I THOUGHT I knew a lot of people. But I’m an amateur compared to John Dalton.

He knows just about everybody who attended or taught at Darwen Grammar School from just before the Second World War. And he’ll soon know the rest, he hopes.

It’s 70 years since the grammar school opened in Blackburn Road and John has taken on the massive job of putting names to all the students and staff from then till the time it became the Vale High School in the autumn of 1972.

And he’s even looking to identify pupils and teachers going back to the early days of the grammar school when it was housed in what became the Technical School before it moved to the new site among rolling green fields close to the Blackburn boundary.

John, who used to live on Duckworth Street, has trawled through the school archives and scanned digital images of dozens of pictures.

They are mainly of classes but there are pictures of the staff, the football and hockey teams and the performers in various dramas and musicals.

I still remember the mid-50s production of “Pirates” which gave me a lifelong interest in Gilbert & Sullivan, while some of John’s staff pictures from the 50s send a shiver down my spine even today.

It's not surprising that discipline in primary as well as secondary schools has largely broken down.

The cane and the slipper were regularly trotted out at St John’s while a heavier cane, a shiny boot and a deftly hurled blackboard duster were delights in store for us down at the grammar school.

John Dalton, who went through the mincer a few years after I did, told me about his unusual quest: “It began years ago, when I became interested in my family tree.

"I love old family pictures and collected them from numerous family members.

"And I made a point of getting the names put on the backs.

“When the school’s millennium reunion was being set up, I found a box of old photos so I and a couple of fifth-formers set up an exhibition in the main school corridor for visitors to identify anyone they recognised.

"Since then I’ve been trying to fill in the gaps.”

The earliest picture John has is dated 1909-10 and is of Form III girls; there are several photos of pre-Great War football and hockey teams, and some classes from 1920. But there are no photos of classes in the late 1920s and early 1930s, so if anyone has any, he would like to copy them.

John, who lives in Oswaldtwistle (01254 237752), told me: “Old photos bring back such memories and everyone finds them fascinating.

"I’m looking forward to a lot more discussion and discovery.”

John will be staging an exhibition of old grammar school photos at Darwen library in June.