It was early morning in the month of august 1965. I put on my new clothes: long grey trousers, which made a welcome change from the short trousers which were compulsory the year before, a grey shirt with a yellow and dark blue striped tie and finally, a black blazer sporting the badge which you see above.
I collected my bag and left the house, walked along Cromlix Crescent where I lived and turned down the Old Doune Road. My destination was Dunblane railway station where I would catch a train to Callander, on the very edge of the Highlands, and where I would start my high school education at the newly built McLaren High School.
At the back of King's bus garage I climbed the stairs of the old footbridge. With each step I became more anxious, not because it was my first day at the high school but because I had heard so many stories of the tricks played on new pupils. Pranks such as debagging the boys and throwing their trousers out of the train windows, hopefully to be caught by someone farther back down the train.
I looked down from the bridge and there was our train. A steam locomotive at the head of two or three passenger coaches awaited me, steam issuing forth like the condensing breath from the nostrils of some prehistoric dinosaur.
With some trepidation I moved closer. There was my pal, Tommy McClymont. Seeing Tommy some of my anxiety passed. Now I had company. Now I was not alone.
We climbed into a compartment alongside Patricia Smith and her brother Roddy.
"It's okay you two," he said, "I'll look out for you". And with that any last worries we had about pranks being played on us disappeared.
With a blast on its whistle the train set off and we were on our way to our Scottish Hogwarts.
I can't remember how long the journey took, 30 minutes perhaps, but after stops at Doune Station and Drumviach Halt we arrived at our destination in Callander.
Alas the train journey to and from Callander was only temporary. After two months the line was closed on 1st November 1965 following cuts made by the British Rail chairman Richard Beeching and thereafter our school journeys were made by bus from Dunblane. However I feel privileged that I experienced travelling by train to school, albeit for such a short period.
The school buildings on Mollands Road were brand new. This was something I was getting used to. My first school in Cambuslang was Cairns Primary and it had opened only a year before I started in Primary 1. Likewise, I only had a couple of years at the Braeport school in Dunblane before we moved into our new school on the Doune Road.
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| McLaren High School, Callander |
I have many fond memories of my time at the school but I have to admit that the reminiscences are of the friends and characters I knew, not the schoolwork. I couldn't leave quick enough in order to earn some money and be independent of my parents.
It was a time when I rebelled against everything and everyone. I soaked up extreme politics by reading everything from 'Das Kapital' to 'Mein Kampf' , from Engell's 'Condition of the Working Class in England' to the 'Thoughts of Chairman Mao.' (Incidentally it was Mrs Stark, a teacher at McLaren High, who introduced me to this little volume during the Cultural Revolution in China.)
So, as you might deduce from the above, my schoolwork, such as it was, could be regarded as non-existent, whilst at high school.
However this is not the place for me to philosophize over my school record. This tale is about the school and the people in it. So "Onward and upward!" he cried.
A school is not a building. A school is the sum of many parts: the teachers, the curriculum, the pupils, the traditions, the politics and philosophy of the region and many other things. So where better to start than with the teachers...
(If I have made any errors then feel free to write and correct me.)
Our rector was Hugh Cowan, otherwise known to us as just "Shug."
He was a very tall man and walked with what one refers to as a "military bearing". Fortunately I did not have too many dealings with the man. I remember at school sports days he always sat on a shooting stick. Mmmm...funny thing to remember. Before the school was moved to its new location, the pupils' dining area was in a building on the other side of the river Teith. Not knowing better, this had been dubbed "Belsen" by the pupils. Woe betide any pupil who referred to it as such within earshot of "Shug". He had been among the troops who had liberated the concentration camp of this name in Germany and became very angry by the misuse of the name in this way. Rightly so, considering the atrocities carried out there during WWII, but we must also remember that the building was so named by children with no inkling of the name's connotations.
Classroom 1 was on the first floor at the west end of the main building. This was the abode of "Jock" Smith, one of our maths teachers. We believed that Jock was from Aberdeen due to his accent. At one point we had taken it into our heads to irritate the poor man and at times we competed with each other to see which one of us could get the most strokes of the belt from him.
One favourite scenario we liked to play out was the "Blitzkreig".
