh as ever for the group of friends who grew up together in Billy Row, near Crook, and now meet up every year for a pub lunch.

With fathers working down the same pits, the group lived in the same streets, studied together and played together.

When the school, Peases West, closed in 1950, some left at 15 while younger pupils transferred to Crook's secondary modern, the Alderman Cape.

A reunion in the Farrers Arms pub was the third since Harry Dowson, who moved to North Yorkshire, decided in 2003 it was time to catch up with his old classmates.

He found that some of the old gang had stayed in touch, such as Ann Layburn, from Roddymoor, who regularly meets up with Ann Hutchinson, from Crook, and her sister, June Greenbank.

Mr Dowson said: "We were all pit families and we all had plenty in common.

"If we weren't in the same class at school we played together all the time.

"Just about all our fathers were pitmen with one or two from farms. It is a lot different now."

Gwen Dunn was this year's reunion organiser and was pleased with the turnout after appealing to former school pupils through The Northern Echo.

She said: "I didn't know who was coming until they arrived.

"There are quite a few fresh faces this year. It is lovely to see them all."