Westbrook House School - 1947 - 2007 - 60 Glorious Years!

Folkestone, Kent. in 1946 was just emerging from the war that had obliterated much of the town and surrounding area. Many buildings were either completely destroyed or badly damaged and rendered unihabitable. Some were battle-scarred and unloved, with broken windows, leaky roofs and overgrown gardens. Two such hapless victims of the bombing and general neglect were 54 and 56 Shorncliffe Road in Folkestone's West End. Kenneth 'Fozzie' Foster, a Yorkshire born son of a worsted manufacturer, ex-General Strike Police Reservist, ARP Warden and schoolmaster, climbed through the broken window of the empty and semi-derelict building accompanied by his brother, Group Captain (RAF retired), Arthur Foster. What they found was not the rot of war, but the germ of an idea for a new school which Fozzie would run until his retirement in 1968. The following year the school was opened with 14 pupils and by that summer the school had grown to 49 pupils. Sixty years on Fozzie and his brother are gone, the school has changed hands a number of times, but the spirit of Fozzie lives on in the current incarnation of the school - Westbrook House Preparatory School under the leadeship of Niall Washington-Jones and ex-Saga boss, Roger De Haan. On 8th June 2007 at the school there will be a reunion of former pupils, some who were amongst the first through its doors, others who left in the 1980s and 1990s. For more information on the school, its history and its old boys, please visit the Old Westbrookians' website and if you attended the school in any of its incarnations between 1947 and the present, please leave a message in the website guestbook.