In this I played the part of a german bomber and in an atrocious 'allo 'allo accent would give a running commentary of my bomber's flight towards London complete with engine sounds. This continued each time Jock's back was turned and stop abruptly when he turned to face us. This continued with additional commentary from Robert "Looney" Millar, Alan Mathieson and Arthur Kerr providing voices from bomber command, AA crews and spitfire pilots accompanied with special sound effects of gunfire, aeroplane engines, bombs falling and explosions. Of course each time he turned round to see who was making all the noise, we four would sit at the back of the classroom, stoneyfaced as if butter wouldn't melt on our mouths.
In the end he tumbled that it was us four because the rest of the class was in fits laughing while we sat quiet as mice trying to look innocent. How cruel we kids could be to our teachers.
The classroom next to Jock's was that of another maths teacher, Tommy McNaught.
I think this was the very first class I attended at the school. Assembled in the classroom, waiting for the teacher's entrance, I stood up on a seat and repeated what I thought was a really funny quip I had heard from someone earlier
"What's the definition of a scottish zero?" I asked of the expectant class.
"A McNaught!" I cried, just as he walked into the room.
"Sit down son," he said. "I've heard it before."
What a first impression to make.
Tommy was okay as a teacher but despite his efforts he could never really explain to me the meaning of mathematics and what it could be used for in the real world.
I can't remember who the maths teacher was in number 3, possibly it was a Mrs Tweedie but I never had her for maths.
Mrs Stark was the incumbent in classroom 4. We only had her for RI (religious instruction) and occasionally history if one of the other teachers was absent. As mentioned earlier it was she who got me interested in the cultural revolution and told me how to get Chairman Mao's little red book from the chinese embassy.
Mrs Stark was married to Mr Stark (surprisingly!), one of our art teachers. There were quite a number of married couples working at the school which is probably not surprising considering that it was the only secondary school in a large catchment area. Remember that Dunblane at that time was a part of Perthshire and had no high school of its own. Some of our classmates lived so far away that they stayed in a hostel in Callander during the week and only went home at the weekends. We had pupils at Callander from Braco, Kinbuck and Dunblane. From Doune and Deanston, Aberfoyle, Tyndrum, Killin, Lochearnhead and all points in between.
Next door to Mrs Stark was Miss Henly (? Spelling ) otherwise known to us as "The Wee Hen". She taught us history. Now, I love the subject but, apart from local history involving Stirling and the surrounding area where we had the battlefields of Stirling Bridge, Bannockburn, a wee very local skirmish at Sheriffmuir and Stirling Castle itself, I found it all a bit on the tedious side. A stream of dates to remember and very boring facts about which king or his 2nd cousin first removed married which lord........well that left me cold. Now wars or conquests from the Romans on.....that was history.
Suffice to say "The Wee Hen" soon cottoned on to the fact that kings and queens interested me not and, on occasion when she found me inattentive, she made me stay in over the break and write 100 lines.
That was the kind of punishment I hated. The kind that encroached on my free time. I remember on one occasion when I was caught smoking by one of the prefects, one whose name I do not remember but one who certainly came from the northern side of the Highland Boundary Fault Line.
Reporting to the rector's office, I was duly admonished, along with several other miscreants, and ordered to write an essay on the dangers of smoking. Oh, I would much rather have the belt. Six strokes on each hand and that was quickly over and done with. That was a better punishment in my eyes.
I wrote the essay while on the way home on the school bus. When I got home I presented my literary work to my mother for her signature,
"Who caught you?" she asked.
"One of the prefects," I said.
" Hmmph," she snorted, "What's wrong with him? Doesn't he smoke?"
But, to return to the subject, I am sure that "The Wee Hen" was an excellent teacher, as were probably the most of them at Callander. Almost certainly the negative element of my pupil/teacher relationship at McLaren High was usually yours truly.
Classroom number 6. This I believe was the lair of the curly, dark haired species of the teaching profession known to us as "Dan Dare", named after the interplanetary hero of the comic weekly, the Eagle. I never once had him as my teacher and am not sure of his real name although the surname MacMillan seems to ring a bell.
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| Dan Dare and his arch-enemy Mekon. Another ripping yarn! |
Next door to Dan Dare was another whose real name eludes me....our latin teacher, "Scratchy." I won't go into detail here of how and why he was reputed to have earned his nickname, only that I do not have a clue, only suspicions.
