AGS Magazine December 1964

THE

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Aberdeen Grammar School Magazine 81st year No. 195 (New Series 71styear No. 186) No. 1

DECEMBER 1964

Vol. LXVIII

The Magazine is published under the auspices of The Former Pupils' Club twice during the year, in December and June

The Magazine Committee Rector of the School

John Vass Skinner, M.A., B.urr.,

.

DIP. ED.

General Editor

.

. Rae C. Barton, M.A., LL.B.,

zo Belmont Street, Aberdeen

Editor of Notes, Obituary, and Marriages

Brian K. Crookshanks, M.A., LL.B., 12 Bon-Accord Square, Aberdeen.

Joint Editors of the f Alexander Tait, M.A. School Section . {Ronald Henson, M.A. Chairman of the F.P. . Alan C. R. Watt, M.A., LL.B. Club Executive Secretary of the F.P. Club J. Scott MacLachlan, M.A., LL.B., zzo Union Street, Aberdeen.

Advertisements

.

.

Frank C. Connon, M.A., LL.B., 58 Dee Street, Aberdeen.

Printed for The Former Pupils' Club at Press University The Aberdeen

•

CONTENTS General Section— A Message from the Rector .

Notes about Old Boys .

University Notes • • . .

• Obituaries .

Marriages . .

• . .

American Education .

Memories of 1899-1909 . . .

Work in Progress School Section— Office bearers . .

School and Random Notes . .

Staff Changes .

House Notes .

Societies' Notes . .

Lower School Notes . .

C.C.F. Notes .

Sporting Activities .

Scout Notes . .

Literary Section . .

F.P. Club Section— .

Office-bearers . . .

The Annual Dinner .

Gift from Malayan Members . .

Centre News . . .

Sports News . .

New Members .

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An asterisk after a name indicates that the F.P. is a member of the F.P. Club. Dates after a name indicate the years of attendance at the School.

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24 35 33 34 35 36 38 42 44 45 5o 53 61 63 66 66 67 70

A Message from the Rector The new session is well under way as I write and already the features which are likely to distinguish it from its predecessors are beginning to stand out.

For one thing there is the School roll. The population of the School, at a figure of 1,5 oo, is larger today than it has ever been in its long history. The Lower School has remained constant at about 46o—the last year, alas, that it is likely to maintain that level, unless there is a last minute stay of execution granted before the start of next session.

The increase is spread fairly evenly over the Senior School but is most striking at the top end of the School, where we now have over i 20 boys in the sixth year, including the unprecedentedly high figure of thirty-five in Upper VI. This is not entirely due to a rush of brains to the head—although I feel it would be only fair to list that as one of the contributory causes! The present sixth year is the notorious postwar "bulge" year about which so much has been said and written.

It is fortunate in view of this minor population explosion that such good progress has been made in recent months with the new building programme. At the start of the session we were given access to the four rooms of the new Technical block and to the new Music Department, which in addition to its three classrooms contains several small studios for instrumental lessons. The old Technical building was given something of a face-lift in the summer and now provides four classrooms for the use of the Modern Languages Department. At the start of November the School Chaplain, the Rev. W. D. Cattanach, presided at the first morning assembly to be held in the new School Hall and, although some work still remains to be done on the stage and the organ, the Hall is now being used daily for that purpose.

With the handing over of the Hall the programme of new, external building is complete and the last, and most delicate, stage of the project, that of making structural modifications to the main building, is upon us. These include the provision of a language laboratory, a new staffroom, various cloakrooms and internal toilets, and of course, the new School Library. It is unlikely that this programme of work will be completed before the start of next session.

To cope with the increase in the School roll there has, inevitably, been an increase in the size of the staff. At the start of this session the English, Geography, Chemistry and Modern Languages Departments each acquired an additional member of staff. Two newcomers joined the Physics staff, one a replacement for Mr. James Wilson, who left us last Easter, and the other in place of Mr. Clement Stewart, who has now transferred to the Mathematics Department. Additional assistance has also been provided for the Games and Technical Departments.

Further information about newcomers to the staff will be found elsewhere in the 14fagaine.

The Music Department has been less fortunate than others this term. The last-minute withdrawal of the candidate appointed to fill the vacancy caused by Mr. Cullen's departure has left it seriously understaffed since the start of the session but we are happy to report 3

Aberdeen Grammar School Magatine 4 that this situation will be remedied after Christmas. Meanwhile we would take this opportunity of expressing our warm thanks to Provost Shannon of St. Andrew's Cathedral for his kindness in helping, for several periods each week, with the teaching work of the Department.

The fortunes of the Classics Department perhaps call for special mention. Mr. Brown has now succeeded Mr. Lynch as Deputy Rector, his place as Principal Classics Master being taken by Mr. Ronald MacLeod. Mr. Galloway, another member of the Classics staff, has been seconded for the duration of this session to attend a full-time course of Russian studies at Glasgow which will give him a qualification to teach that language. We have been indeed fortunate in securing the services of Mrs. Good, one of our parents, who has two boys now in Middle School, to take over his duties this term.

It is a pleasure to report that no departures from the staff, other than those already known at the close of last session, have taken place in recent months. It is, however, worthy of mention that the farewell Dinner, which was to have been given in honour of Mr. Lynch last June but had to be cancelled owing to the typhoid outbreak, was duly held in the Station Hotel in September and was very well supported by present and former members of staff and their wives. A particularly pleasing feature of the occasion was the presence among the guests of Mr. Lynch's two sons with their wives and of his daughter, Mary, with her husband. Mr. Lynch was presented with a Rolex wristlet watch and a cheque.

Finally, one word more by way of postscript. By a happy coincidence, just as we go to press, we have received official confirmation that the School is to have the high honour of a visit early in December from Princess Alexandra. Although the immediate occasion for the visit is the official opening of the new buildings, we understand that it is Her Highness's express wish that formality be reduced to a minimum and that as much time as possible be left free for her to see boys at work in the new classrooms. This is the first time in the long history of the Grammar School, so far as we are aware, that the School has been graced with a visit from Royalty. The occasion promises to be a memorable one and we hope to report on it more fully in the next issue of the Magatine.

J. V. SKINNER Editorial Note Readers and contributors are asked to note the General Editor's address is now zo Belmont Street, Aberdeen. The next issue of the Magazine will be published in June '965 as usual and will include a full report of the opening of the new Hall by Princess Alexandra.

Copy for the June issue should be in the hands of the General Editor by the middle of May.

Honours and Awards Companion of the Bath (C.B.) Air-Commodore Leslie Deane Mayor* (1923-33), A.F.C., was made a Companion of the Bath (Military Division) in the Queen's Birthday Honours. He is at present at the Imperial Defence College, London, but is shortly to become Air Officer commanding 38 Group, R.A.F. Transport Command, and is promoted to the rank of Air Vice-Marshal from January 1965. After leaving School he studied at Aberdeen University before going to the R.A.F. College at Cranwell.

Among his recent service posts have been a tour of duty on the directing staff at Cranwell, command of the bombing school at Lindholme, Yorks, and, until the end of 1962, he was director of air staff briefing at the Air Ministry.

Member of the Order of the British Empire (M.B.E.) James Scott Gray Munro* (1922-28), T.D., B.L., J.P., advocate in Aberdeen, became a Member of the Order of the British Empire in the Birthday Honours List published last June. One of the leading Progressive members of Aberdeen Town Council, he is a deputy Lieutenant for the County and City of Aberdeen, and clerk to the Lieutenancy of Aberdeenshire. He has been an office-bearer of the British Red Cross Society in Aberdeenshire for many years, and is at present County secretary, as well as being secretary of the St. Andrew's Ambulance Association, Aberdeen Centre. During the 1939-45 War he served with the 4th Battalion, Gordon Highlanders, attaining the rank of Major. He is a Justice of the Peace for Aberdeen.

Doctor of Laws (LL.D.) Robert Daniel Lawrence* (1900-09), NI.A., M.D., F.R.C.P., has been honoured by Toronto University with an honorary Doctorate of Laws in recognition of his services in the study of diabetes and the care of diabetics, of whom he himself is one. From 1926 to 1947 he was consultant physician in charge of the diabetic department of King's College Hospital, London. * * * Ronald William Arthur (195 3-64) has commenced an apprenticeship with John Cook & Son Ltd., shipping agents, Aberdeen.

Norman Roderick Darroch Begg* (1951-59), M.A., LL.B., has taken up a post on the administrative staff of the University of East Anglia, and is resident in Norwich. *

5

6

Aberdeen Grammar School Magatine

Alexander Bryan Broomfield (1945-55) and his brother William McIntyre Broomfield (1945-54) were both recently admitted by Aberdeen Town Council as Burgesses of Guild.

William Gillespie Gilbert Bruce* (5929-34), head of the School of Pharmacy at Natal Technical College, Durban, has been awarded the degree of M.Sc., at the University of Potchefstroom for his research on the constituents of aloe. A former student of Robert Gordon's Technical College, he served his apprenticeship with the well-known Aberdeen firm of Davidson & Kay. He emigrated to South Africa in 1948.

Neil Keith Buxton* (1948-58), M.A. has been appointed assistant lecturer in economic history at Hull University, and took up his new post in October.

John Rust Buchanan* (5925-36) has been appointed managing director of the Aberdeen licensed grocery firm of Andrew Collie & Co. Ltd. He has been with Collie's for twenty years, and is carrying on a family tradition, his father having been principal of the firm for forty years.

Ernest Cohen* (1949-62) is now living in London, where he is in the office of the Caledonian Insurance Company.

Robin Finlayson Cook* (1950-60) is studying English literature at Edinburgh University. After leaving Aberdeen he attended the Royal High School during 1960-64, and in his final year he was president of the Literary and Debating Society and president of the Edinburgh Schools' Citizenship Association. His father, Peter Cook* (Staff 5947-60), has been rector of Kirkcudbright Academy since last January.

William Ian Cranston* (1936-38), M.D., M.R.C.P., has been appointed to the chair of Medicine at St. Thomas's Hospital Medical School, London. He graduated with honours at Aberdeen in 1949, and after a number of other posts he became assistant at the Medical Unit, St. Mary's Hospital, London. Latterly he has been first assistant to the Regius Professor of Medicine at Radcliffe Infirmary, Oxford.

Robert James Downie* (5949-52), who held an appointment with Aberdeen Corporation Children's Department for the last few years, has resigned from that post to take a two year course in social work at the Scottish College of Commerce in Glasgow.

John Michael Eddison* (1939-48), B.SC.(Eng.), A.M.I.STRUCT.E., A.M.A.ST.E., returned to this country from Tehran at the end of 1962, after three years in a post there. He is now in the London office of Messrs. Scott & Wilson, Kirkpatrick & Partners, consulting civil and structural engineers, and is mainly engaged on the design of overseas airports. He has also been concerned in the development of one of the Trucial Coast oil sheikdoms in the Persian Gulf. His holiday this year was spent in Tokio during the Olympic Games, which he describes as having been a wonderful experience.

Alexander Gordon Esslemont* (5908-2o) has completed forty years with the H. J. Heinz Company. In 1924 he joined the company's Glasgow Office, of which he became manager two years later. In 5927 he was transferred to the head office as personal assistant to the then

Notes about Old Boys

7 managing director. In 1946 he became secretary of the company, a position which he still holds, and in the following year he joined the board of directors. He is honorary treasurer of the Middlesex Association of Boys' Clubs, and a member (and former president) of Harrow and District Caledonian Society. He is also a director of the family business, John E. Esslemont & Co. Ltd. of Aberdeen.

George Gorrod* (x 924-28) has been elected Master of Trades Hospital of the Seven Incorporated Trades of Aberdeen. After serving his apprenticeship as a cooper he joined his father and uncle in the family business of George Gorrod & Sons, general coopers, Aberdeen.

He succeeded to the business on the death of his father, and it is now a limited company. Shortly after the last War he held office in his own trade, the Wrights' and Coopers' Incorporation.

Bertie James Grant (1911-17), M.A., retired at the end of last session after thirty-eight years on the staff of Aberdeen Academy.

He joined the staff as an assistant teacher of classics in 1926, became head of the classical department in 1943, and from 1944 until 1962 was in addition deputy rector of the school.

John Peter Grant* (1936), T.D., after studying at Oxford University and serving as a curate at Chichester, is shortly to be inducted as rector at Titsworth, Oxford. His younger brother, Robert Malcolm Grant* (1941-42), is now governing director of Houlton & Grant (Hull) Ltd., a firm of building contractors in Hull.

P.P. IN MALAYAN RUGBY

Brian Scott Gray* (1943-49), B.sc., who is F.P. Club Consul in Malaya was home on leave earlier this year, and the opportunity was taken to bring his personal history up-to-date in the Club records.

After graduating from Aberdeen University in 1953, he took his diploma in agricultural science at Cambridge in 1954. Later that year he joined Messrs. Harrisons & Crosfield (Malaya) as a research officer, and is now a senior research officer at their Oil Palm Research Station at Banting, Selangor, Malaya. His duties have taken him all over the Far East and to several parts of Africa. A former member of the School XV, he represented Selangor State at rugby during 1955-61, and in the latter year he played for North Malaya.

John William Reid Gray (1931-45), M.A., LL.B., who was a resident magistrate in Uganda with the Colonial (Overseas) Legal Service from 1954 to 1962, has recently taken up an appointment as lecturer in Scots law at St. Andrews University, where he is also Subwarden of Belmont Hall. Called to the bar in 1954, he was for a short time after his return to this country a depute Procurator-Fiscal in Glasgow.

Patrick John Green (1894-97), M.A., B.A.(OX011)., M.A.(OX0D.), celebrated the sixtieth anniversary of his ordination as a minister in September. He was originally ordained in the Presbyterian Church of England, but later became a minister of the Church of Scotland.

After seven years in his first charge, at Woodford Green, London, he was called in 1911 to Bedlington, Northumberland, and in 1919 to

8

Aberdeen Grammar School Magatine

Stoneywood Parish Church, Aberdeenshire, where he ministered until his retiral in 1949. He lives in Aberdeen.

John Silvester Horne (1935-45) is now an architect in private practice in London. He lives at Hampstead.

Ian Patrick Strain Jack* (1948-5 1„ 1 A.I.B.(Scot.), emigrated to Canada last April, and is now employed as a computer programmer in the Computer Development Group of the Bank of Nova Scotia, at Toronto.

James Grant Kellas (1940-54), M.A., PH.D., who has been assistant lecturer in history at Aberdeen University for the last two years, has recently taken up a new appointment as lecturer in politics at Glasgow University. After graduating at Aberdeen with first class honours in history and politics he was awarded his doctorate from London University for a thesis on "The Liberal Party in Scotland, 1894-95". He is a Tutorial Fellow of Bedford College, London University.

David Kinghorn* (1944-49) has been appointed a lecturer at the Scott Sutherland School of Architecture, Aberdeen.

Philip Noel Love* (1952-58), M.A., LL.B., has been admitted to membership of the Society of Advocates in Aberdeen. He is in practice in Aberdeen along with Frank Clark Connon* (1932-44), M.A., LL.B.

Lawrence Lawson McAllister* (1959), son of Aberdeen County Treasurer, has received one of the premier awards of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in Scotland. He is the 1964 winner of the Institute's prize for the most meritorious performance in Part V of the examinations with, in addition, distinction for a meritorious performance in Parts IV and V. James Wyness MacGregor* (191o-23), for many years Town Engineer of Umtali, Southern Rhodesia, was recently installed as Mayor of the town for 1964-65. In recent years he has been an officer of Rotary International, his appointments including that of Information and Extension Counsellor for Africa south of the Equator. In addition he is president of the Manicaland Province of the Boy Scouts' Association, and national executive member of the Automobile Association of Rhodesia. He has been F.P. Club Consul for Rhodesia for the past thirty years. Present at the recent installation ceremony was another F.P., Ernest Duncan Brown* (1913-17), formerly Chief Engineer for the British Motor Corporation, on whose behalf he surveyed the Rhodesian market in 1959. An assembly plant was completed as a result in the following year, and he now manages all the Corporation's operations in Central Africa.

