James Medler joined the college as a 16-year-old in 1953, two years after it was first opened on the Easton Hall estate outside Norwich.

"I was always interested in gardening, to be honest, and animals, and that’s why I came," he said.

"In those days you decided what you were going to do once you left school and that would be your future. I thought I’d like to get into farming, so that’s how I came to be here."

As the first on-site student residential accommodation had not yet been opened, Norfolk School of Agriculture students boarded at Wymondham College, where Nissen huts from the old Second World War USAAF Station Hospital were used as dormitories.

They were transported to Easton by bus each day.

Mr Medler recalls that theory lessons were taught in classrooms in Easton Hall each morning, before more practical sessions on the estate in the afternoons.........

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