"Amo, amas, amat, amamus, amatis, amant," was the first latin we learnt: the verb "to love" conjugated in the language of Imperial Rome. It was a fascinating subject especially as we also learned a little of life in those ancient times.
We now turn around and go back along the corridor towards Jock Smith's. On our left hand side are the classrooms, on the right a row of windows looking out towards Callander Crags, a ridge to the north/northeast of the town rising to a height of 343 m (1125 ft). That was one thing our school was blessed with, lovely views in all directions, especially to the west toward Ben Ledi. The mountain decked in hues of brown and green through the mild months of spring, summer and autumn and the dazzling white of sunshine on snow in the winter.
Ledi was also the name of my 'house' while attending my earlier school, Dunblane Primary. Each Dunblane 'house' was named after local mountains, ie: Ledi which was green, Lomond red, Venue blue and Vorlich yellow. These were the colours we wore when representing our 'house' at sport. At Callander the 'houses' were named after local lochs: Katrine, Vennacher, Achray and Lubnaig but served the same purpose of engendering a sense of competetiveness between the different groups. However, back to school.....
Now we come to the end of the corrider and go through the double doors to the stairway. If we go downstairs we come to the boys' cloakroom and the doors leading into the technical and woodworking wing of the school but instead, we climb the stairs to the second floor and find ourselves outside the door to room number 8.
Room numbers 8,9 and 10 were the english classes and the first of these housed "Shylock". I think his name was Thompson but I am not certain. Maybe one of my readers can put me right. I do not know how his nickname originated but he sported bushy sideburns which gave him the appearance of one of those characters who appeared on television adaptations of Dickens' novels. Could that be the reason or was there a more Shakespearean origin relating to his english teaching?
He was one of my favourite teachers and English one of my favourite subjects.
Further along the corrider was another english teacher, "Sammy" Connell who was married to one of our science teachers. (?)
"Sally" Gordon was a language teacher in number 11. She lived in Dargai Terrace in Dunblane and when I went to Ewen MacMillan's house in the same street, I would creep quietly past her bungalow because if she saw you then you were in for a talk on school or schoolwork. She sometimes travelled on our schoolbus and that set a damper on things because we had to keep the noise level down. I caught the bus at Springfield Terrace, at the bottom of the lane from Jean's shop.
As it came round the bend I could see if Sally was on the bus or not as she always sat at the front. If I didn't see her then I could risk another couple of puffs on my cigarette before boarding!
I sat at the back of the bus and it was not infrequent that I finished my homework on the way to Callander. What the teachers thought of my handwriting on these occasions, goodness knows. One morning however, I was summoned to the rector's office. Already there were my companions from the back of the bus. Mr Cowan gave us a real roasting. Some of the bus seats had been vandalized and we were all sent to clean up the bus which was parked outside the railway station.
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| A typical schoolbus of the time |
I was absolutely livid as I knew nothing of the crime but, guilty by association and a member of the "back of the bus crowd", I joined the others as we traipsed from the school to the station. There was indeed some damage to some of the seats but, more apparent was the grafitti written with ink marker on the seats. Nearly all football related scribblings. I won't name the others who accompanied me that day but my suspicions fell mainly on one person. After all, we only had one Kilmarnock supporter at the school!
Other teachers I can name were "Jock" Dunn and his wife, both of whom taught geography. Mrs Stark's husband taught art and in the science department I remember Mr Alexander who was my physics teacher and Mr Gibb who taught both physics and chemistry.
I believe Mr Gibb came from Glasgow and I know he came to us from a school in Drumchapel. He told us the story of the time at that school when he was trying to explain to a class the workings of a telephone and asked if anyone could get hold of a telephone receiver. The next day almost all the pupils turned up with one. The result of his request was that there wasn't a single callbox working in Drumchapel that day, they were all missing receivers!
He had a good sense of humour and was popular with our class. On one occasion he remarked that we were one short and asked who was missing.
"Gordon Bounds," I said.
"Does he?" said Gibb.
He wasn't fully adverse to demonstrating his throwing skills either. On entering the classroom one time he heard John Corriere swearing like a dock worker and flung a blackboard duster with unerring accuracy at the guilty party's head. Game, set and match to Mr Gibb.
One day in his class we discovered on his desk, a deer's heart and lungs which were attached to some vacuum-cleaner contraption, obviously for the benefit of a previous biology class. Ewan Simpson asked for a demonstration and Mr Gibb duly turned the thing on. The lungs ballooned as they filled with air and at the same time Ewan's face turned a ghastly shade of green. I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't seen it for myself.