Spence McLeod* (1949-55) is now a sergeant with the Special Investigation Branch of the Royal Military Police. He has recently been posted to Malacca, where he will be attached to the 28th (Commonwealth) Brigade. He joined the army after leaving School, serving first with the Lancashire Regiment, and later in the Royal Army Education Corps. He was for a time an instructor at the Army Apprentices School at Chepstow, South Wales. He was demobilised in 1958, but after a year of civilian life he joined the Military Police in

Notes about Old Boys

9 1959. Most of his service since then has been in West Germany, with spells of duty in Denmark, Holland, Belgium, France and in Berlin.

Ronald Lee MacKinnon* (1932-45), B.L., has been appointed secretary of the South Aberdeen Constituency Liberal Association.

He contested unsuccessfully the vacancy in Ruthrieston Ward at the municipal election last May. He is in legal practice in Aberdeen, in partnership with Alexander Campbell Brands* (1925-27), M.A., LL.B., and is secretary of the University Alumnus Association.

BROTHERS IN PARLIAMENT

John Mackie (1924-26), who has been Labour Member of Parliament for Enfield East for several years, was re-elected at the recent General Election, and has been appointed Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Minister of Agriculture. He has been joined in the House by his brother George Yule Mackie (1933-35) who captured Caithness & Sutherland for the Liberals.

Arthur William Alexander Main* (1939-45), M.A., B.D., was recently inducted to St. David's Memorial Church, Kirkintilloch. He had been minister of Douglas and Angus Church, Dundee, since 1955.

Alistair James Macdonald Miller* (1942-5 ), M.A., was recently admitted a Member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Scotland. He is presently working with the firm of Cooper Brothers & Co., Chartered Accountants, London.

Andrew Milne* (1903-09), M.A., formerly head of the School's classical department and now living in retirement in East London, South Africa, has been in correspondence with Garnet Robertson Fraser* (1907-08). He enjoys his new surroundings but has nostalgic longings for the hills of Scotland, and particularly for the "magic West" around Kyle: indeed this exchange of letters was sparked off by an order from Mr. Milne for a copy of Duncan Macpherson's recently published "Mere 1 Belong which Mr. Fraser's firm was handling.

Mr. Milne was a schoolmate of two of the seven Fraser brothers— Archie (died 1926) and George (died 1929).

Harold Samuel Milne* (1923-26), B.sc.(Eng.), has recently retired as deputy divisional manager at Aberdeen of the Central and Northern Division of the Scottish Gas Board. After graduating at Aberdeen University he served with various gas companies and local authorities, and had experience in the erection and operation of vertical retort installations at Aberdeen, Edinburgh and in Denmark. In 2938 he returned to Aberdeen to succeed his father as gas engineer. In 1949 he was appointed divisional gas controller for Aberdeen and the North under the newly formed Gas Board. In 1958 he became divisional general manager for Aberdeen, and two years later took up the appointment from which he has now retired.

James Alexander Milne Moir* (1929-33) is now a priest in the Anglican Church of Canada, having been resident there since 1946.

He lives at Aldergrove, British Columbia, and has the charge of three small country parishes in the Fraser Valley. He mentions that church life differs very much from that of Scotland; there is a wide variety of

10

Aberdeen Grammar School Magatine

languages and religions among the many peoples who have settled in the Valley, with in addition the bewildering variety of North American sects. The "Old Country" element is very often in the minority.

Frederick David Morgan* (1927-33) is now manager of the Clydesdale Bank Ltd. at Dingwall. He was previously in Forres.

John Mortimer* (1923-27), who gave up active cricket two years ago, has retired after seventeen years as honorary secretary of Aberdeenshire Cricket Club. In his long connection with the game he has not only played for Scotland on many occasions, but has also held office as president of both the Scottish Counties Cricket Association and the Northern District Cricket Association.

Frederick Peter Morton* (1882-94) has been engaged in designing and executing a memorial slab to mark the site of Tyburn Tree, near Marble Arch, London. He is still actively interested in the furtherance of education, being a member of the boards of governors of Hammersmith College of Art and the London College of Furniture.

FOUR GENERATIONS' SCHOOL CONNECTION

Gavin George Pope* (1948-60), having gained diplomas in agriculture and dairying from the North of Scotland College of Agriculture, sailed in September to take up an appointment with the Ministry of Agriculture in Tanganyika, as regional officer for the Arusha and Moshi regions. His brother Samuel William Pope* (1949-62) is in the Aberdeen office of the Caledonian Insurance Company. Their father, John Wilson Pope* (1910-24) has for many years been a civil engineer on the staff of the City Engineer, Aberdeen.

The family connection with the School goes back to their greatgrandfather, Samuel Pope, art and writing master in the School from 1867 to 1912, whose five sons all attended the School—Samuel (1876-87), David (1881-88), William (1881-9o), John* (1885-96), and Herbert (1890-19oz). John is now the only survivor of this group, and lives in retirement in Edinburgh.

Douglas Reith* (1924-35), Q.C., has been appointed a full-time deputy commissioner for the purposes of the National Insurance Acts.

Charles Duncan Rice* (1949-60), M.A., is studying for a doctorate of philosophy in the department of Commonwealth and American History at Edinburgh University.

George Barclay Rickart* (1923-30), A.C.I.I., has been appointed secretary-manager of the Vancouver Insurance Agents' Association and the Insurance Agents' Association of British Columbia. He is immediate past president of the former group. He joined the Phoenix Insurance Company in Aberdeen in 1931, and was a senior inspector with that company when in 1951 he became branch manager in Vancouver for Balfour Guthrie Ltd. In 1960 the business was merged with H. A. Roberts Insurance Agencies Ltd. of which Mr. Rickart has been a member until his recent appointment.

Herbert Ritchie* (1905-16), I.B., cH.B., has retired from general medical practice in Long Eaton, Nottingham, and is now living at Cowes, Isle of Wight.

Notes about Old Boys SANDHURST CADETS

James Alexander Ross* (1950-5z: 1957-62) and George Henry Dugan Somerville* (1949-64) entered Sandhurst Military Academy as officer cadets in September. Ross has been a student at Welbeck College since leaving School.

George Brown Cameron Sangster* (1928-37), D.S.C., M.A., B.D., has recently been inducted to the charge of Murrayfield Parish Church, Edinburgh. During the war years he had a distinguished record of service with the Fleet Air Arm. Since 1953 he has been minister of Queen's Cross Church, Aberdeen.

Robert Chaston Scace* (1954-6o), B.sc., who graduated with first class honours in geography from Aberdeen University last July has taken up an appointment with the department of geography in the University of Alberta, Calgary, Canada.

Robert Arthur Smart* (1919-31), C.B.E., has been promoted to the rank of Brigadier and is now Director of Army Health at the Ministry of Defence, London.

David Pringle Smith* (1 945-47), who is in South America with the Liverpool & London & Globe Insurance Company, has been transferred from Bogota to Cali. He describes this as being much nearer the Equator and at a lower altitude than his last post, so that he feels he is now really living in the tropics. He was elected to a fellowship of the Chartered Insurance Institute in 1963.

Francis Taylor Smith (1938-51), M.A., minister of Aberlour Parish Church for the past six years, has recently been inducted to St. Paul's Church, Dunfermline. He was previously assistant at Govan Old Parish Church. He was a founder member of the Spey Valley Choir, and for the last two years has been its president.

Martin Edward Smith (1952-S4), who left Aberdeen for Bournemouth, has just completed his education at Queen Elizabeth Grammar School, Wimborne, Dorset. In March he flew out to Hong Kong to join the Trident Tanker Company Ltd. as an officer cadet. He is at present plying Far Eastern waters on board the s.s. Mantua.

James ("Hamish") Christian Spark* (1918-21), F.T.w.m., M.I.MECH.E., M.I.LOC.E., has been appointed to take charge of the British Railways Works at Crewe. He was formerly Works Manager of the Loco Carriage & Wagon Departments at Doncaster. While there he was an enthusiastic member of the Yorkshire Centre of the F.P. Club, of which he was president last year.

John Redford Stevenson* (1913-19) retired in 1963 after fortythree years in the service of the Canadian Chartered Bank, twenty-six of them as a branch manager. He visited Aberdeen earlier this year in the course of a holiday in Europe. He is living now in Toronto.

George Noble Summers* (1927-39), M.B., cH.B., has recently joined a partnership in general medical practice near Chesterfield, Derbyshire.

Andrew Frost Taylor* (1929-35), until recently manager in Aberdeen of the Motor Union Insurance Company, has been appointed manager there of the Royal Exchange Group of five insurance companies.

Aberdeen Grammar Scbool Magatine Sir (Arthur) Landsborough Thomson* (1899-1908), c.B., D.sc., LL.D., has been appointed a Trustee of the British Museum (Natural History), established as a separate institution with its own governing body by the British Museum Act, 1963. He is also the editor of A New Dictionary of Birds, published this autumn as a centenary enterprise of the British Ornithologists' Union, of which Sir Landsborough is a Past President. This is an encyclopaedic work of reference which has taken seven years to prepare, and includes articles contributed by 172 specialists in all parts of the world, together with colour plates, photographs and text-figures. He has presented a copy to the School Library.

Gerald Kilvington Townshend* (1941-45), B.sc., has returned to this country recently, and is now in Newcastle at the headquarters of Messrs. Procter & Gamble. He has been with this firm for over fifteen years, and since 1959 has held posts in Geneva, the United States, and Belgium; his most recent appointment was at the Common Market headquarters in Brussels, where he was responsible for all research and development on packaging.

Arthur David Troup* (1919-22), M.B.E., M.A., LL.B., was installed recently as an honorary Sheriff-substitute at Peterhead. He is in practice as a solicitor in Peterhead, and has for many years taken an active interest in the work of the Law Society of Scotland, being a member of the Council of the Society.

Cyril George Walker* (194-22), M.D., after thirty-one years in general medical practice in Oxted, Surrey, has retired, and is living at Bexhill-on-Sea, Sussex.

George Innes Walker (1943-48) has been appointed technical representative for Fisons Ltd. in South Aberdeenshire and North Kincardineshire. A graduate of the North of Scotland College of Agriculture, he has recently returned from Zanzibar, where he was an agricultural development officer with the Colonial Service on the Kizimbani Experimental Station. In this capacity he was concerned with the investigation and introduction of fertiliser and spray chemical techniques in relation to advanced crop and livestock development.

Roy Wares* (1947-52), B.sc., has been appointed an assistant geologist by the Ontario Department of Mines at Timmins, Northern Ontario.

John George Moncur Watt (1934-39), M.A., has been appointed by the Scottish Marriage Guidance Council as its first full-time organiser and training officer in charge of the training of Scotland's marriage counsellors and educational officers. He will be responsible for extending and developing the Council's work in Scotland. He has been minister of Pollokshields East Church, Glasgow since 1954, and is chaplain to the Victoria Infirmary. He has been closely associated with the Telephone Samaritans and has acted as honorary secretary of the Church of Scotland Commission on Adult Christian Education.

James Reid Wight* (1949-33), M.A., ED.B., who has been teaching at Robert Gordon's College for the past three years, has recently taken up a post as assistant English master at Kirkcaldy High School. A keen F.P. hockey player, with two international "caps" to his credit, he hopes to be able to play with the Kirkcaldy Club.

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University Notes

13

Francis Fowlie Andrew Wilkie* (1921-24) has recently retired from Ceylon, where he has been an engineer on tea and rubber plantations for thirty years. He has taken up residence at Bieldside.

Douglas Mitchell Wood* (1918-29) was on leave in this country during the last few months, but has now returned to Africa for a further two years. After training with the former North of Scotland Bank, he joined Barclays Bank (Dominion, Colonial and Overseas) in 1935, since when all his service has been in East and West Africa. He is at present manager of one of the Bank's branches in Nairobi. While stationed in Jinja in 1962 he had the exciting experience of occupying a bank house overlooking the spot where the Nile rises from Lake Victoria.

University Notes At the Summer Graduation in the University of Aberdeen on 9 and so July 1964, degrees were conferred on the following F.P.s:

Honours and Ordinary Degrees DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS (ILA.) (s) With First Class Honours Rice, Charles Duncan (1949-6o)* in History.

Scace, Robert Chaston (1954-60)* in Geography.

Wright, John David Maitland (1946-38) in Mathematics. (z) With Second Class honours Gallic, Roger Douglas (1952-60) in Mental Philosophy.

Robb, George Alan (1946-6o) in History.

Lobban, James George (1934-6o)* in Music.

Hampton, Alexander William Matthew (1943-39)* in Psychology.

Main, Alexander Norman (1954-6o)* in Psychology.

(3) Ordinary Degree Coutts, Findlay Macrury (194B-61).* MacRitchie, Murray (1947-6o).

Stouter, Ian Patrick (1947-60.* DEGREE OF BACHELOR OF EDUCATION (ems) With Second Class Honours Wight, James Reid, M.A. (1949-55).

DEGREE OF BACHELOR OF LAWS (LL.B.) (s) With Commendation Wilson, Gavin Bruce, M.A. (1945-59)* (a) Ordinary Degree Begg, Norman Roderick Darroch, M.A. 931-39).* Gauld, Malcolm William Robertson (1947-61).* DEGREE OF BACHELOR OF SCIENCE (B.SC.) (i) With First Class Honours Barron, Hugh Wilson Taylor (1953-6o)* in Natural Philosophy.

McKenzie, Donald Seaton (1949-6o)* in Natural Philosophy.

Munro, Hamish David (1934-6o)* in Chemistry.

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(2) With Second Class Ilonours Thomson, Ian (1953-56)* in Natural Philosophy.

Allan, Eric Robert (I949-60)* in Chemistry.

Smith, Ronald Ian Lewis (1947-6o)* in Botany.

Allan, William Craig (1954-6o)* in Geology.

Gibson, Donald Mathieson (1954-6o)* in Biochemistry.

Marwick, David Corrigall (1947-60) in Biochemistry.

(3) With Third Class Honours Clark, John Stewart Borthwick (1956-60) in Natural Philosophy.

(4) Ordinary Degree Gorrod, Kenneth Michael (1947-61). * Plowman, Michael (2949-60).* Slessor, William Ross (1946-50-* Wyllie, Andrew David Hamilton (1947-60).

DEGREE OF BACHELOR OF DIVINITY (8.D.) Ordinary Degree Duncan, Neil Alexander, M.A. (1944-57).

DEGREE OF BACHELOR OF SCIENCE IN FORESTRY (B.SC. FOR.) With Second Class Honours Youngson, Richard Windsor (I947-60)*.

DEGREE OF BACHELOR OF SCIENCE IN ENGINEERING (B.SC. ENG.) With Third Class Honours Edward, Meldrum Barclay (1946-6o)* in Civil Engineering.

Kemp, William Charles (1953-59)* in Electrical Engineering.

DEGREES OF BACHELOR OF MEDICINE AND BACHELOR OF SURGERY (M.B., CH.B.) Ordinary Degrees Ewen, Stanley William Barclay (1 944-57).

Furnival, Colin Mitchell (1953-58).* Galloway, David Brian (1944-58).* Houghton, Thomas (1952-58).

Irvin, Thomas Thobum (1945 -5 7).* McIntosh, Colin Stephen (1952-58).

Matheson, Alasdair Burnett (I952-58).* Milne, Alan Ducat (1950-58).* Ogg, Thomas Winchester (1952-58).* Pollock, John Gordon (1946-53)•* Robertson, Stuart Forrest (I947-58).* Walker, Michael Grant (1946-57).* Young, Alistair Cushnie (1953-58).

