Peter Linnett 1970 to 1977
When he arrived at St Mary’s in 1970, Peter Linnett (pictured above in the Lake District) was following in the footsteps of his two older brothers, Paul and Tony, who had started at the school in 1967 and 1969 respectively. The Linnett family had moved down from Glasgow in 1967, settling in Sidcup. The boys’ parents were both stalwart members of the St Lawrence’s Roman Catholic Church congregation and were well known around the parish and the town. After St Mary’s, Paul studied medicine at Newcastle University and became a GP with a practice near Durham while Tony studied Politics, Philosophy and Economics at Reading University and, after an early career in greyhound racing management, became a primary school teacher and headteacher. Both are now retired.
After leaving school at 18, Peter went to work as a storekeeper on a construction site working on the Thames Flood Barrier project before taking a job at Sainsbury’s Head Office in Blackfriars, London as a stock controller: “I didn’t go to University until I was 25 after taking my A-Levels again at night school and day-college,” says Peter. “My degree is in English Language and Literature from the University of Leeds.”
In 1989, Peter moved up to Altrincham in a marketing role but quickly decided on a career change and trained to be a teacher at Manchester University. After working in two schools in the Greater Manchester area, in 2000 he became headteacher at Cloverlea Primary School in Timperley, near Altrincham, retiring in 2017.
Peter lives with his wife, Siobhan and three children (Bethany 25, Patricia 23 and Tommy 21) in Timperley.
Peter has been instrumental in setting up a group of old St Mary’s boys who meet regularly via Zoom. He says: “Recently, I thought it would be a good idea to try to reach out to old class mates to see if anyone would be interested in some form of a reunion. I have kept in touch with quite a number of old school friends but wondered whether others would be interested. The Covid crisis stymied any possibility of a reunion over the last year but a small number of old boys from my year have joined a group that meet once a month via Zoom meetings to swop memories and chat about anything at all. Currently that group has 22 members (both As and Alphas) and continues to grow. Hopefully a reunion will take place once circumstances allow.”
Reflecting on his time at St Mary’s, Peter added: “I enjoyed my time there mainly because of the good friends I made and the mostly happy memories of the things that went on. Our class had a bit of a bad reputation in the school but although we did get up to daft things, I don’t think there was much malice in what went on. It was all a bit of fun. Many of us have remained close friends for over 40 years.
“I should have worked harder at school but I had two bright older brothers and it wouldn’t have been fair to have too much intelligence within one family!”