A FORMER  journalist of the Stroud News returns to the town this weekend (Saturday March 21) as the guest of honour at another of his old stomping grounds.

Peter Evans worked at the paper from 1949 through to the mid-1950s, before it amalgamated with the Stroud Journal in 1957 to form the SN&J.

In a distinguished career as an author and journalist he specialised as a home affairs correspondent, spending 30 years working for for The Times and still contributes to its online edition.

“I remain grateful for the training I got at the old Stroud News and still exchange Christmas cards with Peggy Short, widow of Mervyn, my mentor,” said Mr Evans.

“It was a great team and I dedicated my first book as sole author to them all.”

“Others there when I was included John Hamshire, later well known on the Daily Mail; John Barnes, who became Newsweek’s correspondent in Africa and was later jailed briefly by Castro in Cuba; John Dunn and Bob Spalding went to The Scotsman.”

Peter Evans, who attended Marling School in the 1940s, is speaking at the all-ticket annual dinner of the Old Marlingtonians' Association and will focus his talk on another old boy, Paul Bennett, who attended the School from 1905 to 1908 and a hundred years ago was fighting in World War I.

Paul Bennett served mostly in the Worcestershire Regiment, winning the Military Cross in 1915 and the Victoria Cross in 1916, before promoted to the rank of Captain.

His bravery will later be honoured again as part of the national policy to commemorate all 628 Victoria Crosses awarded during World War I with a paving stone close to the birthplace of their recipients.

A framed portrait of Paul Bennett, wearing the uniform of a Squadron Leader in the Royal Air Force, as he appeared when he served as an officer of the Air Training Corps during World War II was presented to Marling School by his widow following his death in 1970.

It had previously hung in the Marlborough Street Court, where he had served as a Metropolitan Stipendiary Magistrate from 1935 until 1961.

Although no longer in the Main Hall, it is still on display in Marling to this day, where Paul Bennett's acts have been remembered each year from 1917 onwards with the award of the Bennett Prize, which is presented to a boy who has given “outstanding service to the school”.