Apart from the foregoing academic successes, F.P.s currently at University are prominent in other fields. President of the Students' Representative Council is Ian Vaughan while other F.P. members of the Council arc Michael A. Pratt, Graham Caic and Sandy Mathieson; President of the Union Management Committee is Ronald W. Grant who is assisted by Ivan C. F. Wisely, Francis Watt and Andrew Taylor; and this year's President of the Debater is Alex. M. Main, M.A. This is a most gratifying F.P. monopoly of the principal student bodies and our congratulations are due to these office-bearers.

In the spotting field it is also noteworthy that three F.P.s presently at university but playing for the F.P. Club gained rugby trials for the North. These were Gordon G. Milne, W. Alan Wilson and Robert Craig, who was also selected for NorthMidlands.

Obituary

z5

Obituary Robert Aitken (1897-1903), M.INST.C.E., died at Bedford on to January 1 964, aged seventy-seven. He served his apprenticeship as a civil engineer in the harbour office, Aberdeen, and thereafter was employed with the Port of London Authority, the Mersey Docks and Harbour Board, and the Ministry of Marine of the Greek Government. In 1922 he was appointed assistant resident engineer on the City and South London Railway Enlargement. In 1926 he became resident engineer on the Lincolnshire trunk road scheme and in 1927 he was appointed Deputy County Surveyor for Bedfordshire, a post which he held until his retiral in 1951. He continued to live in Bedford after he retired.

He was the last survivor of four F.P. brothers, the others being James (i882-87) who died in 1915: William (1882-87) who died in 1944: and John (1882-87) who died in 1952.

George Douglas Allan (1896-98) died at Milltimber on ; September 1964, aged eighty-two. He belonged to the Sauchen area and after leaving School he joined Messrs. Home & Mackinnon, stockbrokers in Aberdeen, as a clerk. In 1919 he commenced business on his own account by taking over the firm of James Black & Co., stockbrokers, Aberdeen. Ile continued in practice until 1960. Ile also farmed for some time at Pityot, Muchalls, and he had hotel interests in Aberdeen and Braemar.

Both his sons, who survive him, attended School—James George Allan (191925) and George Douglas Allan* (1919-50).

John James Hall Anderson* (191o-15), M.B., cti.B., died in Jersey on 23 September 1964, aged sixty-five. One of the two F.P. sons of the late Mr. George Anderson, official shorthand writer at Aberdeen Sheriff Court, he went from School to Aberdeen University. His studies were interrupted in 1917-18 by a period of war service, after which he returned to 'Varsity and graduated in medicine in 1921. He was for a short time in practice at Hulme End, Staffordshire, before going into general practice at Potton, Bedfordshire, where he remained until his retiral two or three years ago. He then went to live in Jersey.

His brother is George Forbes Mennie Anderson (1911-15).

William Stephen Angus (1898-1905), M.B., died in Aberdeen on 18 May 1964. He was a native of Strichen and after leaving School studied at Aberdeen University where he graduated in medicine in 1908. He went into general practice at Arbroath until the outbreak of War in 1914. He went to Salonika with the Aberdeen Field Ambulance and served throughout the War in the Balkans. During the second world war he was a medical officer at the Gordon Barracks, Bridge of Don. Between the wars he was resident medical officer in Egypt for an oil company and on retiral he returned to Aberdeen.

RETIRED ABERDEEN HEADMASTER

Robert Bain (1895-99),* M.A., F.E.I.S., died at Aberdeen on /2 June 1964, aged eighty-two. After graduating in Arts at Aberdeen in 1902 he taught at Old Cumnock Public School, Ayrshire, and later at Skene Square School, Aberdeen, before becoming an assistant master at the old Central School in 1905. In 1916 he was promoted second master at Walker Road School and in 192o returned to the Central School as master of teaching methods. In 1927 the new Torry Junior Secondary School was opened with Mr. Bain as its first headmaster and he remained there until his retiral in 1943. World War I interrupted his career with a period of service in the Royal Artillery and during the Second World War he served in the Royal Observer Corps. He was for a time secretary of the Aberdeen branch of the Educational Institute of Scotland.

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Alexander Alfred Bell (1899-1900), 3.r., died at Whitewell, Tyrie, Fraserburgh on 6 June 5964 aged eighty-one. On leaving School he went to Aberdeen University to study with a view to qualifying as a veterinary surgeon, and was enjoying a distinguished academic career when his father died suddenly. He returned home to take over the family farm and to succeed his father as auctioneer. From then until his death he was auctioneer at Fraserburgh, Turriff and Maud. In 1902 he was appointed to the Tyrie School Board and there started a remarkable career of over sixty years' public service. Soon after, he was elected to the Parish Council; then to Aberdeen County Council, to many of whose Committees he gave outstanding service, being chairman of the General Purposes Committee at the time of his death. I ie was also chairman of Deer District Council and Aberdeenshire Licensing Appeal Committee. His connection with the County Licensing Court dated from 1915 when he became a special constable, a position from which he was never discharged. He was an active member of the East Aberdeenshire Unionist Association and originally proposed the young Robert Boothby as parliamentary candidate.

He took a keen interest in the North-east branch of the Farmers' Union, was President of Fraserburgh Business Men's Club and Chairman of Peterhead Prison Board.

He was a lifelong member of Tyric Church of which he was an elder. In his younger day he was an enthusiastic rugby player and represented North-east Scotland against the South. He was picked for a Scottish team, although finally he was not called upon. A Press tribute at the time of his death stated: "In a phenomenal life he became almost a legend. He held records of service unique in Scotland and his death is a loss to the whole country."

John Ross Donald* (1913-24) died in a nursing home in Aberdeen on 1 September 1964, aged fifty-five. Almost all his life was spent in the Far East. In 1929 he was appointed to a rubber plantation in the Federated Malay States in the service of Messrs. Harrison & Crosfield Ltd. Until just before the outbreak of War in 1939 he held posts on various estates, and then returned to this country. Iie enlisted in the Gordon Highlanders and served with them in North Africa. He was later seconded to the Indian Army in commissioned rank and was in their Intelligence Corps until the end of hostilities. He then returned to Malaya, where he took over his own plantation at Kluang, Johore. He had planned to retire eventually to India, but ill-health forced him to return to this country early this year.

D.s.o., O.B.E., T.D., D.L., died at Aberdeen Godfrey Power Geddes* (1903-t on 27 June 1964 aged sixty-eight. He was the second son of the late James L. Geddes and his brother Alexander Marc Geddes* (1897-1903), Nr.D., lives in retirement in Aberdeen.

After leaving School Colonel Geddes studied at Aberdeen University graduating in Arts in 1915. Thereafter he had a distinguished war record serving with various battalions of the Gordon Highlanders. He was three times mentioned in dispatches and in 1917 was awarded the Distinguished Service Order following the Battle of Ypres. In the following year he was made a Chevalier of the Legion of Honour and was awarded the Croix de Guerre. After demobilisation he joined the staff of Culter Paper Mills Company in 1920 and four years later became secretary of the Company, later joining the board of directors. He retired in 1961.

Military affairs occupied a special place in Colonel Geddes's life. After the first world war he continued with the Gordon Highlanders T.A. and from 1932-36 he commanded the 5/7th Battalion. During the second world war he was Garrison Commander for Aberdeen and also acted as Sub-area Commander with the responsibility for preparing the defence of the North-cast of Scotland at the time when it seemed likely that Hitler would invade this country. He maintained a close liaison with the Navy, R.A.F. and Civil Defence and he had the task of co-ordinating the Home Guard into the defence scheme and training them in their operational duties.

In 1945 he was appointed Honorary Colonel of the 5/7th Cordons and from 1946 to 1958 was Honorary Colonel of the 5/6th Gordons. lie was for several years chairman of the County of Aberdeen Territorial Forces Association.

Obituary

17

DISTINGUISHED F. P. DOCTOR

Theodore Grant Gray* (1895-1901), C.M.G., M.B., CH.B., F.R.A.C.P., died at Wellington, New Zealand, on 8 September 1964 aged eighty. He graduated in medicine at Aberdeen in 1906 and then was appointed an assistant medical officer at Kingseat Mental Hospital, Ncwmachar. He remained there for only five years but frequently said in after life that that period influenced his career very greatly because of the modern lay-out of the hospital. In 1911, because of a ban then enforced in British mental hospitals preventing their junior medical officers from marrying, he emigrated to New Zealand where he rapidly gained distinction. He served with the New Zealand Medical Corps in 1916-18. In 192o he was appointed medical superintendent of Nelson Mental Hospital where he inaugurated the villa system which he had learned at Kingseat. In 1925 he became superintendent of Aucldand Mental Hospital.

In 1926 he was appointed deputy inspector-general of the Mental Hospitals Department. He became inspector-general in 1928 and some years later director-general.

In 1938 he was created C.M.G. in the New Year Honours and in 1946 he was made a Fellow of the Royal Australian Association of Psychologists and a Member of the Royal British Medico-Psychological Agwiation. He retired in the following year and became a consultant in Wellington. He served a president of the New Zealand branch of the British Medical Association.

Dr. Gray was the last survivor of the nine F.P. sons of the late Henry Gray, 5.p., merchant in Aberdeen.

Arthur Robert Horne* (1903-05) died at Jersey on 23 October 1964, aged seventy four. After leaving School he was for a time in his father's business of Messrs.

Horne & Co., wholesale merchants, Aberdeen, but in 1910 he joined Messrs.

Guthrie & Co., Ltd., East India merchants in Singapore. Two years later he opened a branch for the Company in Kiang in the Malay States and in 1916 he became manager. Ile was later a partner in the family business in Aberdeen but left in 1946 to go into business on his own account in Jersey.

Thomas Christie Inns (1895-97), M.B., CH.B., died at Newcastle-on-Tyne on 15 August 1964, aged eighty-four. He was the younger son of the late Rev. William and Mrs. Innes of Skene. He graduated in medicine at Aberdeen in 1904 and, apart from service in Egypt and Palestine with the R.A.M.C. during 1914-18, he was from 1911 until 1945 in general practice at Newburn, Northumberland.

EDINBURGH FESTIVAL MANAGER

Hanish Forrest MacLennan* (1908-15), v.s.A.(Scot.), died at Nairn on I I June 1964, aged sixty-four. Born in Edinburgh Castle in 1900, he was the second son of the late Major John MacLennan, The Gordon Highlanders, and he received the latter part of his education at the Grammar. At the age of fifteen he joined up as a dispatch rider and two years later was commissioned in the Gordon Highlanders.

Towards the end of the war he was attached to the Royal Flying Corps and became a pilot but later rejoined the Gordons. On demobilisation he travelled widely in the United States, Canada, Honolulu, New Zealand and Australia and then after a spell in England he spent some years in Egypt and Palestine as manager of a shipping company. He returned to Aberdeen shortly before the outbreak of the second world war, throughout which he served in the R.A.S.C. After the war, while working in Inverness, he was invited to become the first manager of the Edinburgh Festival of Music and Drama and in this capacity he put in a tremendous amount of work in laying the foundations of the continuing success of that Festival. He returned to Inverness as the first manager of the Scottish Tourist Board office there and he was later associated with the Crofters' Commission. A man of considerable cultural and linguistic attainments, his greatest love was for Scotland and things Scottish, and particularly things Gaelic. He was a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland and in addition was a writer and broadcaster.

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His brother lain Donald MacLennan (1908-14) was killed in action in 1917.

His other brother Roderick Ross Forrest MacLennan* (1909-18) lives in Co. Down, Northern Ireland.

Alexander Lawrence Robb* (1897-99), 15.B., cit.B., Colonel R.A.M.C. (Rctd.), died at South Water Lodge, Aboyne, on 12 May 1964 following a long and painful illness. He was aged seventy-six. He graduated in medicine at Aberdeen University in 1914 and was then commissioned in the Royal Army Medical Corps in which he served for thirty-two years. He served in India for twelve years during the last two of which he was staff surgeon at Army Headquarters in Simla. In 1924 he was appointed Medical Officer to the British Legation Guard in Peking where he spent four years. In 1939 he was posted to Jamaica as A.D.M.S., Caribbean Area, an appointment which he held until the end of the war in 5945. He retired in 1946 to settle on Deeside where he was able to enjoy, until illness overtook him three years ago, his favourite hobbies of fishing, shooting and gardening. While at the University he was a keen oarsman, captained the University Boat Club, and was awarded his Rowing Blue.

David Smith* (1921-25) died at Bridge of Allan on 7 May 1964, after a short illness. He was aged fifty-six. After leaving School he joined the Liverpool & London & Globe Insurance Company, and was for many years in their service in Aberdeen.

In 5947 he was promoted assistant manager of the Company's Belfast office, and two years later became manager there. A few years ago he returned to Scotland to take charge of a new branch at Stirling, and took up residence at Bridge of Allan.

He was an enthusiastic rugby player in his younger days, playing regularly for Aberdeen Wanderers. In later life he was in keen demand as a referee, in which capacity be was respected by all for his grasp and sense of fairness. His interest continued while he was in Ireland where his talents were quickly utilised, and he was a member of the Ulster Society of Rugby Football Referees.

His son David Pringle Smith* (1945-47) is also a member of the same insurance company, and is meantime in South America.

DISTINGUISHED F. 1'. PROFESSOR

David Landsborough Thomson* (1911-18), M.A., a.sc.,(Aberdcen), PH.D. (Cantab), LL.D., lately Vice-Principal of McGill University, died in hospital at Montreal on 20 October 1964, after having been an invalid for nearly three years following an accident. Born at Old Aberdeen on 14 November 1901, he was the youngest of the three sons of Professor (later Sir) J. Arthur Thomson of Aberdeen University, all of whom were educated at the Grammar School. He proceeded to Aberdeen University, and later to Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, also studying more briefly at Grenoble and Graz. He went to McGill University in 5928 as lecturer in biochemistry, and he remained there for the rest of his career.

He was appointed assistant professor in 1929, associate professor in 1933, and Gilman Cheyney Professor of Biochemistry in 1937. In 1942 he acquired the additional function of Dean of the Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research, and in 1955 the further status and duties of Vice-Principal; in 196o he resigned his chair to give all his energies to this administrative work. When his illness made premature retirement inevitable, in 1963, he was given the title of Dean Emeritus.

The obituary notice in The Timet said that Dean Thomson had at McGill University become "a legendary figure, admired by his colleagues of the faculty and fondly remembered by the generations of students that he had taught". He was outstanding as a teacher and in his personal relations as an administrator. His own research work was not extensive, but he was widely read in many fields of science.

His other interests included philosophy, poetry and music: and he was fluent in French and German. While still at Cambridge he wrote a prize-winning detective novel. In 5928 he married Marian Stancliffe Collingwood, E.sc., of Aberdeen; he is survived by her and by their son John and also by his sister and two brothers,

Marriages

19

Sir (Arthur) Landsborough Thomson* (1899-1908), c.s., D.SC., LL.D., and Ian Stewart Thomson* (1903-09), M.A., M.D. When honoured by his Alma Mater with the honorary Doctorate of Laws in 1952, the Dean of the Faculty of Law said of him: "To be born into the academic purple, as it were, has its drawbacks as well as its advantages, since the son must himself achieve altogether exceptional eminence to be assessed on his own merits rather than as the son of the father. Professor David Thomson's claim to celebrity is entirely in his own right.

"I-lls versatility is one of his most astounding characteristics. Not only has he written books on biology, but also a detective novel, and has composed light verse and crossword puzzles. He is almost as knowledgeable on ballet and modern poetry as on biochemistry.

"Professor Thomson's knowledge is in fact encyclopaedic, astonishing both in its range and in its detail. He has upheld the highest traditions of Aberdeen and of Scotland in a university in Canada, where so many Scotsmen have found a second homeland and have, by their character and achievements, won honour and renown for the land which gave them birth."

James Laing Thomson* (1894-96), M.A., s.D., died in hospital in Edinburgh on to July 1964 aged eighty-six. He was the elder son of the late Rev. James Laing B.D., formerly minister of Menmuir Church, Brechin, who Thomson (1863-65), died in 19oz. He graduated in arts in 1900 and in Divinity in 1903. He was called to Peterculter in 1905 where he ministered for forty-three years until retiring in 1948.

