Miss F M Stokes c1953

A teacher at Burton Latimer County Junior School for 28 years, Miss Florence Margaret Stokes died on Tuesday evening at Kettering General Hospital. An inquest was being held at Kettering Police Station this afternoon (to read about the inquest, click here).

She was 47, and lived at 10 High Street, Burton Latimer.

Miss Stokes, who spent her early years at Ashley, had lived at Burton Latimer for many years. She attended Kettering High School, and before the war was prominent in county athletics, tennis, swimming, netball and hockey circles. She organised a Keep Fit class at Burton Latimer during the war.

Until three weeks ago she was still at her desk teaching. Her father and mother, Mr and Mrs G T Stokes, 18 Polwell Lane, Barton Seagrave, two sisters, Miss Dorothy Stokes (Barton Seagrave) and Sergeant E Stokes (Rushden), are bereaved.

Today the headmaster of Burton Latimer County Junior School said: “She will be remembered by many scholars and ex-scholars for her firm, but kindly manner. During the last few days many of the people of Burton Latimer have paid well-deserved tributes to a teacher who was a friend to all her many pupils.”

(Tony Palmer, a former resident, recalls that Miss Stokes taught Class 7 and he joined her class after leaving the Infant School in about 1947. She was, he says, a good teacher although quite strict. She always came to school on a bicycle but, towards the end of her life, could hardly ride it. Her sister worked in Barlow’s cake shop in the High Street and her brother now resides in Rushden.)