School prepares for 120th anniversary of ex-pupils' club

And for more than a century, the Harrogate independent school has given its former students the chance to meet up again through an ex-pupils' club.

Ex-students, teachers and governors will mark the 120th anniversary of the Ashvillian Society, which now has 2,000 members worldwide, with an event at the school on Saturday.

The society, originally called the Ashville College Old Boys' Association, held its first reunion on October 25, 1890.

The school boasts film producer Tony Richardson, who is the father of Natasha, as well as the official Colditz assistant escape officer, Capt Bill "Lulu" Lawton, among its former pupils.

Other ex-students include Second Officer Donald Checklin, who attended Ashville College in the 1930s, and died in a plane crash in the Andes in 1947.

Climbers found his body, preserved by the sub-zero temperatures in 2000,. He won the Distinguished Flying Cross in 1944.

Other former pupils include Olympians Harry McIlvenny, a member of the GB football team in 1948, David Boston Barker, who was in the equestrian team in 1964, and Peter Lund, who was in the two-man bobsleigh in the 1984 Winter Olympics.