His brother George Eddie Thomson (1894-99), M.A., B.D., was sometime minister at Monquhitter and died in 1951.

Alexander James Turner (1907-11), M.P.S., died in hospital in Aberdeen on 14 May 1964 after a long illness. He was aged sixty-eight. After leaving School he qualified as a chemist, and in isozz went out to Singapore in the employment of Grafton Laboratories Ltd. He was later appointed manager of their wholesale business in Singapore, and eventually also of Medical Hall Ltd., which was the retail side of their business. During the 1939-45 War he was a prisoner in Japanese hands at Changi. After the end of hostilities he returned to Singapore and began the long up-hill struggle of rebuilding the business from nothing. He devoted himself unstintingly to this task, but unhappily his health gave way. He returned to this country in 195 I and lived in retirement in Aberdeen.

His son, Alistair Glass Turner (1936-46), m.s., cn.s., is in general medical practice in Kent.

Marriages Aberdein (1945; 1949-55)At Kelman Memorial Church, Peterculter, on 17 October 1964, JAMES DOUGLAS ABERDEIN, son of Mr. and Mrs. James Aberdein, 54 Fonthill Road, Aberdeen, to Ethel, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. William Jamieson, Rocklands, Peterculter.

Auld (1945-58).—At West Church of St. Andrew, Aberdeen, on 1z September 1964, MICHAEL RAESIDE AULD,* eldest son of Mr. and Mrs. Ian Auld, 22 Hammerfield Avenue, Aberdeen, to Margaret Stuart, elder daughter of Dr. Norman S. Clark* (1919-29) and of Mrs. Clark, 374 Great Western Road, Aberdeen.

Birkbeck (1949-58).—At John Knox (Gerrard Street) Church, Aberdeen, on zt September 1964, JOHN DAVID SIMPSON BIRKBECK,* son of the Rev. and Mrs. John Birkbeck, 7o Hamilton Place, Aberdeen, to Margaret, younger daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Robert T. Elliot, 186 Grange Loan, Edinburgh 9.

Brown (1 947-51 : 1954-59).—At King's College Chapel, Aberdeen, on 3o July 1964, CHARLES BROWN, eldest son of Mr. and Mrs. Charles Brown, 31 Balmoral Road, Aberdeen, to Margaret Rosaline, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. William J. Downie, 24 Brucklay Street, Rosehearty.

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Aberdeen Grammar School Magazine

Cowie (1 952-55).—At Christ's Church, Dunollie, Oban, on 1 August 1964, ALAN COwIE, elder son of Mr. and Mrs. R. Cowie, 302 Great Northern Road, Aberdeen, to Eleanor, only daughter of Mr. and Mrs. W. Hill, x Dalriach Park Terrace, Oban.

Daube (1951-53)At Newton, Massachusetts, U.S.A., on 29 August 1964, JONATHAN MAHRAM DAUBS,* M.A., eldest son of Professor David Daube, All Souls College, Oxford, and of Mrs. Daube, 37 Park Town, Oxford, to Linda Carol, only daughter of Mr. Charles G. Lindquist, 3918 Natchez Avenue, St. Louis Park, Minnesota, and the late Mrs. Lindquist.

Denholm (1953-59).—At Mannoficld Church, Aberdeen, on 28 October 1964, BRUCE RICHARDSON DENHOLM, only son of Mrs. E. Denholm, 3 King's Crescent, Aberdeen, to Judith Helen, only daughter of Dr. and Mrs. R. Fraser, 20 Bayview Road, Aberdeen.

Donald (1948-51).—At Rutherford Church, Aberdeen, on 27 June 1964, BRIAN STUART COOPER DONALD, younger son of Mr. and Mrs. J. F. Donald, 597 Clifton Road, Aberdeen, to Cecilia M., eldest daughter of Mr. and Mrs. J. Craig, x i Whitehall Terrace, Aberdeen.

Donald (1943-5 2).—At Beechgrove Church, Aberdeen, on 26 June 1964, ROBLN WEIR DONALD, elder son of Mrs. Gladys Donald, 39 Hilton Drive, Aberdeen, and of the late Mr. George Donald, to Marion Rosamond Cooper, only daughter of Mr. and Mrs. George Monro, 5 Burnside Gardens, Aberdeen.

Donaldson (1945-47)At Stockethill Parish Church, Aberdeen, on 22 September 1964, GEORGE TREVOR JOHN DONALDSON, son of Mrs. A. Donaldson, 342 King Street, Aberdeen, to Lillian, eldest daughter of Mr. A. J. Inglis, 179 Anderson Drive North, Aberdeen, and of the late Mrs. Inglis.

Findlay (1942-49).—At Ruthrieston West Church, Aberdeen, on 11 October 1964, GEORGE FINDLAY, son of Mrs. G. Findlay, 17 Elmfield Terrace, Aberdeen, to Elizabeth Jane, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. W. B. Rae, 23 Hammerfield Avenue, Aberdeen.

Fletcher (1949-55)At Beechgrove Chruch, Aberdeen, on 28 August 1964, ALAN McKAY FLETCHER,* only son of Mrs. S. T. Fletcher, 13 Midstocket Road, Aberdeen, and of the late Mr. Fletcher, to Isobel Joan, daughter of the late Mr. and Mrs. W. Ritchie, Echt.

Forbes (1947-56).—At Rubislaw Church, Aberdeen, on 26 October 1964, SINCLAIR THOMSON FORBES,* eldest son of Mr. and Mrs. George T. Forbes, 5 Desswood Place, Aberdeen, to Edna Mary, eldest daughter of Mr. and Mrs. William C. Gordon, ro Blenheim Place, Aberdeen.

Furnival (1 953-58).—At King's College Chapel, Aberdeen, on 21 July 1964, COLIN MITCHELL FURNIVAL,* only son of Mr. and Mrs. I. M. Furnival, 16 Bonnymuir Place, Aberdeen, to Isobel, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. J. S. G. Souter, 3 Craig's Place, Gourdon.

Grant (1946-47).—At Cults West Church, on 6 August 1964, RAYMOND JAMES SHEPHERD GRANT, M.A., son of Bettie J. Grant (191I-17), M.A., Innsbrook, 3 Park Road, Cults, and of the late Mrs. Grant, to Helen S., M.A., daughter of Mrs. Nellie MacKenzie, 61 Erskine Street, Aberdeen, and of the late Mr. G. R. A. MacKenzie.

Haggart (1 945-52).—At King's College Chapel, Aberdeen, on 1 September 1964, DAVID BALLANTINE HAGGART, son of Mr. and Mrs. W. G. Haggart, 19 Belvidere Street, Aberdeen, to Gwendolen Margaret, elder daughter of the Rev. and Mrs. J. Nelson Hall, Manse of Creich, Cupar, Fife.

Hay (I943-55).—At King's College Chapel, Aberdeen, on z8 July 1964, JoHN YEAMAN LESLIE HAY,* B.L., younger son of Mr. and Mrs. A. Leslie Hay, 47 Rubislaw Den South, Aberdeen, to Elizabeth, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Robert J. Anderson, Strathbeg, Pitfodels, Aberdeen.

Jamieson (1 953-59).—At Melville-Carden Place Church, Aberdeen, on 4 August 1964, COLIN WEIR JAMIESON,* younger son of Mr. and Mrs. J. W. Jamieson,

Marriages

21

z3 Craigielea Avenue, Aberdeen, to Lesley Margaret Hall, elder daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Stanley Mackie, 15 Caimfield Place, Aberdeen.

Kelly (194o-49).—At King's College Chapel, Aberdeen, on 22 July 1964, DENNIS KELLY,* twin son of Mrs. H. M. Kelly, Alma Bank, North Deeside Road, Cults, and of the late Mr. Bruce Kelly, to Valerie May, only daughter of Mr. and Mrs. James A. Young, 25 Viewfield Avenue, Aberdeen.

Leishman (1943-47).—At Sherbroke/St. Gilbert's Church, Glasgow, on 12 September 1964, RICHARD BARCLAY LEISIIMAN,* second son of Mr. and MIS. M. R. L. Leishman, Aberdeen, to Mary, youngest daughter of Mr. and Mrs. D. M. Semple, Glasgow.

Livingstone (1939-5 O.—At St. Nicholas Church, Cardonald, on 28 August 1964, ROGNVALD MAITLAND LIVINGSTONE,* son of Mr. and Mss. R. A. Livingstone, 15 Royal Court, Queen's Road, Aberdeen, to Rona, elder daughter of Mr. and Mrs. T. Scholes, 108 Chirnside Road, Glasgow.

Logan (1 944-54)•—At King's College Chapel, Aberdeen, on 8 August 1964, ROBERT MALCOLM LoGAN, M.B., CH.B., elder son of Mr. and Mrs. Robert Logan, 64 Fountainhall Road, Aberdeen, to Lena Joan, only daughter of Mr. and Mrs. George A. Watkins, 14 The Grove, Ranson Road, Bexleyheath, Kent.

McLeod (1936-49).—At Ruthrieston South Church, Aberdeen, on 15 August 1964, ERIC MCLEOD,* C.A., younger son of Mr. and Mrs. A. C. McLeod, 173 Queen's Road, Aberdeen, to Shirley Gordon, daughter of Mr. G. C. Mackay, 75 Bruce Gardens, Inverness, and of the late Mrs. Mackay.

McRobert (1950-56).---At Victoria Hall, Victoria Road, Torry, Aberdeen, on 2 October 1964, GEORGE FORBES MCROBERT, younger son of Mr. and MIS. John McRobert, 191 Clifton Road, Aberdeen, to Maureen Fraser, only daughter of the late Mr. and Mrs. John A. M. Simpson, 92 Grampian Road, Aberdeen.

Marjoribanks (1952-58).-At St. Bride's Church, Bothwell, Lanarkshire, on 13 July 1964, ANDREW MARJOR1BANKS,* eldest son of Mr. and Mrs. Andrew Marjoribanks, 66 Blenheim Place, Aberdeen, to Christine Flirabeth Balfour, only daughter of Mr. and Mrs. David Gemmel, The Rectory, Armadale, West Lothian.

Masson (1952-58).—At St. Mary's Church, Swindon, on 5 September 1964, GEORGE FRASER MASSON, B.SC., only son of Mr. and Mrs. G. Masson, Hopetoun Court, Bucksburn, Aberdeen, to Valerie Sanchie, second daughter of Mr. and Mrs. J. Scott, 25 Broadway, Swindon, Wilts.

Morrice (x944-57).—At King's College Chapel, Aberdeen, on 3 August 1964, GRAHAM TAYLOR MORRICE, only son of Mr. and Mrs. George Morrice, 2 Rubislaw Park Crescent, Aberdeen, to Alison Mary, only daughter of Mr. and Mrs. James Sorley, Street, Somerset.

Park (1942-5 5).—At Prestonfield Parish Church, on 20 June 1964, IAN MICHAEL Scorr PARK,* M.A., LL.B., only son of Mrs. W. M. Park, 4 Carnegie Crescent, Aberdeen, and of the late Mr. Ian M. Park, to Elizabeth Mary Lamberton, youngest daughter of Mr. and Mrs. A. M. Struthers, 3 Cameron Crescent, Edinburgh, 9.

Paterson (1943-56).—At Klosterkyrkan, Lund, Sweden, on 20 July 1964, ALAN KEITH GORDON PATERSON, M.A., youngest son of Mrs. H. T. Paterson, 5 Carlton Place, Aberdeen, and of the late Major A. Paterson, to Anna, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. N. T. Holm, Malmo, Sweden.

Rae (1946-58).—At Hucclecote Methodist Church, Gloucester, on 18 July 1964, WILLIAM MCCULLOCH RAE,* son of Mr. and Mrs. W. B. Rae, 23 Hammerfield Avenue, Aberdeen, to Helen Eileen, daughter of Squadron Leader and Mrs. T. Reading, Innsworth, Gloucester, Sutherland (195x-55).—At King's College Chapel, Aberdeen, on 16 July 1964, DAVID IVOR MACPI-IERSON SUTHERLAND,* only son of the Reverend and Mrs. D. Sutherland, 104 King's Gate, Aberdeen, to Janet Hancox Webster, 134 Hilton Avenue, Aberdeen. **

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Aberdeen Grammar School Magatine Taylor (1946-5 z).—At King's College Chapel, Aberdeen, on 3 October 1964,

GEORGE ABEL TAYLOR, younger son of Mrs. M. J. Taylor, 4 Watson Street, Aberdeen,

and of the late Mr. A. Taylor, to Margaret Elizabeth, elder daughter of Mr. and Mrs. J. Willox, 89 Cairnfield Place, Aberdeen.

Taylor (s 944-5 o).—At St. Phillip's Church of Ireland, Dublin, on is September 1964 LAIN WILLIAM GRENDLAY TAYLOR, 13 Rubislaw Den North, Aberdeen, to Barbara M. Haynes of Blackrock, County Dublin.

Wight (i953-56).—At Mannofield Church, Aberdeen, on 8 October 1964, ERNEST ALEXANDER WIGHT, eldest son of Mr. and Mrs. E. Wight, 9 Provost Rust Drive, Aberdeen, to Joan, only daughter of Mrs. A. Thomson, 130 Hammerfield Avenue, Aberdeen, and of the late Mr. J. G. S. Thomson.

Wight (I 949-55).—At King's College Chapel, Aberdeen, on is August 1964, JAMES REM WIGHT,* only son of Mrs. and Mrs. James Wight, io6 Leslie Terrace, Aberdeen, to Madeleine Anne, eldest daughter of Mr. and Mrs. John Burnett, i i Lamb Street, Bishopmill, Elgin.

Wisely (1948-61).—At Montrose On I2 September 1964 IVAN CHARLES FRASER WISELY,* son of Mr. and Mrs. J. A. K. Wisely, 5 Westholine Terrace, Aberdeen, to Jillian, daughter of the late Mr. F. R. Kay, O.R.E., and of Mrs. Sprilyan, Old Manse, Kinneff.

Wood (1941-54).—At All Saint's Church, Borehamwood, on ix July 1964, DOUGLAS SIMPSON Woon, elder son of Mrs. D. M. Wood, 44 Hamilton Place, Aberdeen, and of the late Mr. George T. M. Wood, to Elizabeth Patricia Jill, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Gordon Hooton, az Burghley Avenue, Borehamwood, Herts.

Wood (1943-55).—At Kintore Church on 26 September 1964, GEORGE ALEXANDER WOOD, younger son of Mrs. D. M. Wood, 44 Hamilton Place, Aberdeen, and of the late Mr. George T. N. Wood, to Evelyn Mary, only daughter of Mr. and Mrs. George S. Carnie, Station Hotel, Insch.

American Educational Impressions After I had been in Newton High School for about half an hour, the principal asked for my first impressions of the building which, incidentally, is soon to be torn down and replaced. My answer was, "There's a tremendous amount of money around!" Any European would be amazed at the_ number of dollars a progressive community is willing to spend on its young people. I know that this area of the United States is wealthy by our standards, but I wish the whole of Great Britain would at least try to be as extravagant with shillings as the people of Newton, Massachusetts, are with dollars.

Newton High School is a comprehensive, co-educational school of z,5oo children aged fifteen to eighteen, who range from special classes for the handicapped and deprived to special "advanced placement" classes. About half the school population are in a college preparatory course, and I find that these boys and girls work extremely hard when challenged and are willing to think, comparing very well with the English grammar schoolboys I know and the Scottish boys I myself went to school with. The main difference between the two groups is that the American "students" are less cynical about themselves and their surroundings than their British counterparts [is this just New

23 American Education World optimism or the influence of Kennedy's New Frontier?]. About a quarter of the school contains "terminal" students, that is, children who will leave when they receive their diplomas at the age of eighteen and who do not intend to go on to any institution of higher education.

There are very few "drop-outs" in this particular school.

