SECRETARY Cynthea Hayes is resting on her sun lounger and enjoying her garden after retiring from her school after 30 years.

Mrs Hayes has been secretary at St Paul's C of E Combined School, in Wooburn Green, for 17 and a half years and before that she was school manager. She has been involved with St Paul's for three decades.

Mrs Hayes was presented with flowers, a carriage clock, a sun lounger for her garden and a painting of the fountain outside the school.

The secretary, from Bourne End, was guest of honour at a surprise outdoor show where the pupils performed country dancing, songs and poems.

She said: "I heard them rehearsing but I thought it was for May Day. It was wonderful. The children took each letter of 'Mrs Hayes' and said lovely things about each one."

Mrs Hayes, who is from Essex, even used donations from her husband's funeral to help the school by setting up the Derek Hayes Young Enterprise Scheme, which uses the profits for the good of St Paul's.

The school moved from by St Paul's church to Stratford Drive in the 1970s and the fountain moved with it.

Headteacher Ruth Goddard said: "She was a wonderful secretary here."