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| Giovanna celebrates 35 years
at school |
PUPILS, teachers and four headteachers have come and gone at
a Soho primary school but 35 years on one much-loved classroom assistant
is still going strong.
Today (Friday) Soho Parish School in Great Windmill Street will
honour Giovanna Lantrua, 70, who has been a friendly face for generations
of children.
“I started at the school to replace someone for two months
but then the headteacher at the time, an Italian lady, Miss Malfatti,
asked me to stay on,” explained Mrs Lantrua who lives close
by in Newport Court, Covent Garden.
Her colleague of 12 years, learning mentor Carol Ryder described
Mrs Lantrua as “the heart of the school” and said parents
and children appreciated her for her great kindness and care over
the years.
Mrs Lantrua, who first came to Soho from near Genoa in Italy in
1953, worked as a domestic help and then in hospital wards caring
for the elderly before starting work at the school. She may have
kept up the soft accent and elegant dress sense of her country of
birth but Mrs Lantrua says home is most definitely Soho. “As
a young woman I went to visit my parents in Italy but when I arrived
back in London, it always felt like home,” she says.
“I have seen every attraction but you can never be bored here.
When my daughters were little, even when it was raining we could
always go to a museum.”
A special assembly will pay tribute to Mrs Lantrua today and a party
will be held in the evening with at least two former head teachers
who worked with her.
“Even when I eventually leave the school I don’t think
I will ever stop coming in to help out with different things,”
she said.
“Working with little children keeps you young and has kept
my mind ticking over. I’m not ready to stay at home yet.”
Above: Giovanna Lantrua with (from top clockwise) Molly Spiteri,
Year 6, Skyler Fisser, Year 1, Mahdi Amin, Year 4, Rahan Mazeer,
Year 3, Chen-yu Yong, Year 1 |
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Give power to the people
POST-war, early 1950s Britain was still experiencing food rationing
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destroyed the restaurant trade and, with few exceptions, post-war
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FULL STORY
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