The chance discovery of Falmouth Packet newspapers dating back 35 years has prompted fond memories for many readers.

The papers from 1978, which were found by Charlotte Reed under the carpets of a house she bought in the Boslowick area, included the story of a rebellious walkout by almost 100 pupils at Penryn School.

Susan Kellow (nee Peacock), now living in Budock Water aged 50, remembers the day well as she was one of the pupils involved.

She said: “It was all about school uniform. The teachers used to come in scruffy trousers and we all protested about it. I remember the police intervening. It was fantastic actually.”

Some of the older pupils decided to hold a protest about wearing uniform and the lack of common room facilities, and invited the younger ones to join.

“We all turned up at eight in the morning and started barricading ourselves in,” she added.

“We had to wear uniform but we rebelled against it. We used to wear our school uniform and take a bag to school with our own clothes, and go in the toilets to change.

“That was probably one of the last things I did before we left school.”

Mrs Kellow, who was 15 at the time, described her mum as “jumping” at discovering her daughter was involved in the protest, which led to the headteacher giving them the ultimatum: “Go home or go into school – one or the other.”

The students began to run home but after a surge of confidence they decided to stage a sit in across the road.

After two days protesting the students demands were finally met, with a room set aside for the older students – although the uniform stayed – and they returned to school the next day.

The 1978 papers are not the only ones of the Packet’s legacy to be discovered in ordinary homes.

Falmouth resident Marion Yeo owns a copy dating back to 1968, after it marked the opening of the store Applegates, which she and her husband Gerald managed.

The store unusually combined a cosmetic section, managed by Marion and a wine and spirit section, managed by Gerald.

The store featured Falmouth’s first beauty salon which in the 1968 article supposedly offered, “London, Paris and New York beauty treatments to the women of Cornwall.”

The couple managed the business until Marion’s section was closed in 1973 and she moved to Dingles, where she held a managerial career for 15 years. Her husband Gerald continued to manage the store as an off-licence.

Now, after 200 years in retail service with numerous name changes and purposes, the store can be found under the brand of Fat Face, still standing on Church Street.