TV PRESENTER Kate Garraway turned up at an Abingdon primary school to say goodbye to a very special teaching assistant — her mum.

Marylyn Garraway, 67, has helped with art classes at St Edmund’s Catholic Primary School for 24 years, watching generations of pupils grow up and send their own children to school.

Working with fellow teaching assistant Maureen Sollis, 50, who is also leaving after 14 years, the pair have helped pupils with hundreds of art projects, ranging from pottery nativity scenes to prints that decorate the school corridors.

Now Mrs Garraway is hoping to spend more time with her four grandchildren, while Mrs Sollis wants to open her own gallery displaying her ceramics work.

TV star Kate, 42, whose second child William was born just 10 weeks ago, turned up as a surprise guest for Thursday morning assembly at the Radley Road school to see her mum say farewell.

The Abingdon-born GMTV presenter, who went to Dunmore Primary and Fitzharrys schools, drove down from London to share the moment with her mum and dad Gordon.

She said: “I was really emotional.

“The school is a very optimistic, happy place and I can see why Mum loves it. It’s been a big chunk of her life.

“I feel very involved in St Edmund’s as well — every Christmas as soon as the presents are unwrapped, Mum’s making sure she gets all the wrapping paper for the next art project here.

“Even my husband has started keeping stuff for her to use now.”

Her mother said: “My time here has been absolutely brilliant and we will both miss it.

“The work is fantastically rewarding. It is a real delight to see their creativity, and how they think they cannot do things which they can.”

Mrs Sollis promised the pair would soon return to see what the children have been up to.

She said: “It has been a real honour to work here and we’re really going to miss everybody.”

The departing teaching assistants handcrafted a ceramic sculpture of the Madonna and Child as a parting gift to the school.

Headteacher Margaret Crompton said: “We don’t quite know what we’re going to do without them.

“They’ve contributed so much by giving our children fantastic experiences in art and design technology that they otherwise wouldn’t have. It is going to leave quite a big hole in the school.”