Location: Berengaria

The following history is courtesy of Sara Hollett (neé Davies):

There was a Primary School and Secondary School in Berengaria from, I believe, 1956 when the camp was built to take families from Suez.

In the late 1960s it was decided to replace the Canberra Squadrons at Akrotiri with two squadrons of Vulcans.
This increased enormously the number of personnel.
The secondary school closed (pupils transferring to St John’s at Episkopi ) and the Primary School split into Infants and Juniors.
Mr Humphrey Gillett was the Headmaster of the Junior School (having been the head of the Primary School) and Mrs Betty Cronin (formerly of Curium School, Limassol and before that, Aden) became the head of the new Infant School on the site of the old Secondary school.

The school opened in September 1968 with the head and deputy transferring from other Limassol schools along with two other U.K. based teachers, four locally engaged teachers and four of us newly out from U.K.
In that September we had 10 classes.

The first Vulcan squadrons arrived the following year and the school grew rapidly.
We increased the number of U.K. based teachers and took in those evacuated from Libya when Gaddafi took over.
Betty Cronin left in 1971 and was replaced by Audrey Condor who transferred, along with others, when Singapore closed.
When I left in 1972 there were 21 classes of 5-7 year olds (family grouping) & five non class teaching staff.
Pauline Harmer (ex Episkopi Primary) replaced Audrey Condor and Susan Taylor became deputy head. 

All this came crashing down in 1974.
Personnel were withdrawn and Berengaria once again became a Primary School.
From being possibly the largest R.A.F. base in the world it became almost a transit base.
My husband flew out from Germany with two Buccaneers in 1978 and was staggered at the change in fortunes. 

The opening of the Infant School by Lady Gordon-Jones, wife of Sir Edward Gordon Jones who then was C-in-C NEAF.

The staff who opened Berengaria Infants School.

The enlarged school staff in 1970.

Children from Sara Davies's class photographed by the UN's Blue Beret magazine following a class project.

Sara took over Special Needs in the school and recalls how children from Malta with limited English followed their own curriculum for half the day and received language support from her for the remaining time.
John Barbara's blog (opens in a new window) describes the life of a Maltese boy in Cyprus.

 

The Berengaria school staff photographed in (we believe) 1994