The terminal leavers are, I hope, not getting what we might call a watered-down grammar school course, but something that is pretty closely related to their real needs. One tends to spend more time on basic skills and less on Shakespeare, but my slower classes do read Cry, The Beloved Country and Huckleberry Finn. Of course, one can criticise much of what is being done for these children—project tends to follow project with alarming speed—but I have the feeling that leading American schools are beginning to solve problems whose existence we are hardly aware of, although we are, I hope, in the age of Newsom as well as Robbins. Most important, children of all social classes, with and without ability, are found in the same public high school. This is a familiar situation in Scotland, but not in England— and the Americans mean the same by the term "public school" as the Scots, not the English. My terminal students do not have the discouraged look one associates with some junior secondary and secondary modern schools in Britain. Moreover, as in the best British comprehensive schools, there is tremendous mobility from one track to another.

Educational standards in the best American schools are high, then, and the day has long gone by when we could feel superior. In many places there is academic rigour as well as the variety of courses about which most of us have heard tall, unverified tales. The main criticism of a visiting European who has been in the country for only twelve months is that the tremendous and healthy variety at all levels, which leads to intellectual curiosity far more than the sterile diversity many of us might fear, also leads to a multiplicity of rather dull meetings for the staff, with report after report, circular after circular, mountains of paper and a large group of administrators who do little teaching (if any) and less research. At the school where I am teaching, with its 2.,500 students, there are a principal, a principal's administrative assistant, six housemasters, and heads of departments, as well as an army of secretaries. These (as well as the superintendent of schools, who supervises a junior college, two large high schools, a technical high school, five junior high schools and numerous elementary schools and ancillary services) deal with policy, organise syllabuses (far more varied and detailed than in the U.K.), run innumerable meetings, and handle discipline problems. There is clearly a danger that enthusiasm and daring will be curbed by administrators before exciting ideas reach the children; but in a place like Newton one can find people in the highest places who have vision. Nevertheless, I am sure there is something to be said for the relative powerlessness of British headmasters and for the fact that most heads of department in both England and Scotland teach a full load.

JONATHAN DAUBE* (I95I-S3)

The School At The Beginning Of The Twentieth Century : Memories Of 1899-1909 I entered the Grammar School at the age of seven in August 1899 when the country was on the brink of war with the Boers in South Africa. On 9 October 1899 Kruger issued his ultimatum and war began. My father took me for a walk round the harbour that day and the ships were all flying Union Jacks and bells were ringing.

My father told me what it meant but I did not properly understand.

My first schooling had been for two and a half years in the little kindergarten school kept by the Misses Knowles at the corner of Carden Place and Blenheim Place. I started my Grammar School career in Lower a under Miss Davidson, a gentle and kindly creature who taught me quite a lot and in that first class were Arthur Thomson, Jim Duffus, Harvey Simpson and Sidney Finlayson. Archie Hyslop was still in the Infant School and so, I think, was Robin Lawrence. The mistress there was Miss Lucy Duffus, the aunt of Jim Duffus, my dassfellow. In Lower 3 I came under the discipline of Miss Adam, a splendid instructress whom we rather feared. She was a strict disciplinarian and kept us quiet and well behaved but she was just and knew how to handle boys. She was an LL.A. of St. Andrews, an unusual qualification in those days before women's further education had gone very far, and it tempted us to call her Long Legged Ass, which was very unfair, as Miss Adam was neither long legged nor an ass. When we advanced to Lower 4, we came under the tuition of Miss Mackie, the sister of Max Mackie, the French master of the Upper School. She was a dear. We all loved her, a natural-born teacher with a liking for the unruly boy, who knew how to deal with us and did it all by sheer force of personality. I still remember one of the things she made us do in learning French. We had to take part in a sort of charade with coloured flags. I had allotted to me the colour blue and I had a small blue flag with which I had to come forward at the proper moment and say, "Bleu Bleu, comme ks cieux". Other boys had other flags and other colours and the whole company took part in a rhyming game. I have never forgotten the plural of "ciel" in French. After Miss Mackie we came to the first class in the Middle School and said good-bye to women teachers.

The class master of Middle I was Tommy Duncan who, to our great disappointment, left very soon to take another appointment. He was, like Miss Mackie, a natural teacher who knew boys and did not need to threaten them with punishment. His departure left a sad blank and temporary arrangements were made to teach us so that we had "Picker" (Davidson) and "Spicy" (Murison), both senior masters, for Arithmetic and English, with the Rector himself taking sundry classes in History. During the rest of my career at the Grammar, I got tuition from almost all of the teachers except Spiers and "Quassi" (Morrison) who were attached to the modern side. These teachers made an imposing array—Bentley Philips, Pat Edwards, James Knox, Pat Allan, "Puggie" (Brownie), "C.D.", Ritchie, Max Mackie, Macleod (Towdie), "Spicy" and "Caesar". Whatever education I got was the product of the combined efforts of all of these over the space of the seven years after I left the Lower School. We also had "Popie" for drawing, Joseph for gymnastics and, for those who took "manual", Carmichael. I think that my education was a worthy and solid one. Whatever I have been able to achieve since at the University and later in public service for a generation in India I lay to the credit of this noble band of educationists. I shall mention later the extraordinary record of many of the schoolboys of my time in after-life and think that record shows how sound a foundation for our careers was laid at the Grammar by the band of teachers we had.

It was notable that during the whole time I was at the School there was not one single major change in the staff. The only casualties were Tommy Duncan and "Puggie" who died while in service, to the moving grief of the whole School.

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Memories of 1899-5909

25

The unbroken continuity of the staff during all my time seemed to make the School a kind of settled and permanent community suffering no change and cementing a feeling of solidarity and friendship amongst all the boys. It was certainly something to have imbibed wisdom from these men whom I have mentioned and the whole experience was a joy and a privilege that has lasted me all my life. It was indeed a "ratio confirmatioque doctrine", as the then School motto truthfully proclaimed.

During all my years at School the building was not added to or enlarged. When I first went, Westfield Primary School was being built and has now been incorporated in the Grammar. But in those days it was a School Board Primary School with free education. The Grammar got the use of a part of the building and this was used for the gymnasium under Mr. Joseph and the manual classes under Mr. Carmichael, whom we boys helped to send to Paris Exhibition of 1901 by collecting coupons out of the Evening Express or the Evening Gazette to the number of several hundreds to let him have a free trip there and back, doubtless to help with manual designs. The reason the School building was never enlarged in my time was, I suppose, because the number of boys during the first ten years of the present century never exceeded the 6oo there were when I joined, in great contrast with the 1,5oo the Grammar now educates. The lovely building in which our schooling took place was and is one of the architectural glories of Aberdeen.

Aberdeen was a very beautiful place in the beginning of the century, which saw the development of the West-End with the entrancing Rubislaw granite. For a small boy the daily walk from Hamilton Place where I lived (then only one-third built up beyond Fountainhall Road) was a sheer delight because the Den Burn was open all the way from Fountainhall Road (where the Police Station now is) down to Gilcomston Dam. It was a beautiful purling stream and we boys had endless fun along its banks. But the great delight was the wooden foot bridge over it where there is now the road junction of Desswood Place, Whitehall Road and Osborne Place. The bridge seemed to span what was a little ford through which horses and cabs could go. Whitehall Road down to Leadside Road was a delightful country lane with Dalgarno's rose gardens on the sloping bank and some charming cottages further down. The fun of the Denbum with its prattling waters, wooden bridge, its ford and Gilcomston Dam went with the improvement of Whitehall Road.

The boys of today have nothing like it to brighten the journeyings to and from School: everything was swallowed up in the construction of new roads with terraced houses.

About this time, too, the horse trams were disappearing from the streets of Aberdeen and their place was being taken by electric trams which had open upperdecks so that you got wet when it rained. The horse trams used to be housed at what is now Campbell and Sellars' garage in Fountainhall Road! I remember sets of grey horses pulling the awkward vehicles. Later when the tram horses disappeared the place became "Millie's" Riding Establishment and in the little office at the front there was on view for a long time one of the ornamental chocolate boxes which were the gift of Queen Victoria to the men who went to South Africa in the Boer War. When Mafcking was relieved the School was in a fermcnt. The older boys paraded round the School with a flag and were allowed up on the round tower of the School and there spread out a huge Union Jack and sang and shouted "God Save the Queen" and all the popular ditties of the day. The School got a holiday for the occasion but we small boys wondered what so much noise was about. The Rector himself did not escape the Boer atmosphere. His long streaking figure and protruding neck earned him the name of "Long Tom" which was very appropriate, named after the big naval gun that played a part in the early British attacks on the Boers.

What were we boys like sixty years ago at School? I think we were more selfreliant than present-day boys of the same age. This may be partly due to the fact that we had to do many things for ourselves and that the masters took very little

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Aberdeen Grammar School Magazine

interest in us out of school hours. There was no real camaraderie between us and the masters, who as a whole were sedate creatures who played no games and certainly did not take part with us in them. There was no Games Master and for training we had to rely on ourselves and do what we could by imitating "Shire" heroes and F.P.s Only towards the end of my time at School James W. Milne, C.A. used to come and coach us in rugby. The standard of play certainly rose and latterly I formed one of a combined rugby XV of Gordon's and Grammar boys who went to Edinburgh on the day of the Scotland and England International and played George Watson's College on the Watsonian ground at Inverleith. Though we were beaten we gave a good show and the score was no true indication of the run of the game. Such was the beginning of the playing of away teams outside Aberdeen and the system that enabled the School later on to produce several first-class members of the Scottish side. I said we were more self-reliant because we had to do almost everything for ourselves. The only regular society was the Debater. The masters took no interest in it though we used to have lectures now and again from "Spicy".

Max Mackie ran a tentative singing class from which I learnt to sing the French song "Ma Normandie" and the Latin verses "Donee Gratus Eram Tibi" from the Fourth book of Horace's Odes. But we treated the singing as more or less of a joke. Dramatics were the preserve of certain interested boys only and here the great instructor, producer and impressario was "C.D." who at the start of a play always appeared immaculate in evening dress from between the parted curtains to tell us something about what we were to see and hear. "C.D." was in this really superb. Some of the boys who shone in the dramatics were Hector Macpherson who was a magnificent figure of a Roman legionary in "Chiselling", K. P. Mackenzie and David Edwards, whose sweet angelic appearance made him a "natural" for girls' parts and won him the nickname by which he was known during his school days —a rather different thing from the "Your Honour" he endured on the judge's bench he was destined to adorn in after years.

What sort of boys were they who were with me during my ten years at the Grammar? Nothing is more clannish and superior than the average gang of schoolboys. We despised those who were junior to us as we were despised by our seniors.

When I entered the School in 1899 I think the lot of us were a "West-endy" kind of crowd. We were very conscious of our superiority (as we thought) over Gordon's.

We despised that school because it had begun as a charity school, because it had large numbers of free scholars and many scholarships which saved parents for paying for their son's education. We were very proud of being a fee-paying school.

I think the reputation we had of being "West-endy", or "snooty" in the modern jargon, was on the whole well deserved. We were a lot of little prigs and were proud of coming mostly from the well-to-do quarters of the lovely granite city then spreading rapidly out to the West end. Years after I left School, while travelling on a P. and O. liner from India I was asked by a man from Dundee where I came from and I said, "Aberdeen". To this he gave the disconcerting reply, "Oh, yes, that's where all the cliques are". It made me think a little.

It is characteristic of schoolboys to make heroes out of the most senior boys.

When I was there, a sweet seven, my heroes were the big boys who included Tommy Robertson, Lennie Smith, Douglas Jamieson, Percy Barnet, Andrew Williamson, Wilson Jameson, Douggie Williamson, "Coggie" Wilson and many others I have forgotten. The hero of all was Tommy Robertson because of his pre-eminence on the athletic field. Coming nearer my own times there was another galaxy of great ones which included Charles Peterkin, Norman Walker, Arthur Lothian, "Plummic" Johnson and Robert Gilchrist. Nearer again to me and just a little senior and so a cut above us poor "infants" came Maurice Williamson, K. P. Mackenzie, Harold Finlayson, John Easton and many others. Then in my own little gang there were a dozen or so who in our comradeship all bore nicknames which I shall specify but not identify with their owners. A nickname usually means that your personality

Memories of 1899-1909

27

is somehow acknowledged by your fellows and that in some way you stand out of the nick. Well, here is a list of some of us whom many will be able to recognise; Fatty, Cocky, Sourapple, Green Lizard, Fiddles, and Dolly. All of us were of the vintage of the beginning of the twentieth century. Reggie Morrison was one of my contemporaries in the early days of my schooling at the Grammar who impressed me most. I do not know what has become of him but he certainly deserved to succeed in life because of his originality and initiative and, let me add, his quite precocious knowledge of naughty things not usually talked about much. One day he interested our class by telling us that he could show us the sexual habits of earth worms. True to his word he took us out to the rugger field when the grass was wet and glistening with beads of rain and showed us the marvels of procreation in the worm world. In his own way he was quite as original an instructor in Zoology as Bentley Philip, who certainly never dealt with the sexual behaviour of earth worms in his amusing natural history class.

From the small band of boys who were contemporaries or near contemporaries of mine at the Grammar, and whose names I have mentioned, no fewer than ten have struggled into the pages of Who's no. I know that Who's Eno is not a reliable indication of talent or worth since it lumps together those who have won the Victoria Cross and the Order of Merit with mere skilled hitters of balls. But it is perhaps a recognition of some kind of service of value rendered to British culture and civilisation. I find that, of these ten, four have received knighthoods; three of them have become major-generals; three held important administrative and educational positions in British India; one reached the judge's bench; one became a notable M.P.; one has become a leading ornithologist and medical administrator; one became one of the world's leading authorities on public health; another the world's greatest authority on diabetes and the author of a medical book that has been translated into every important language; one provided an absolutely outstanding example of sustained courage and heroism as a prisoner of war with the Japanese in Burma; and one reached the very top of the architectural profession.

Yet this list passes by persons like Archie Hyslop who proved himself the musical Aristophanes of the North, George Wright who, before he became a padre, was a talented musician playing the organ in church at the age of fourteen, and Harvey Simpson a discriminating appraiser of English literature and bibliophile, who even as a schoolboy had begun to amass worthwhile books in number now swollen to an impressive collection. Any school that can produce results like these is surely worthy of the proud tradition of scholarship, character, training and thoroughness that the Grammar set out as its ideals.

I have been asked by my daughters, children of the modem age of gadgetry and canned education and entertainment how I managed to amuse myself as a boy without cinemas, radio, television, gramophones and all the rest of the cacophony.

Well, my contemporaries and I managed very well. The phonograph had just started and the gramophone bad not yet been developed with the flat discs taking the place of the cylinders. Photography was just beginning as a popular hobby for boys. But instead of these things we had magic lanterns and lots of slides, cut-out dioramas, model railways, steam engines that were made to work with boiling water, and we constructed and sailed model boats and learnt to juggle and do conjuring tricks. We collected cigarette cards and stamps avidly and we flew elaborate kites. We played all kinds of ball games and we were in the middle of the great cycling boom and we took to the road on bicycles. We skated on the ice at the Bridge of Dee, at Cults and Dyce whenever the ponds were frozen over and most of us had some sort of training for playing a musical instrument, chiefly the piano or violin, even if the learning was a bore and affliction to many of us. We were always supposed to contribute to the entertainment at a party and reciting was in fashion. All these things were individual and not made to a pattern as is the modern fashion. We did not need a multiplication of school societies to intcrest us. We never

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Aberdeen Grammar School Magazine

had much truck with the High School girls, who after all in many cases were our sisters, and what boy bothers about sisters?

