THE PREMISES may be new but old teachers and even older buildings were the main talking points when former high school pupils tried to break a world record.

St Wilfrid's C of E High School, Blackburn, was aiming to attract more than 4,000 Old Wilfridians to the new-look school in Duckworth Street in a bid to get into the Guinness Book of World Records.

Although the record was not threatened, with almost 1,000 people turning up, the night was still a success.

Hundreds of school photographs of pupils down the years were part of a massive display at the front of the hall and the night also featured speeches from former pupils and teachers, entertainment and supper.

One of the speakers, Tariq Mohammed, was a pupil in the 1960s. He went on to set up Time Computers with his brother Tahir Mohsan. He is now a consultant paediatrician and millionaire.

The evening was a fundraising event as well as a reunion, as the new school has cost £12million, 10 per cent of which the governors have had to find themselves.

For most it was hard to believe how much the school has changed since it became a state-of-the-art modern building on one site. St Wilfrid's was formed in 1966 after the amalgamation of two schools - St Hilda's C of E School for Girls and St Peter's C of E School for Boys and had always been run on two sites until recently. Former pupils remember having to take "the long walk" to get to their next lesson. Harold Gillibrand, a teacher and organiser of the reunion, said: "It is a dream come true. We have lived with the hope of having a school on one site and there have been numerous attempts over the years, but eventually it has happened."

Andrew Foster, former English teacher and former deputy head of the sixth form, said: "I have been teaching in Rochdale for three years, so have not seen the finished school until now, but it is a very comforting and uplifting building."

Diane Lougheed and Valerie Godfrey have hardly seen each other since they left school in the mid 1970s, when their surnames were Dootson and Baldwin respectively. Valerie said: "It feels strange to see each other after all this time."

Ray Thompson, 39, left in 1981 and came from Barnsley to attend the event. He said: "I was on the internet about three months ago when I saw the school was having a reunion. I was delighted to come."

Giles Kitching, 34, of Clitheroe, said: "The school looks great. It will make a change not having to walk out of one building to another."

Headteacher, David Whyte, said: "It is superb to see so many people back here. I hope this event will be the first of many."