More than 40 former pupils and local residents gathered at the former Hydes Creek Public School on Saturday (February 2) to mark Hydes Creek’s official return as a locality and to honour two of the school’s alumni who gave their lives in World War II.

Ray Crawford, a student, and Athol Nagel, a teacher, are commemorated in the school grounds with humble but symbolic bird baths inscribed in their honour.

The school opened in 1913 and started the education of generations of local children until it closed in 1966. Some of those pupils, from the Kethel and Crawford families, were there to celebrate and reminisce.

The Bellingen RSL sub-branch president, Rick Maunder, conducted moving memorials for the two soldiers, echoing those held on December 21, 1946, when the memorials were first unveiled.

Ray Crawford’s nephew Noel,  also an ADF veteran, laid a wreath in honour of his uncle.

Ray Lawrence Crawford, who was born in Berry in 1917, was killed in action on Singapore Island in 1942 at the age of 24.

Sergeant Athol Nagel had been a teacher at Bostobrick before taking up the post at Hydes Creek. He died in Malaya in 1942, and again a simple wreath was laid at his memorial before The Last Post, a Minute’s Silence and the Ode.

The old school is now a private residence but its former students and other locals had plenty of stories, photos and memories to exchange over afternoon tea and more.

All were agreed that it was good to be officially living in Hydes Creek again rather in than a bureaucratically-designated area that had erased more than 130 years of local history.