At the School, before we were old enough to graduate to cricket and rugger, we played marbles in the Lower School and in the Middle School we engaged in two exciting team games which did much to accustom us to taking hard knocks and preparing for rugger. They were "Round the School" and "Bar the Door" both of which were clever combinations of team spirit, generalship and individual adventure. For "Round the School" the "dale" was just outside the eastern door of the school near the "Janny's" box. In "Round the School" one team hunted the other all over the School grounds and tried to capture them either out in the open or by tackling them when they tried to break through and reach the "dale". There was much rough tackling on the hard gravel—we never heard of tetanus in those days—and a boy had to be thrown to the ground, and "crowned" before he was out of the game. There was an enormous satisfaction in throwing down big fellows like Maurice Cranna and Leslie Durno and sitting on them. The risk attached to "Round the School" was real, as we young boys stood the grave danger of being captured by seniors from Classical VI and Classical VII and hauled off as captives to sit on the front benches of "Caesar's" class who were struggling with Xenophon, Homer and Thucydides and whose study of the Greek classics had been interrupted by the shrill cries of us "Round the Schoolers".

Though we junior boys did not realise it, the School was in the first decade of the twentieth century passing through an educational revolution. The coming of Henry Fyfe Morland Simpson had been one of the major influences in the change.

The days of Melvin, which had continued in some fashion through Moir, were over. The School was changing from the rigid form of early classical seminary to the modern secondary school. Classics were still regarded as the main backbone but there was a rapidly growing modern school for those who did not consider that a knowledge of Latin and Greek was so important in modern life or worth having at all. But the cachet was still definitely on the "Classical" and the "Moderns" were regarded as poor fish generally. Morland Simpson himself made it clear to us boys that it was getting to know things fully and accurately that was the aim of education and not mere ability to answer examination papers. This was one other factor in the Grammar boy's hardly disguised contempt for Gordon's. He considered Gordon's a swotting and cramming school intent on getting as many of its pupils as possible into the first ten of the Bursary Comp. Between the idea of a swot and the development of a modern type of school combined with a studied aim to make full and true education the School's ideal, Morland Simpson steered a skilful and cautious way. We boys never loved him: he was too distant and solemn for most of us. We respected him and were keen not to anger him. We thought a lot of his desire for true and accurate learning. At the same time as he was instilling this principle of thoroughness he was introducing the methods and ideals of the English public school with its emphasis on leadership, honesty, courtesy, truthfulness and playing for the side, instead of for oneself, into the whole School. He could not go much further than general inculcation by conduct and example in a Scottish day school that had boasted of its Scottish independence for centuries.

But the School as it is today with its many outside activities, its sense of continuity with the past, and its place as a moulder of character, the dignity of its masters and its insistence on good form in manners is the result of the sterling ministrations of Morland Simpson. Ile used not to teach much in my time but when Tommy Duncan left a blank in Middle I, till a full-time teacher was found, he used to take us in history. He was always impressive and under him we felt a sort of awe like one entering a cathedral with stained glass windows softening the garish light of day. During his time decorum and order were the School ideals. All the masters wore gowns and everyone had to file in for the early morning prayer with which the school days began and which was always read by the Rector himself. There

Memories of 1899-1909

I i

29

were never any disturbances in his class and he hardly ever had to threaten punishment. Boys could sense in their instinctive way that they were in the presence of something that must be obeyed.

It is not possible here to talk of all the masters through whose hands I passed in my ten years at the Grammar. I have hundreds of memories but I will content myself by picking out a few salient experiences. Some of the masters were born teachers; some were not. Some could keep order and some could not. No schoolboy ever made the mistake of failing to distinguish between the two. Personality is the only thing that counts in the disciplining of boys and some of our teachers could neither gain our respect nor rouse our fear.

Max Mackie was good fun and so was Pat Allan. One day in Esslemont Avenue some of the boys just senior to us broke loose and beset a vendor of coloured balloons. I did not know what happened exactly but a number of balloons were burst in the row and not paid for. The balloon man came to complain to the Rector and there was a great to-do about the misbehaviour. Max Mackie that day mentioned the incident to us in the French class with the remark, and the twinkle in the eye typical of him, "Loons will b'loons!"

"CD." was the most imaginative and the most original of all our teachers.

Not only in the class but outside of it he taught us good manners and gentlemanly behaviour and he used to begin a lesson sometimes by taking the financial columns of the paper and asking us questions about it, explaining quite a lot about the place money played in the business world while doing so. He used to offer a penny every now and again to any boy who could answer a rather recondite question of general knowledge. The penny was almost always won by Charlie Mann, who afterwards became a lawyer and later on coached me in Roman Law. "C.D." was the life of the Dramatics of the School, had the skill of a professional producer and was another of the teachers who never have any difficulty in keeping order and never had to call in the strap.

"Puggie" was another natural teacher but he was one who ruled by fear and meant to. When the fateful words were given, "Go to locker 4 and bring the belt", the victim knew what to expect and the class trembled in sympathy. But he was a wonderful teacher and well-liked by everyone, despite his draconic discipline. An incident involving Harry Shand, a real character, remains in my mind. We had a Latin Unseen to translate and when the results came out it was found that Harry, who was not noted for his skill in Latin, came out as the first in the class. "Puggie" announced this with a very ominous look on his face. Harry had found some crib and taken the Latin from it word for word. What gave him away was that he used the (to us) unusual word of "Vociferans" for the English "shouting out". None of us could go beyond "Clamans" for it. "Puggie" announced the result quietly then took all the papers and ceremoniously tore them in half and threw them into the wastepaper basket. He then told us that the Latin was not Harry Shand's but came from a Latin crib word for word. He said practically nothing else but you could have heard a pin drop in the class. We were all stunned. We expected there would be a terrific explosion and that locker 4 would be called on in no mild manner, but nothing like that happened. "Puggie" just gave us a quiet lecture on honesty and left it that. It was a masterstroke. "Puggie" died suddenly one day and the whole School, realising that a great man was gone, went to his funeral. I think there was no boy who ever felt his hands tingle from "Puggie's" belt but was suffused with grief at his passing.

Bentley Philip was another of the teachers who impressed me permanently.

He was a bit of a crank but a man of extraordinary knowledge, charm and engaging openness with us boys. We laughed at a lot of his ways but we kept on learning all the time. He used to insist on us all having for the botany class what he called the "Nine Articles" and we all had to lay them out on our desks before the beginning of the lesson, rather like a kit inspection by a regimental officer. I have forgotten

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Aberdeen Grammar School Magaine

what all the nine were but they included, in addition to pen and paper, pencil, blotting paper, indiarubber and knife or pencil sharpener, such outlandish implements as a scalpel and a magnifying glass with three lenses. Bentley used to deliver fascinating lectures illustrated with lantern slides of his own taking. He was a man of many outside interests and we boys while laughing at his eccentricities liked him enormously. He introduced us to the mysteries of the microscope, ran the School garden, and in many ways helped to carry out happily the School's ideal.

The only other teacher I shall talk of is "Caesar" (George Middleton). "Caesar" was a scholar and looked it. You felt it in everything he did. He was not interested in our getting high places in the Bursary Comp., though several of us did, thanks to him. He wanted us to be accurate and thorough and try to understand the force of ancient civilisation and its importance for an interpretation of the modern world.

My first experience of "Caesar" was when I was kidnapped one day by two big boys of the Sixth Classical for making a row while playing "Round the School".

I was kept as hostage for half an hour while the Sixth wrestled with the "Medea" of Euripides, which meant nothing to me then. Later I came to admire and venerate "Caesar" for his whole-minded pursuit of worthwhile knowledge. He was one of the two masters in my time who won doctorates at the University for scholarly research. Sydney Still once annoyed him very much by taking the binding strings off the back of Teuhner's text of Homer and opening the sacred poems out like a concertina and playing it back and fore. This was lese majeste in the first degree, and Sydney was told what a scholar thought of him. "Caesar" was always very kind to me. When I had sprained my ankle very badly in a rugger game he said to me, "Don't take any risks with that, my boy. I know all about what lameness means.

See that it is properly treated." "Caesar" was a real aristocrat of teaching. He was keenest on turning his best pupils into scholars. What was wrong with that, even if modern education has swung too far away to the other side of things towards a general scrappiness of multitudes of subjects?

When the School ceased to be a fee-paying institution and under the new law became just another of the Local Authority schools, something went from the Grammar that can never come back: it lost its old soul, just as the doctors did under the Welfare State. I know the School is bigger now and boys learn and do all kinds of things we never thought of and have all sorts of things done for them, but they have lost the independence that Gordon's College still retains in virtue of its individual foundation. The Welfare State has brought many benefits; it has also caused some great losses. I loved my schooldays in a fine "free" institution and am a little sad to think that much of the free independence I relished so much is as dead as the dodo.

HERBERT TOWF-R SORLEY* (r899-09)

Work in Progress . . . and thoughts anent it

F

4

The Rector's letter sets in perspective the extensive additions recently made to the physical structure of the Grammar School, and former pupils who have not had the opportunity of seeing for themselves the new Hall and the adjoining Music and Technical Departments will thereby appreciate the purpose, scope and efficacy of this largescale development. There remains, perhaps, a place for some particular impressions, such as have been left on the mind of one who has over the days and the months seen the new buildings gradually come to their present completeness.

Already we are moving in and through the new corridors and classrooms, and assembling in the new Hall, as if we and they had been here established from the beginning of things. We forget the doubts and apprehensions that we once had. "Between the conception and the creation", says T. S. Eliot, "falls the Shadow." The shadows that touched and troubled us were less metaphysical than Mr. Eliot's; sometimes the merely physical shadows cast by workmen's platforms, sometimes the doubt that the scheme would ever be really completed.

There was a time, indeed, when we wondered if, once the science and mathematics wing had been finished, any real further action was to be taken at all.

The stack of planking, for example, planed, slotted and measured, that brooded so long over the western end of the old main corridor.

It seemed as solid as the Alps and as immovable, liable only, perhaps, to burst its strappings in a temper of boredom and avalanche down on the passer-by. The suggestion that it had been placed there to be seasoned—and, for projects quite unconnected with the Grammar School—by the strong currents of air that permanently circulate in that part of the world, seemed to us reasonable. Then suddenly it was gone, to become, as we now suppose, the flooring of the Hall and its environing corridors. It was that flitting that persuaded us that things were really moving.

Just along from it was the old music-room, Room 6, now scheduled, we hear, for a dreadful metamorphosis. They say it is to become a lavatory, to provide from henceforth a strictly utilitarian water-music. It has been a sad experience to look through the broken doorway and see the tiered benches, empty and in disarray, bare ruined choirs where late the sweet birds sang. And a stranger one to see, later on, that beneath the floor-boards of these same singing mansions there was in truth the very pulse of the machine. The boilerhouse in fact. We shall not soon forget seeing for the first time the grey, dust-and-plaster covered monster fed with pipes and girt with clocks and gauges, and suspended over the abyss a workman, gazing at the chaos with a gravity that would have done credit to a Roman senator brooding over the decline and fall of the Empire. Looking again we saw that he was in fact seated in an alcove in the wall, so it was no miracle. But the impression has stuck.

At the other end of the main corridor the old Janitor's box stands deserted, smelling of disinfectant. A sad change indeed, from being as

Aberdeen Grammar Scbool Magazine it was at morning break, the very hub of the School's activity. Now, waiting to be absorbed into a grander Masters' Cloakroom it seems to have the sinister privacy of a place where the self-torturing ante-hero of some vast nineteenth-century Russian novel might choose to hang himself. Indeed, at the moment of writing, this whole end of the School induces morbid thoughts—the kind of desolation we experience, when struggling awake at three o'clock in the morning we realise that the nightmare we've just had about a Latin exam. next day is no nightmare but the simple truth. Room 14, where so recently sweetness and light prevailed, might now serve as the very emblem of an exhausted culture, with, instead of a heap of broken statues, a brace of discarded radiators and a staring clock-face to remind us that even Time must have a stop. We are comforted with the promise of a new Staff-room, bright and carpeted.

It is a pleasure to move to the new buildings, and leave morbid fantasy behind. It was a moving experience to see the War Memorial occupying its due place of honour on the south wall of the new Assembly Hall and to know that the devotion and sacrifice of former pupils of the School will be constantly before the eyes of this present generation and of generations to come.

The glass walls of the Hall allowing the School to look out and the world to look in, serve to remind us that we live in no cloistered past, but in the main stream of twentieth-century life. We cannot now be accused of averting our gaze from the bracing reality of the world beyond our gates. Yet there are fairer prospects than Whitehall Place.

And then there is the stage. I shall long remember the kind of awed delight I had on first seeing it. It seemed immense, with ropes, cat-walks, holes in the floor, infinite space above, a battery of light switches like a Wurlitzer organ, a motor to operate the curtains.

It suggested that it might be even more, the engine-room of a vast engineless ship, a gymnasium of the gods with hanging ropes that promised to lead to Olympus or Valhalla, or the stage of a vast operahouse in a Marx brothers film where Harpo in a final euphoric frenzy brings the whole show down in triumphant ruin. I am told, and I can well believe it, that it can accommodate one whole form of the School, about zoo boys that is; and will therefore provide an adequate setting to the platform parties at the traditional School occasions. And to the Dramatic Society it obviously offers the opportunity of uninhibited movement and of large casts.

Fact and fantasy tend to get mixed up. Memory and imagination work erratically and irreverently. The essential facts are, of course, the fine new buildings that are now a welcome, much-needed part of Aberdeen Grammar School; but these whimsies and embroideries may be allowed perhaps to distract, perhaps to amuse, and perhaps, sometimes, even to instruct. At least I dare to hope so.

A. T. 3z

SCHOOL SECTION School Office-Bearers Prefects HENRY R. MILLAR (Senior Prefect) DONALD A. LAMONT (Deputy Senior Prefect) JOHN ADAMS ALISTAIR J. CLARK PETER M. COLLIER PETER J. FRASER STUART C. GLOVER ALISTAIR G. GRACIE RUSSELL GRAY KENNETH A. HAY JOHN F. HENDRY

BRIAN B. LAW ALISDAIR G. MACKENZIE NEIL MACLEOD JOHN S. MACPHIE • DOUGLAS MARE RUSSELL MILNE ALAN C. MOM HARVEY E. MORRISON

RICHARD B. RAE JAMES D. REID MALCOLM F. RENNIE DAVID J. F. ROBERTSON ALEXANDER F. SHEARER RICHARD C. SHIRREFFS DAVID W. SMITH H. OLIVER WILL DAVID K. YULE

House Captains Byron

Dun

DAVID W. SMITH

DAVID J. F. ROBERTSON

Keith

Melvin

NEIL MACLEOD

IIENsy R. MILLAR Rugby

Captain

DAVID W. SMITH

Captain

ALISTAIR J. CLARE

Captain

M. BA TCI IELOR

Vice-Captain

HENRY R. MILLAR

Hockey

Vice-Captain

KENNETH A. HAY

Swimming

Vice-Captain

A. F. SHEARER

Literary and Debating Society

President DONALD A. LAMONT Secretary MALCOLM F. RENNIE

Vice-President Treasurer

ALAN C. MOI R HANISH T. E. NORBROOK

Dramatic Society

President MALCOLM F. RENNIE Secretary RAYMOND A. HARDIE

Vice-President RUSSELL GRAY Treasurer DAVID K. YULE Cadet Force

C.S.M.

JOHN ADAMS

Editors of School Section DONALD A. LAMONT HAMISH T. E. NORBROOK 33

HENRY R. MILLAR DAVID K. YULE

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Aberdeen Grammar School Magaine

School and Random Notes "Nothing so difficult as a beginning In poesy, unless perhaps the end."

LORD BYRON

* * * Shortly after the opening of the new dining-hall, it was reported that Mr. Baxter hoped to secure a contract for the provision of School meals. His tender was rejected by the "High Priests", however, as his menu, consisting solely of "bread and butter" and "chicken-feed" was not considered suitable for the sensitive palates of the Vlth year. * * * Situation vacant: Disc Jockey for weekly lunch-hour record-show transmitted "live" every Friday from the new music block. All applicants should have a Pepsodent smile and a white nylon shirt. * * * Definition of a right-angle: The angle between Mr. Will and Craigie Loanings. * * * As a result of the reconstruction work still in progress in the old Technical Block, Mr. Munro has been kept in the dark, and can only be enlightened in the late afternoon by his neighbour, Mr. MacAulay. Mr. Munro says that, "per se", this is not of "great worldly import", but he fears that this step has been taken because authority has heard rumours of Lower VI French "Swinging from the lights" in the classroom.