Another teacher I liked was our music teacher, but for the life of me I can't remember his name. We would bring records in to school and he would analyse and comment on the music, anything from Led Zeppelin to Cliff Richard. It was he who got me interested in classical music, starting with Mendelssohn's Hebrides Overture. He also explained the story of Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture and played us a version by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra with an unusal addition to it. In the finale of the overture, to simulate cannonfire outside Moscow, they used real American Civil War cannons located on some university campus. On the recording you could clearly hear some student whistling "Dixie"
as the cannons fired!
Other teachers I remember were Davie McAinsh for PT, Mr Alexander for science and was it Miss McKay for french, or am I confusing her with my primary 5 teacher at Dunblane? In any event, her class in French was one of my favourites.
The technical wing of the school was another kettle of fish for me, however. Here I encountered "Wee Eck."
For some reason he seemed to have a "downer" on me and absolutely nothing I did was satisfactory in his eyes. For the love of me I never understood what I had done to deserve his disapprovement.
In his technical drawing class he repeatedly threw my work out, quoting reasons such as the width of a pencil line was wrong even though it was no different from anyone else's. When writing capital letters, they had to fit into the dimensions of a square box with, for example, upright strokes absolutely vertical. Whatever my best effort it was guaranteed to be binned. Then, in woodwork class, he was dissatisfied with my "planing" of a piece of wood and make me start over with another. The others in my class went on to make stools and table lamps but all I did for a whole term was plane one bloody piece of wood after another. Completely disallusioned, in the end I simply gave up on the all things technical.
Since then I have heard so many people he taught praise him to the rafters but for me the man was a pestilence.
After two years at McLaren we had to make a choice of subjects to study in our 3rd year eg: either history or geography, german or science and so on
Liking languages I pondered taking german but when Tommy McClymont told me that he would be the only other boy in the class, I chose science instead.
I cannot believe now that I did not study german because I did not want to be surrounded by a class full of girls!
I've mentioned some of our teachers' nicknames but, of course, many of our friends and classmates were also similarly dubbed. Many nicknames ended simply in "y" or "ie" as in Gordon Boyd became "Boydy" (pronounced Bidey), John Reich was "Reekie", Gordon Smith "Smithy", Billy Ellison "Elly" and so on.
Duncan Strathdee was "Strathers", Robert Miller "Looney" and Roy McGregor "Yashin" after the famous Russian goalkeeper.
Then of course were the names pertaining to something physical.
Ewan Simpson, one of my best pals, was called "Silly." I always thought this was because he loved to do daft things but Gordon Smith told me it was because Ewan's ears stuck out and someone referred to them as cymbals, hence "Silly Cymbals" and eventually just "Silly".
Ewen MacMillan was not that tall and that earned him the unfortunate nickname "Shorty" but was never meant in an unkind way.
"Big George" was how we referred to George Bundy as he was a wee bit overweight, but never directly to his face.
At Callander one set of nicknames had to be both the worst and most cruel.
Three members of one family were known as "Boar", "Sow" and "Piglet."
Although they were referred to as such, I hope that no-one actually called them that directly as that would have been so unkind.
On a lighter note a nickname I have never forgotten was that of a classmate, Rosemary Bell. She was known as "Calzie" as she lived on a farm with the magnificent name of Calziebohalzie north of Argaty.
It is strange the part nostalgia plays on our memories, especially of childhood and schooldays. We see things through rose-tinted spectacles and cherry-pick the most notable and/or pleasurable experiences from our reminiscences whilst glossing over the more unpleasant.
Although I experienced my high-school days as frustrating and sometimes pointless, the moment I left that controlled, compulsory environment I began to enjoy learning for my own sake and throughout my adult years have studied subjects such as Italian, German and Danish, Art, Economics, History and Social Sciences, some at 'A' and college level.
I find it hard to believe that this person with a thirst for knowledge is the same as the one who did all his homework on the school bus to make sure he had his evenings free. It seems to show that the main thing I enjoyed about school was the social side and the friendships I made.
To all of you who were at McLaren in those days, I wish you all of the best and I hope that this wee article has been the spark to light a few memories for you.
Alan Magowan
Glostrup, København
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