THE emotional scenes at Gloucestershire's School Organisation Committee meeting on January 10 brought to an end a very long and hard campaign to retain Alderman Knight School.

As chairman of the Alderman Knight Action Group and chairman of governors of Alderman Knight School, I would like to sincerely thank the thousands of people who supported us and wished us well over many years. The 26,683 people who voted to keep our school in the Tewkesbury Borough referendum and all who signed petitions reinforced our resolve to keep the schools open.

Thanks go to Laurence Robertson, MP, for all he did in raising our profile in Westminster and among senior Conservatives, to Cllr Jackie Hall and her team in Shire Hall for turning around the policy, for all the scrutiny committee meetings in which she and her colleagues never gave up.

To all the staff who kept focussed on educating these special children to a very high standard, despite the stress due to the threat of losing their jobs. The pressure must have been overwhelming at times; they truly are a credit to their profession.

To all our friends in the media who gave us air time and many column inches in the newspapers, it would have not been possible to get our message far and wide without them.

From the bottom of my heart I would like to thank my friends on the action group, they worked tirelessly to achieve the result, so special thanks to Ieaun Walsh, under huge pressure in running the school and assisting in a political campaign an extremely difficult and risky thing to do as head teacher, to Cllrs Brian Calway and Gordon Shurmer whose political skills matched by genuine care for the children made a massive difference.

Thanks also to Alderman Joe Kent who started it all, to Graham Barton, Paul Schofield and all the members of the Gloucestershire Special Schools Protection League, who tirelessly campaigned to retain all four MLD special schools.

Most importantly a very personal thank you to my long-suffering wife Sue and my children for their continual love and support, allowing me the time and space to play my part, without which I would have achieved nothing.

It has been a long and at times bitter campaign, we prevailed because our cause was right, as parents of children with special educational needs we knew that our children had not or could not survive in mainstream schools. This is what drove us on.

It is a joy and a pleasure to see natural justice and democracy win through in the end. Equally important is to see the look on the faces of the children at Alderman Knight School - that really brings home that this campaign was the right thing to do. It's been a long journey of some tremendous highs and lows - but I wouldn't have missed it for the world.

Thank you to everyone who helped in whatever way - it really did make a difference.

Dave Waters, Chester Close, Apperley.