"The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light."

ISAIAH * * * Meanwhile Mr. Davidson, the only member of the Modern Languages Department to retain his original room, stoically withstands the noise of community carol-singing and crashing from the adjacent Prefects' Room. He plans to annexe the Howtf as a book-store, but bearing in mind the fate of books previously stored there, we would strongly advise him against this move.

"Rotten Beastly Silly Hope l"—H. G. WELLS *

*

*

.. go on till you come to the end"—LEwis CARROLL * * * That dirty word "Politics" has reared its ugly head once again within the precincts of the School. Just prior to the General Election, an alarming number of posters, instructing us to "Keep Right" appeared at vantage points throughout the School. The occupant of Room 56, however, paid no attention to this injunction, as was obvious on 16 October when, positively effervescing, he entered the Upper VI German class wearing a new sports jacket and the broadest of smiles. * * While on the subject of Politics, we are pleased to report that, after a series of cr-ing speeches in East Aberdeenshire, Mr. King was returned, if not to a scat in Parliament, then at least to his armchair in the Staff Room. * * Overheard in the Art Corridor: "You can't see the Wood for the Bush". * * The visitor to the School is immediately confronted by a multifarious conglomeration of automotive machinery (a lot of cars). There are still, however, several masters who come to school on bicycles, each bicycle having its own character.

Mr. Will's is in the Early Perpendicular style and has the ability to ascend the steepest hills in top gear. Mr. Kennedy's mount is low and built for speed, but looks as if *

*

*

Staff Changes

35

it has seen perhaps one Tour de France too many. Mr. MacAulay's (t)rusty machine is a bicycle of the old school, finished (1) in a nondescript brown colour. * * * "The end is not yet"—MarrnEw * * * After several raids on the lavatories by our ever-zealous prefects, chain-smokers have been flushed out, and now occupy more tasteful premises—kindly provided by the Powers that Be—under the stage of the new hall. At the time of going to press, even Smith admits that he has not dared to descend into this labyrinth. * * * Last year's list of radio programmes to be broadcast throughout the School has brought a list of record requests for the first edition of "Discs-a-Bobo". At the top of the list were "Daisy, Daisy", "D'ye ken John Flett?", "Da do Ron Ron", "Watt do you want", and "Don and Will went up the hill", by Pinky and Twinky.

There were also some special requests; "Where have all the showers gone ?" for our groundsman, "Sweets for my sweet", for the custodian of the Library, and "Anyone who had a Dart", for our gallant lads in the Howff. * * * "Better is the end of a thing than the beginning thereof.'—EcctEsusrEs

Staff Changes Some members of Staff have wondered if it was really necessary to change the position of the main Staff Room, but no one has been in any doubt about the need to enlarge it. All the world can see that the School is adding to itself in stone, lime and glass, and all the world appreciates that those additions have as their purpose, to give apropriate education to an increasing roll of boys. Obviously as the School population increases so must the staffing complement. The Staff Room at the east end of the School, so long the stamping ground and familiar habitat of many past great teachers, would still give standing room to the present incumbents. But only just. So now we are to move into what was the spacious Room i t, best known as the "Chemy Lab".

These considerations are prompted by the fact that no fewer than six new members of Staff have come to the School this session, with the promise of a seventh—appointed but not yet arrived.

Three appointments have been made to the Science staff. Mr. William C. Fordyce joins the Physics Department in what is effectively his first full teaching assignment.

Locally born—no further away than Culter—he moved early in life to England and had his schooling at Borden Grammar School, Sittingbourne, in the county of Kent.

Then he went to Aberdeen University where he graduated with an Honours degree in Physics in 1961, and continued in post-graduate work for a further fifteen months.

After qualifying as a teacher at Aberdeen College of Education he tried his prentice hand for a few months at Northfield Secondary School, and now comes to his satisfaction and ours to the Grammar School.

Mr. John Smith is very much the Aberdonian. He was schooled in what was then Aberdeen Central School, now Aberdeen Academy. Leaving school early he had experience of a number of jobs, all in Aberdeen, before he engaged himself in 1937 to British Railways, in which service he came to the position of engine-driver, working mainly on the lines linking Aberdeen with the north. In the late 193os Mr. Smith set himself to acquire University entry qualifications with the aim of graduating in Science and thereafter entering the teaching profession; it is a measure of his resolution and his ability that he achieved both these ambitions. He graduated B.Sc. in 1963 and now after a further year at Aberdeen College of Education he enters on his new career—again in Aberdeen. When younger he captained the Aberdeen

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Aberdeen Grammar School Magatine

Schools' Football team; he is a good golfer, modestly claiming the distinction of being the oldest member that ever played for the University's golf team; and we can be sure that he still knows a lot about railways. This flurry of qualifications—and particularly the last—should commend Mr. Smith to Staff and boys, for whose heart has not lifted, in his time, at the thought that he might one day drive a railway engine?

Mr. Magnus Stewart after a year's teaching in Banchory Academy returns to his old School. It was in 1958 that he left the Grammar to go to Aberdeen University where he graduated with Honours in Chemistry. In welcoming him back to teach where he was taught we are glad to recognise that his old keenness, in sport as in Science, is still very evident. Mr. McNay will give him particular welcome, and the hockey players of the School, we have no doubt, arc already benefiting from Mr. Stewart's expert example as well as from his precept.

Appointed to the Geography Department Mr. Andrew Tait has in common with the principal English master a surname and a background. He belongs, that is to say, to Frascrburgh, a place girt mainly by sea, rock and sand. Educated at Fraserburgh Academy and Aberdeen University, he graduated M.A. in 1963 and took his professional qualification at Aberdeen College of Education in 1964. His modest demeanour and his interests in photography and hill-walking should permit his easy admittance to the company of boys and masters in and out of School hours.

Mr. Henry T. Neilan whose appointment is to the Modern Languages Department is another former pupil of the School, having had two years' schooling here before proceeding to Aberdeen University in 1953 to specialise in languages. He graduated in 1958 with Honours in French-Spanish. In the interval between leaving School and now returning to it he has had varied experience—a year's study at the University of Madrid, two years' teaching in Motherwell, in Our Lady's High School where he had been a pupil prior to coming to Aberdeen, and in Jamaica College, Kingston, from 1961-64. Mr. Neilan has musical interest and talent—the piano and the guitar arc his instruments. The latter noble instrument, it should not require saying, is made for music other than the presently popular "pop".

Mr. Quentin Cramb also makes a welcome return to the School which he graced as a pupil from 1944 to 1958. Since then he has taken an Honours degree in English at Aberdeen University, his professional qualification in teaching and the Diploma of Education at Aberdeen College of Education, and taught for a year in the Huntly Gordon Schools (1963-64); and to his very varied interests in sport (rugby, golf and athletics) he adds an alert concern for literature. But it is probably in drama, in working on and for the stage, that his heart mainly lies. During and after his time at University Mr. Cramb acted in many ambitious and exciting productions in Aberdeen and beyond (as on the Edinburgh Festival Fringe), produced others, and was an apt and fluent script writer for student and other shows. With all this and his natural attachment to his old School we may confidently expect that his services will be freely called on and freely given.

House Notes Byron At a house meeting earlier this term the following officials were elected to represent the house: House Captain, David W. Smith; Vice-Captain, Denis W. Inkson; Rugby Captain, David W. Smith; Vice-Captain, Denis W. Inkson; Hockey Captain, Alistair J. Clark; Vice-Captain, John Salter; Swimming Captain, Martyn A. Batchelor; Vice-Captain, fain I. Wolstenholme. Our congratulations go to all of them on their appointment.

The sporting activities in the Summer Term were cut because of the unfortunate outbreak of typhoid. It was found impossible to hold the Athletic Sports and in the cricket championship only one game was played. This prevented our promising cricket team from winning the Cricket Cup, as was very likely.

House Notes

37

In the coming winter terms we hope to keep up our good reputation for sporting activities. We have an excellent rugby team comprising mainly of 1st and znd XV members. In the one game played, against Dun, we had a narrow victory and it now seems that we will win the Rugby Cup for the third consecutive year.

We should win the Hockey Cup as we have a stronger team than Melvin, our closest rivals. After five out of the six games have been played, both houses are level, but we should pull through in the final game. In the Swimming Gala we hope to keep up our good standard of competitive swimming. With several good swimmers in the lower classes we should have a good chance of winning the Swimming House Championship.

Dun At a meeting earlier this term, the following officials were elected: Howe Captain, David J. F. Robertson; Vice Captain, Douglas Mart. Rugby Captain, David J. F. Robertson; Vice-Captain, Douglas Marr. Hockey Captain, Charles A. Wilson; Vice-Captain, W. Gavin Gray. Swimming Captain, Michael B. Colvin, Vice-Captain, David J. F. Robertson.

It was most unfortunate that the School Sports were cancelled as we had the strongest athletic team in the School. The House has a strong, well-balanced rugby team and should do well in the competition. The same applies to our hockey team, who look capable of winning the trophy, last won in 1957. We do not expect to win the Swimming Gala, indeed, if we fail to collect "the wooden spoon", we will have done well.

D. F. J. R.

Keith The following officials have been appointed to represent the House: House . Captain, Neil MacLeod; Vice-Captain, John Hendry. Rugby Captain, Graeme Davidson; Vice-Captain, Neil MacLeod. Hockey Captain, Russell Gray; Vice-Captain, William Leiper. Swimming Captain, Colin Middleton; Via-Captain, Harold Gudin.

Last term, neither the cricket nor the sports championships were decided owing to the typhoid epidemic.

This term, the Senior House rugby team has begun strongly, beating Melvin convincingly, and if the same determination and team spirit can be maintained we should have a reasonable chance of finishing well up in the rugby championship.

Unlike last year when they won the cup, the hockey team, fielding a somewhat younger eleven, has failed so far to record a victory.

In swimming our prospects look bright and we should be able to repeat our last year's win in the Swimming Gala.

N. M.

Melvin The following are the officials elected to represent the House this year: House Captain, Harry Millar; Vice-Captain, Richard Bisset. Rugby Captain, Harry Millar; Vice-Captain, Richard Bisset. Hockey Captain, Kenneth Hay; Vice-Captain, William Dewar. Swimming Captain, Sandy Shearer; Vice-Captain, Richard Bisset.

Although, due to the typhoid outbreak the annual sports were not held in the summer term, group events were decided and Douglas Fowlie won the individual championship.

At the time of going to press we are favourites to win the hockey cup with only one game in the series remaining to be played. Our only chance of escaping defeat in inter-house rugby is another outbreak of typhoid! Under Sandy Shearer our swimmers should regain the championship which we so narrowly lost last year.

I would like to thank our new house master, Mr. Will, for his support and his enthusiastic interest in the affairs of the house.

H. M.

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Aberdeen Grammar School Magazine

Societies Notes Literary and Debating Society At the Annual General Meeting of the Society held last June, the following officials were elected: President, Donald A. Lamont; Vice-President, Alan C. Moir; Secretary, Malcolm F. Rennie; Treasurer, Hamish T. E. Norbrook.

Although our plans for summer debates last session had to be cancelled due to the typhoid outbreak, we started the session with a surprisingly large membership and some extremely well attended meetings, notably the Mock Election which attracted an enthusiastic if sometimes boisterous, audience of around 14o.

We decided this year to arrange two debates with each Senior Secondary School in the city in an effort to promote closer relations amongst the six schools in the realms of debating. Already we have had debates with the Academy, Gordon's and High all of which have proved most interesting and popular.

We have an abundance of speakers this year especially from the fifth and sixth years. It used to be almost a tradition that the president of the Society had the thankless task of finding people to speak at debates. Now, we find that budding Ciceros arc flocking to actually book debates at which they want to speak I So far this year, we have discussed Nationalisation, Communism and Euthanasia, and we arc now eagerly awaiting the tussles which we hope will be provoked by such controversial subjects as Sabbatharianism, Colonialism and Pacifism amongst others.

MaLcotar F. RENNIE, Secretary

Dramatic Society This year the Society will present an abridged version of Henry IV, Parts I and II, thereby returning to the old Shakespearian tradition. It will be the first production in the new School Hall and we feel very confident that with the greater scope this affords and with a competent and enthusiastic cast we shall maintain the high standard set in the past.

The producers, Mr. King, back in our midst after a recent well-publicised venture, and Mr. Murphy, are joined by Mr. Cramb who has an old association with the Society.

The Society has increased its membership yet again, and with several very promising newcomers in the cast we arc very confident for the future.

R. A. HARDIE, Secretary

Aberdeen Schools Scientific Society The Society, which has members from the 4th, 5th and 6th years of all the Aberdeen Senior Secondary Schools is stronger than ever this year with a total membership of Soo. Meetings are held once a month, usually at the University where visiting lecturers deliver talks on all branches of science. The first meeting was held in the New Natural Philosophy Building at Old Aberdeen where Professor R. V. Jones delivered a lecture entitled, "Some Methods of Scientific Research".

Programmes for future meetings include lectures on Medicine, Chemistry, Physics and Psychology and the British Association have again kindly agreed to provide us with films. Also, as the Society is in a healthy financial position, it is intended to hold a special outing sometime in the Summer Term. The attendance at the first meeting was encouraging and I hope that this will be continued throughout the remainder of the session.

ALEXANDER F. SHEARER, Secretary

Societies' Notes

39

Film Society The officials for this year are: President, Richard C. Shirreffs; Secretary, Brian B. Law; Treasurer, John S. MacPhie.

This, the twelfth season of the Society, is perhaps the most important and eventful since the Society began. At the moment of writing, we hope to move into the new hall, with its balcony, projection box and screen of einernaseope proportions, giving an atmosphere of the grown-up cinema. With such fine films as "Bridge Over the River Kwai"; "Our Man in Havana"; "H.M.S. Defiant"; "Serengeti Shall Not Die" and "3.10 to Yuma", membership is high and we hope that the Society will enjoy the continued success of the past eleven seasons.

We arc indebted to Mr. I-Iemingway and Mr. Baxter who continue to arrange our Friday evening film shows and to those other members of Staff whose interest and support is invaluable.

BRLAN B. Law, Secretary

Arts Club An increase in members from last year (we now number nearly fifty) gave us an encouraging start to the Autumn Term. The Club now meets in the Art Rooms after school at 4 o'clock instead of in the evenings as in past years. Although a large number are taking part in crafts, about one-third continue drawing and painting.

One senior boy is working on a scale model for the reconstruction of St. Machar's Cathedral—this the result of Art Appreciation with Mr. Will during school hours.

Our thanks go once again to Mr. Hemingway and Mr. Wood for their willing help.

Officials: President, Brian B. Law; Joint Secretaries, Raymond A. Davis and Colin K. Rae; Treasurer, Alistair G. Gracie.

RAYMOND A. Davis, Joint Secretary

Motor Club This year sees the first full session of the Club which was started at Easter this year. So far there has been a full programme of meetings with films on all aspects of motoring and talks by Constable Senior of the City Police and Mr. Campbell the well-known rally driver. We are also extremely grateful to the Town and County Garage who have twice provided us with a mechanic to give some technical instruction. This session the Club has bought some books with a view to starting a library and also a set of tools so that work on the car can continue during the Summer Term. Again we would like to thank Mr. Sutherland and Mr. Kennedy, and also Donald Lamont, our president. Other officials elected for this session arc: VicePresident, Russell Gray; Secretary, Alexander Shearer; Treasurer, Alisdair MacKenzie.

A. F. SHEARER

Chess Club There has been an encouraging increase in membership largely due to the enthusiasm of the ist and znd years but response from the Upper School is still disappointing.

We have greatly missed the support of Mr. Galloway during the past months and are grateful to Mr. Smith for filling the post. Two tournaments have been organised and it is hoped that a number of matches with other schools can be arranged. We arc indebted to the school authorities for use of the dining-hall and all concerned are looking forward to a successful year.

