Edith Storey can still remember playground games during dinner time as a pupil more than 90 years ago.

The 96-year-old, pictured, made an emotional return to Greengates Primary School yesterday as the oldest surviving pupil.

Mrs Storey (nee Hawkins) helped to celebrate with present-day pupils the start of construction work on the new, multi-million pound school building site, opposite the existing school on the playing fields.

She moved to Bradford from Bristol in 1909 when her father got a job on the railways and she lived in a house at Apperley Bridge, just yards from the school.

She said: "I can remember playing ball games and playing with a cup and ball in the yard. And we always played hide and seek, of course, as all children do."

Monica Leyburn, Mrs Storey's daughter, said: "Mum came to Bradford with her parents and with her sister, Catherine, who was younger than her. She can still remember coming and seeing the Cenotaph at Greengates junction put up all those years ago after the First World War."

Mrs Storey added: "I can vividly remember the First World War and it was very, very scary. After that I moved to Windhill, then to Baildon and I have lived there for many years and still do."

Mrs Storey has always been employed in Bradford.

"Mum worked at Maldini's finishing clothes, sewing and doing embroidery work for a long while," said Mrs Leyburn. "She also worked as an employee decorating cakes for a time."

Greengates Primary School is the first new-build school in the Bradford schools shake-up to begin on site.

The present building is 127 years old, and though she's sad to move, headteacher Barbara Spencer realises the new site offers a bright future for the pupils.

She said: "The move is excellent news. It is going to be really good for the community.

"It is a lovely new site and we are very fortunate. The new building has got the best facilities.

"Greengates Primary School has been part of the community since 1873 and has always been a focal point on the junction at the traffic lights. The old school has got a lot of history to it but we'll bottle it up and move on."

Mrs Storey is also looking forward to seeing the new school, which should be completed next spring.

"I think the new site is lovely and I will be able to look back and see a big improvement," she said.

She married Herbert Storey in August, 1934 and they were married for 49 years before he died.

Monica, 59, is an only child and has one daughter.