When Iris and Derek Noakes of Kent, England were planning their 50th wedding anniversary, they could only think of one really special way to celebrate ? a trip to Bermuda.

Mr. Noakes, a resident of Dartford in Kent, had been longing to return to the Island for six decades. During the Second World War he was a boarding student at the old Somers College which was located in Southampton at Glasgow Lodge. It was run by St. Anne's Minister Rev. R. O. Walker and his wife Helen from 1928 to 1943.

"I came here when I was nine years old, and left when I was 12. I think my schooling here was close on idyllic," Mr. Noakes told , "but I don't remember anything about the academic side of things."

When Mr. Noakes first arrived he didn't know how to swim or ride a bicycle. That was quickly put to rights.

"We had quite a bit of freedom," said Mr. Noakes. "I know we played various games in season. I didn't like cricket after my brother, Peter, had his fingernail lifted by a cricket ball. We used to help tend the garden. Although we were here for three years on our own, my parents used to arrange presents at Christmas time through the Montgomery Ward catalogue from the United States.

"One of the things I had one Christmas was an erector set. We also had a tent which Peter and I pitched in the school pasture. We built barricades with dead trees and things like that, but the cows still managed to get behind the barricade and chew it up."

Mr. Noakes' father Arthur worked for the Shell Company and was stationed in Venezuela. When the Second World War started the Noakes family were looking for somewhere safe, out of the war, to send their children to school. Since Arthur Noakes' brother and sister-in-law were working at the Royal Naval Dockyard in Bermuda, he decided to send Peter and Derek to Somers College.

"I didn't see much of my aunt and uncle, actually," said Mr. Noakes. "Their elder boy had Down's Syndrome and was apparently increasingly difficult to deal with. Although we spent our first Christmas with them in one of those terraces near the Dockyard, thereafter we spent most of our holidays at the school with the Walkers. We became part of their family. Their own two sons were seldom in evidence. I think they might have been in university."

For three years the Noakes boys remained in Bermuda without returning to England or seeing their parents. Yet, Mr. Noakes remembers his time in Bermuda as being happy.

"I don't remember a great many people from that time," said Mr. Noakes. "The people I remember are the ones that I have photographs of. One of them was Hugh Skiffington."

Mr. Noakes said he learned how to swim in Church Bay, and the boys would sail boats out of Frank's Bay, which was directly across from St. Anne's Rectory.

"From there you could watch the comings and goings of the base which was located on Tucker's and Morgan's Island," said Mr. Noakes. "We would launch our boats in Frank's Bay."

He described the rectory as a low-lying building that looked as though it were two storeys from a distance.

"In fact, the lower windows just went into the workshop," said Mr. Noakes. "There was an annex built on the side which provided some of the classrooms and the main hall. Then there was another annex on the other side which I gathered was uprooted and transferred somewhere else in Southampton.

"Mr. Walker was a great carpenter and we had a well equipped workshop in the basement. He built a lot of the furniture and also some pieces in the church."

Naturally, the children at the school also took part in church activities. Mr. Noakes was in the choir at St. Anne's and at the Bermuda Cathedral.

Unfortunately, in 1943 the school had to close. Some of the students who lived in Bermuda went on to Saltus Grammar School. Other students left the island to go to other boarding schools. The Noakes boys went on to a college in Jamaica. Although they came to Bermuda on a ship, they left on a clipper ship that would have flown out of Darrell's Island.

"After the war we came home to England, leaving my brother in Jamaica," said Mr. Noakes. "He went on to McGill University and became a citizen of Canada."

He said coming to Bermuda wasn't so difficult, because he was happy, but the school in Jamaica was a different story.

It was out in the wilderness, away from people, and only had self-generated electricity at night. Unlike in Bermuda, the boys' freedom was strictly controlled, and they could not leave the school compound.

He matriculated earlier than he would have in England, at age 15 and a half. Unfortunately, adjusting to family life again was difficult. The long years of separation took their toll on the family.

"Our generation, at that age, you did what you were told to do and put up with it," he said. "I don't think we were brought up to have minds of our own. But at the end of the day, I found my father very difficult to get along with.

"There was no closeness in the family. It wasn't just the separation for the three years here, but also the fact that my mother had some of us in England for part of the time my father was in Venezuela and then we were in Venezuela for a spell, and then we were in Bermuda for three years and then we were in Jamaica."

The Noakes' have two grown children and four grandchildren who live near them in England.

"When we had children I had one or two opportunities to go abroad and I didn't go because I didn't want to put my children through that," Mr. Noakes said. "I wouldn't send my children to boarding school either. We kept them at home and we have remained very close."

Now, Mr. Noakes is putting together a scrapbook of his memories of his time in Bermuda. He would like to hear from anyone who went to the school.

"I am putting together a scrapbook for my descendants," he said. "I started doing that long before we really thought of coming to Bermuda."

While on the Island, the Noakes have visited many old familiar places such as The Dockyard and St. Anne's Church. Naturally, things have changed a little in the last 63 years.

"We took a picture of the commemorative window that is there in honour of Rev. Walker. Rev. Walker retired from the church in 1955."

"It was particularly nice that we attended church there this Sunday," said Mrs. Noakes. "Everyone was so nice there. They asked for anyone who was visiting Bermuda for the first time to put up their hand. I did, but my husband didn't. He was bursting to tell them that he had been here before, 63 years ago."

To contact the Noakes family write to: Iris & Derek Noakes, 208 Summerhouse Drive, Wilmington, Dartford, Kent, DA2 7PB, United Kingdom.