I thought I'd share my memories - which are different from those reflected in the piece.

Firstly the history of the school(s) before the Howard School.  Rainham Boys Secondary School had been in the buildings in Orchard Street along with Rainham Girls until they both moved to "The Campus site" off Derwent Way in 1967.  St Margaret's Infants and Juniors then moved from the old school building at the top of Station Road to the Orchard Street site.   The old school building served as a community centre until the Oast at the station superseded it and it was then demolished when the Rainham Shopping Centre was built.

The Howard was formed in 1975 with the merger of Rainham Boys School and Gillingham Grammar school which had been based at Third Avenue (now Rober Napier School) since the 1930s. This was an attempt by Kent County Council to deflect the growing national calls to abandon selective education by have a "bi-lateral comprehensive" as a single school but with the streams following different curriculums.   It was named after a Mrs Howard who was a councillor involved in education at that time.  John Hicks who had been the head of the grammar school was its first headmaster.

I had gone from St Margarets to the Grammar school in 1974 so was the last year to start at the old Third Ave site.  In Sept 1975 we all moved to the new Howard School which used the old Rainham Boys buildings with some new blocks added.   Having been ex-grammar, I was in the Alpha stream starting in 2α2.  Many of my ex St Margaret's friends were in the A stream.   The timetable adopted originally was the old grammar school one, hence the long academic day, but I remember soon in the first year the afternoons were cut back so we left at 3:30pm.  There was some of the sense of "us and them" between the two streams when we started.  But many α boys preferred that football was on the PE curriculum where previously it was only rugby and hockey in the winter.  I certainly don't remember being treated with any additional respect by the teachers who would regularly throw wooden board rubbers at your head or hit you with keys spun on a long chain if you weren't "on task".

There were opportunities to mix with Rainham Girls in the extracurricular activities, especially in music which I enjoyed.  I remember several performances with pupils from both schools taking part.  Also in 6^th form there was the youth club where indeed in 1981 just before I left I met the girl who later became my wife.  On leaving I went onto a training scheme with then GEC Avionics now BAE Systems as a trainee computer programmer.

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These photos show a bridge across the A2 at Cobham that was partially demolished by an overheight load on a truck on 20th April 1985. These photos were kindly supplied but we sadly don't have the name of the person who sent them in.

I'd originally dated the photos to no earlier than 1985 due to the Mk2 Vauxhall Cavalier and Austin Maestro shown in them so was quite pleased to see the newspaper headline confirmed I was spot on!

Steve Salter kindly shared the Chatham Standard story about the crash

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Daihatsu Rainham car dealer was Brian Ward Garages Ltd in the 1980s, This main dealer was on the A2 High Street Rainham Kent.

Photo of Daihatsu Rainham Brian Ward Garages Ltd taken in approx 1986. Photo thanks to Sarah Allan

The location was Amoco petrol station which is now the Asda garage on the A2 High Street Rainham

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These photos were taken in 1988 to mark the 10th anniversary of Rainham Historical Society by planting trees in Longley Road. The trees are still there as of 2025.

The photos show founder members Pat and George Fryer with Renda and Eric Cross. The photos show Pat and George each planting a tree to celebrate the anniversary along with the then Mayor of Gillingham.

The third photo shows an outing of the club around the same time.

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