A MEMORIAL garden has been opened for a much-loved teacher who lost her battle with cancer.

Young and old gathered at Cherry Trees School, Risby, near Bury St Edmunds, for the ceremony in memory of Sarah Percival.

She died at the age of 61 last summer but not before she had championed environmental causes and cookery during her 16 years at the school, in Flempton Road.

Her love of animals, to whom she introduced several generations of schoolchildren, and her enthusiasm for gathering wild ingredients for her cookery lessons frequently spilled over to the children’s culinary efforts at home.

The school’s founder, Wendy Compson, welcomed Sarah’s husband Martin and daughters Arabella and Roseanna to the opening ceremony and invited them to plant a tree in her memory. She said: “The children have played a major part in the design and planting of the garden which will be a constant reminder to future generations of Sarah’s wonderful influence at the school.”