Dunstable Grammar School boys showed The Way Ahead

It featured pupils from Dunstable Grammar School (now Ashton Middle School) taking part in the pilot scheme for a new youth award being set up by the Duke of Edinburgh.

This Yesteryear photo shows the boys being filmed on a fire engine driving down the entrance to the old fire station in High Street North. Other scenes from the film showed them at the school and travelling with firemen down Drovers Way.

The old fire station was at the end of a track opposite what was then the Union Cinema and which later was properly surfaced and became Queensway. In 1956 the track led past some allotments and disused World War Two huts.

On the left at the end of the track is the rear of the old Co-op store which once fronted on to the high street. When the fire station moved to new premises in Brewers Hill Road a range of shops was built on the site including a much-bigger department store for the Co-op. This is now the home of Peacocks.

A clip from the film was shown last year on a television news programme reporting Prince Philip’s presence at the 500th award ceremony. It can still be seen on Youtube on the internet.

> Yesteryear is compiled by John Buckledee, chairman of Dunstable and District Local History Society.