A mutual appreciation for a historic warship set up a special meeting between a life-long Enfield resident and primary school children – with a bit of help from this newspaper.

A story in the Enfield Independent about a visit by pupils from Cuckoo Hall Primary Academy to sixteenth century ship Mary Rose was seen by 81-year-old Stan Leftwich.

Mr Leftwich has for many years been completing complex jigsaw puzzles for charity auctions, including one of over 1,000 pieces of the Mary Rose, which was Henry VIII’s flagship. After seeing the article about how enthusiastic the children were about the ship, he decided to get in touch.

Last week Mr Leftwich donated the framed puzzle to the pupils, and came to Cuckoo Hall school to speak.

Mr Leftwich said: “I was thrilled to be offered the opportunity to speak to the children and Year 6 teacher James Sherlock about the Mary Rose and jigsaw puzzles – a lifetime passion of mine.”

“It was a lovely day and the students had a great attitude and behaved impeccably.”

Sharon Ahmet, headteacher of Cuckoo Hall Primary, said: “The children loved hearing from Stan – and we have invited him to come on a further visit we will be making to the Mary Rose this summer.”