Doreen Gretton had been a deputy head in West Bridgford and applied to be head at Tollerton School before it had even been built.
Steve Gretton, Doreen’s son, remembers going with her to have a look at the time the school was just a field with some marker sticks.
Doreen said that the only reason she got the job was that it might have been ‘just’ an infant school and no men applied! But it was a job made for her, and she for it.
The school grew rapidly and during her time it grew from two classes (one class in what is now the entrance area) to about 6-7 classrooms, and the main hall and kitchens.
She was a great lover of trees and the countryside and encouraged the children to take an active interest in all things natural.
There were lots of pets inside and outside, breeding chickens, rabbits and even a chinchilla! Steve remembers it escaped one night and nibbled quite a lot of the maths teaching equipment! Countryfile was her favourite TV programme, it was very exciting when her eldest grandson featured in it last month in the piece on Mountain Rescue Teams.
Steve comments that she was an active teacher and she was thankful she was there before head teachers became mainly administrators – she was very much a hands-on teacher. A friend of Steve’s, Kate Aucott, who also taught at Tollerton for a few years described her as firm but fair and described her care for and interactions with pupils and staff.
There was an annual drama competition between groups in the top two classes. Steve remembers being asked to be a judge one year and his mother telling him he had chosen the wrong group because we had been swayed by the humour of the plot, rather than the quality of the acting.
She was a great lover of classical music and introduced the children to a wide range of music, but she said the children’s favourite was Saint-Saens Carnival of Animals – particularly the Aquarium. She used this to stimulate them to imagine what the music was about before giving them the titles.
On one occasion she commented that the children were always talking about ‘Millions’ and the whole school was set the task of making 1,000,000 dots on sheets of paper and laying them out on the school floor so they could understand the number.
The photos were  taken last year when she was 104.
In the first she is explaining fluently her understanding of God and creation and the delegation of responsibility for His creation to mankind. Her audience are the fellow residents and carers at the home where she passed away. One of the carers told Steve they were just spellbound. She still had the headmistress touch still there 44 years after she retired!
Not bad for someone born in 1916 at the time of the Battle of the Somme. Her mind was alert to the end.
Doreen took a great deal of interest in everyone and listened intently. You always felt you were being listened to carefully.  From the feedback Steve had from some of her pupils, it was clear that she was a great encourager and they have fond memories.
After she retired she was involved in the National Association for Gifted Children.
At the age of 82 she went with her cousin on a world tour, and in preparation she took extra driving lessons for an automatic transmission car, so she could help with the driving in New Zealand! She continued driving until she was 95 and thought nothing of driving 150 miles from Nottingham to Bath where Steve lived.
She had a Desert Island Discs interview about 18 months ago. For anyone interested, the links are below. She was a great storyteller!
Please do pass this article on to anyone you know who may have been a pupil at Tollerton during Doreen’s time which was from 1959 until 1976 and if you have any information you would like to share about Doreen, please contact Steve as he is collating information about her. Mail to: steve.gretton@gmail.com
We pass our condolences on to Steve and his family, and to all those that knew Doreen, from everyone at Tollerton Primary School.
Links to Doreen’s Desert Island Disc recordings:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1rZF46B7UVXMGRcJ5qHn31Onwrct2pImV/view?usp=sharing,
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1tymyTb3J3KQIpcv_7WHsY-hE3s5EZxPN/view?usp=sharing,
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1uppQ_sU3hyUWoTMufZbPrtwhtBa0SCBV/view?usp=sharing
