About 35 years ago, Brightwater School buried time capsules to record a moment in time and now they are hoping someone can remember where they were buried.
Alana Flintoft was one of the students who wrote letters back then which were put in a metal container along with mementos and coins, then buried.
She thinks that was beneath a crab apple tree in the corner of the school grounds.
Now, she is a parent and teacher at the school who, along with a few other former pupils, want to find out where the capsule - or a couple of them - are buried so their positions can be recorded for the future and perhaps unearthed 100 years after they were buried.
The problem though, is her brother remembers a capsule being buried in the middle of the front field and another was buried under the Lord Rutherford memorial where a community capsule was buried.
Memories are only part of the problem.
Since the late 1980s, when the capsules were buried, a carpark has been added on one side, a fence erected along the front and a footpath laid along the side of the school right where the crab apple tree grew.
“My fear is that it is under the footpath. There’s quite a few of us now who are parents at the school, but no-one knows where it was buried.”
The school has had a metal detectorist look over the grounds without any luck, and staff have poured over school minutes, records and photos to see if the burial was recorded, without any joy.
Former pupils have even contacted teachers who taught at the school back then, and caretakers.
Alana says someone must remember where the capsules were buried.
“Someone has to have a better memory than me. We don’t want it to get lost completely underground. If we could find it, lift it and move it somewhere we can document where it is. That would be quite good.”
She is worried the information will be lost forever and says there are probably people in the community who remember the time capsules being buried and possibly have photos of the event.
