THIS photograph of the former County High School was supplied by Ken Wakeman, and is thought to have been taken in 1912 at around the time the school first opened.

The building later went on to become Parkside Middle School, where Mr Wakeman worked as a caretaker for 31 years from 1969.

He received the photo from a former deputy head at the school whose husband had been a photographer, and he has happy memories of the building watching it go through the transition to Worcestershire’s comprehensive school system.

He said: “It was the senior school to start off and then they made it into the middle school. The first 18 months I was there it was the older pupils, but when they built North Bromsgrove High School we were made into a middle school.”

Now the building is being refurbished once more, for a new life as offices for Bromsgrove District Council.

Mr Wakeman added: “If it can’t be a school it’s preferable that it stays there, and schools are rather difficult to adapt to any other business, so it’s just as well it’s becoming a council building.”