Roundabout the Year by Peggy Blakeley

Born in Warton, Lancashire, Peggy was educated at Queen Mary school, Lytham, and trained at Saffron Walden College. She taught in Nottingham and Luton during the war and then in Lytham, before moving in 1948 to Watford, where her husband, Jimmy, had found work. After the birth of her daughter, Madeleine, she began teaching again, becoming head of an infants' school at South Oxhey, and editing, with RL Curling, a series of anthologies for children. She wrote and contributed to over 150 books. Among them were three groundbreaking song books: Apusskidu, Ta-ra-ra Boom-de-ay, and Someone's Singing, Lord.

She went to Radlett in 1964, retiring in 1980. To the end she fulminated against a restrictive and over-examined curriculum. She enriched the lives of thousands of children and teachers. She passed away in 2006.