DUNCAN FOWLER

40

Aberdeen Grammar School Magazine Scripture Union

Because several of the fifth year S.U. members left School at the end of last session, our numbers this year are below last year's. A few new members from the first year have joined and it is hoped that more will join soon.

During this term, the Union has been addressed by several visiting speakers, including the Rev. Howard Marshall, a Former Pupil of this School. A series of quizzes has been started and the competition between the teams promises to be very keen.

PHILIP J. ROWBERRY, President

Music Notes Now safely installed in fine new quarters, the School Music Department has entered a period of great promise and improved facilities for musical activity.

Three large class rooms, four small practice studios, and ample storage accommodation constitute the new premises, all in a compact group where we can only annoy each other and where our only other annoyances are the rather narrow corridor, the occasional odours floating up from the kitchens below. Our work this term has been handicapped by shortage of teaching staff, as a replacement for Mr. Cullen has still not arrived. We look forward to welcoming Mr. Fea, from Sherbome, who is due to take up his duties with us next term.

Our concert last June had to be cancelled because of the typhoid epidemic, which also carried off into hospital Mr. and Mrs. Hunter, both now fully restored to health. The Senior Choir this term is larger than ever, numbering over ninety members. It has had a busy term. On 12 October the School attended a service in Beechgrovc Church, which the B.B.C. telerecorded for transmission on 15 November.

The Choir sang the Introit, and formed the nucleus of a larger chorus which led the praise and sang a modern anthem—John Gardner's "Fight the good fight".

This proved popular with choir and classes alike, due perhaps to its lively rhythm and percussion part. The Choir sang this and other modern church music at a recital to Aberdeen and District Organists' Association on z6 October. The Choir is now preparing carols for our own School Service and also for Grampian Television and for a Service in the Salvation Army Citadel.

Both Senior and Junior Orchestras are working hard. A series of "Midday Music" recitals is planned for next term, and these will take place in the new Hall.

The organ is at present dismantled and has been sent to the organ builders for tonal improvements before it is installed in its new position above the stage of the new Hall.

The most exciting prospect in the near future is that of a return visit by about fifty pupils of the Oberrealschule of Regensburg. They will visit us at the beginning of June and a joint concert will be given. We hope to arrange an interesting programme of events and activities for them, and both choir and orchestra will be busy next term preparing music for this visit.

Senior Discussion Group This session has been, as far as attendance, very disappointing. We had expected some IVth year boys to attend our meetings but unfortunately the group seems to have no appeal for the present IVth year. Attendances from the Vlth year has dropped too, and although the Group was set up as a group for intimate discussion, it would be encouraging to see more boys attending.

The Group is still as informal as ever and our sincere thanks must go to Mr. Duncan whose restraining influence and wise advice frequently save some of our members from actual physical assault during the more heated discussions.

M. F. R.

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42

Aberdeen Grammar School Magazine Radio Club

This year, although the membership is slightly reduced, we look forward with confidence. Already Mr. Gordon's T.V. set which, up to now, has been collecting dust has been forced into life enabling those inclined to watch "Romper Room" and "5 o'clock Club".

The newer arrivals are gleefully piecing together the "Tutor" transistor radios, while the older members arc busy on their own projects. The small "Cossor" oscilloscope which we have been using recently will soon (we hope) he joined by a larger and more sensitive model being built in the technical department. And once more the Radio Club expresses its thanks to Mr. Murray and Mr. Gordon.

E. D. MACPHERBON, Upper VI

Railway Club The Railway Club, which was formed in the Winter Term of last year, is continuing to run successfully under the supervision of Mr. Bruce and Mr. Smith of the Science Department. Since the beginning of the term quite a number of new developments have taken place. The modelling section of the Society under the direction of James Scott, has begun the construction of a branch railway line, which, when in use, will be erected in Mr. Bruce's lab.

We have on order a selection of interesting films from the British Transport Commission. Two of these, "The Beeching Report" and "The Blue Pullman" have been shown already and were enthusiastically received by our members. As the projection room is available to us approximately twice a month, this will conveniently enable us to alternate our modelling with the films throughout the session.

A pleasing development of the Society is that members have taken it upon themselves to give talks on special subjects of interest. Last year, talks on the Highland Railway and Scottish Preservation Society were given by outsiders, and although we would not wish this to stop altogether, we shall continue to encourage our own members in this field.

We are, of course, indebted to Mr. Bruce and Mr. Smith for their enthusiastic contributions to this Society.

ROBERT DAVIDSON

Lower School Notes I wonder if this winter term of 1964 will be best remembered for its three months of Indian summer causing roses still to bloom out of doors in November, for a goodbye to our dear old Hall with its host of associations with people and occasions, for the expectancy and fulfilment of a Royal visit—the first in our school's history— or for the gloom created in many a heart by the realisation that August 1964, saw the last intake of little boys to K.G. ?

Only one staff change has taken place this term. Mrs Philip, after three years of arduous work for and with her boys in Primary III and IV, for family and health reasons transferred to a school nearer her home, and we were very fortunate to obtain as her replacement Miss Pamela Mayor, an energetic young teacher whose competence matches that of Mrs. Philip. Mrs. Angus, who was indisposed throughout the summer vacation, returned to the tread-mill in October feeling and looking better of her enforced rest cure. We all wish her a speedy and complete return to good health.

The traditional calendar of the winter term has had one major alteration this session, for only one part instead of all of the Transfer Examination was sat by the boys in November, the second diet being held over until 16/17 February i 965, while 7+ and 9+ Tests instead of being done in November will take place in May 1965.

Lower School Notes

43

This term there has been an upsurge of interest in both glove and shadow puppetry. Mannikin faces, benign and ferocious, lugubrious and cheerful, observe one with disconcerting intensity of gaze from numerous classroom window sills. The local acting unpaid joiner (alias J. D. M.) has been engaged with hammer, saw and screwdriver on a refurbishing operation of our two old theatres, assisted ably by some junior house-painters who seem to have no Union affiliations. Altogether it seems the stage is well set for a feast of drama at Christmas time which will be much appreciated by our K.G. and Junior classes, besides being thoroughly enjoyed by the actors themselves.

In this the third year of our Spanish teaching experiment Primary VILA have graduated to using a simple Spanish reader and Mr. McClean seems well satisfied with the progress shown. It will be interesting to observe how many of this group will opt for Spanish as a language next year and to what extent this three years of oral work will assist them in their further study of the language.

First assembly for Lower School in the new hall took place on Friday 6 November in the form of a simple yet memorable service conducted by the school Chaplain, Mr. Cattanach, and I trust that all my boys remember the theme of his interesting address. Our Lower School Carol Service we hope to hold this year in Bccchgrove Church on the afternoon of Wednesday, 16 December.

The system whereby our senior classes Primary VII, VI and V now attend Rubislaw on three different afternoons namely Monday, Thursday and Friday respectively, is working satisfactorily and we have been able to enjoy our games afternoons to the full because of the fine weather over the past three months.

The Rugby XV has suffered defeat on two occasions at the hands of Minors A, and on the soccer field our A team has had two wins and one loss, while the B team has had one victory and one draw against other Primary schools.

Miss Cooper has been successfully indoctrinating a group from Primary VII in the theoretical and practical pursuit of Road Safety, for all ten of her class were awarded National Cycling Proficiency Certificates and badges. These were presented in the Hall by the Rector.

By virtue of exhortation from Mr. Hawksworth and myself, the number of boys wishing to join the Lower School Choirs this term was quite phenomenal. So many prospective Giglis were there in fact that the Senior section of the choir has had to be divided into two groups with thirty-four in each while the Junior section is thirty seven strong. Looking ahead, we hope to have a Lower School Concert during the last week of March 1965 and preparations are already in hand for the production of the operetta "Finn and the Black Hag" by Raymond Warren. In addition there will be playing and singing by instrumentalists and our choirs, and there is a whisper that some Highland dancing and a short Spanish play may appear on the programme.

Voice production of a rather different kind for all Lower School boys may have to be undertaken in the course of the next week for, on a December they will be cheering our Royal visitor Princess Alexandra on the occasion of her opening our new School buildings. Right well they will cheer too, no doubt, with the thought of a holiday imminent by Royal command!

Our Monitors for Session 104-65 are as follows: Wilfred J. Mitchell (Head), Andrew D. Nisbet and Douglas R. Williamson of Primary VIIA ; Alastair W. Duthie, Marshall Willox (Deputy Head) and Stuart Tait of Primary VIIB; Peter J. Milne and Campbell Paterson of Primary VIA; Keith M. Anderson and John Buchan of Primary VIB. As ever they are a group of helpful young men who enjoy and are capable of accepting responsibility. Three of them indeed, on two occasions this term when a member of staff was absent and I found myself harassed, took a class of Juniors for an hour, kept them usefully occupied and even marked all the Homework exercises!

J. D. M.

44

Aberdeen Grammar School Magazine

C.C.F. Notes General In the last December issue it was stated that we were in the middle of a transition period and, at that time, it was not possible to know that all the end of session activities which play such an important part in the C.C.F. calendar would fade out into nothingness, leaving nothing but a sense of complete frustration. However, Phoenix-like, the Contingent is now in the process of rising renewed from the ashes of the Summer Term with an intake of thirty-five second-year Cadets who have already given a most favourable impression of themselves with their keen attitude and regular attendance.

We have been unfortunate to lose, at one and the same time, the services of Flt./Lt. Brown and Capt. Galloway. Mr. Brown's new role as Deputy Rector of the School makes it impossible for him to continue in the Contingent and we should all extend our heart-felt thanks to him for his long and valuable service. Mr. Galloway, we are sure, will be rejoining us next year when he returns from his Russian course in Glasgow. Perhaps he will cull some military information from his forthcoming visit to Moscow. In the meantime, the Royal Air Force will carry on regardless, with its dual officer strength, in the administration of the unit. Looking ahead, we expect to be in the Cairngorms and Strathspey area at Easter on the Arduous Training scheme. The annual summer camp for the Army Section will probably consist of a return to Cultybraggan, a venue of many happy camps some years back.

At this time it is in order to pay tribute to those who serve us well throughout the year, R.S.M. Rogers from T. & A.F.A., R.S.M. Adams from Aberdeen University O.T.C., all our friends at Rubislaw Terrace and Fonthill and the O.C. 3rd Gordons who has, on several occasions, made the T.A. centre at Alford available to us for week-ends. We offer our congratulations to F./O. Sutherland on two scores, viz. his adoption of marital status in July and his promotion to the substantive rank of Flying Officer in September.

R. McL.

Army Section Promotions at the start of this term were as follows: Sgt. Adams to C.S.M.; Sgt. Brown and Cpl. Clark to C./Sgt.; Cpls. Philip and Christie to Sgt.; L./Cpl. MacPhic and Cdt. Johnston to Cpl. Neil Forrest and John Adams successfully completed Royal Naval Flying Scholarship Courses in Chipmunk aircraft. Both qualified for a private pilot's licence in that class of aircraft. These scholarships are part of a new scheme initiated last year for the Army and Naval sections of C.C.F. After successful completion of an interview and assessment test, cadets arc given thirty hours flying experience at a civil aero club. Acceptance of one of these scholarships carries no obligation to join the Fleet Air Arm, but it is valuable experience for any cadet wishing to join the service. C.S.M. Adams visited H.M.S. Eagle. This was a visit for all successful candidates in the Flying Scholarship Scheme to Britain's newest aircraft carrier.

The contingent had a visit from Colonel Murray, accompanied by Major Villiers-Stewart. This was a farewell visit by the Colonel on his departure from Highland Brigade.

On the Thursday and Friday of the October holiday, a field day was held at Afford for all army cadets and cadets in the pre-C.C.F. section.

Our thanks are due to the cadets who represented the School at the simulated rail crash in Aberdeen on 1 November.

We are looking forward to another Arduous Training scheme during the Easter holidays.

JOHN ADAMS, C.S.M.

C.C.F. Notes

45

R.A.F. Section This year the annual camp was to have been held at R.A.F. Cranwell but was, much to our disappointment, cancelled due to the typhoid outbreak. This was partly made up for by the field-day at Leuchars.

Training this year went off to an excellent start and the following cadets have been promoted to the rank of corporal: A. Campbell, S. Dorward, S. Forbes and D. Mackenzie. The second year (still without uniforms) have been alternating between aircraft recognition, with Cpl. Dorward, and Signals, with Cadet Donaldson under the supervision of Cpl. Forbes. The third year section have been attending Rubislaw, for instruction in the Principles of Flight (using the glider for demonstrations) under the supervision of Flt. /Sgt. Jermieson. The proficiency section have been making excellent progress in Meteorology and Navigation. There has also been perfect attendance amongst the proficiency section, this term.

During the latter part of this term Cpls. Dorward and Mackenzie visited R.A.F. Henlow and it is hoped that more N.C.O.s will do so next term.

A. H. WtirrE, Flt.(Sgt. Pipes and Drums With the School Sports and the Cadet Inspection cancelled because of the typhoid outbreak the band had no public engagements last term.

Practices this term have been held regularly and, although the drumming section is as large as possible, there is still an acute shortage of experienced pipers, there being only two in the upper school. However, this indicates that there is a nudeus of enthusiastic players who should improve the standard of piping in the not too distant future.

I would like to thank Messrs. Hunter and Russell Gray, whose devotion of time and energy keep the band flourishing and Mr. MacLeod who continues to deal with the necessary administration of the band.

HARRY MILLAR, Drum Major

School Sporting Activities Athletics As in all summer activities last session this was severely curtailed. The House Athletics Trophy was not awarded as the Annual Sports had to be cancelled. The Senior Championship events were run off and Douglas Fowlie was the winner.

No inter-school matches were held and no boys took part in the Scottish Schoolboys' Championships. This was very unfortunate for Fowlie who was second in the Javelin last year and who was all set for a possible first this year.

David Robertson took part in the Schoolboys' Cross Country events both in Aberdeen where he was first; and in Dunfermline where other Scottish Schools were competing. He was placed sixteenth.

Colour Awards—Full Colours: D. G. Fowlie.

Half Colours: D. J. F. Robertson.

46

Aberdeen Grammar School Magazine Cricket

When the typhoid epidemic dosed down our activities only four 1st XI matches had been played. These were against Inverurie Academy, Dundee High School, Dollar Academy and Glenalmond. The XI looked quite promising with batting stronger than bowling—yet at Glenalmond it was the batting that let us down.

Angus, U'ren, Will, Hay, Robertson and Hamilton all had good knocks and each might well have run up a lot of runs had there been a full season.

Will was the most successful bowler taking 13 wickets for 85 runs. Angus, on whom we had pinned our hopes, was singularly off form, while the others seemed to bowl with little concern about length and direction!

This was a young side and no fewer than eight returned to School this session.

It is hoped that circumstances this year will make for a better season.

No senior House matches were played but the Junior House Cup went to Dun. Results: School 82 all out (Angus 24) v. Inverurie 69 for 8, Inkson 5 for to. v. Dundee H.S. 92 all out (Will 8 for 24); School 6i for 4 (U'ren 14).

School x38 for 5 (U'ren 45 n.o., Will 39 n.o., Angus as); v. Dollar 7o for 7.

School 6o all out (Hamilton 23 n.o.); v. Glenalmond 6x for 4 (Angus 3 for z6).

Colour Awards—Full Colours: G. Angus, W. G. U'ren, H. 0. Will.

Half Colours: D. G. Fowlie, H. E. Morrison.

Rugby The good weather and dry pitches have favoured the open style of rugby, which has been a feature of the 1st XV play. The side which is rather too small and light has experienced mixed fortunes. Good wins were recorded against Dundee High School, Gordonstoun and Aberdeen Academy. Although beaten by Glasgow Academy, they were not disgraced, the loss of two forwards through injury being too great a handicap. To lose to Dollar by 3 points after "gifting" the opposition 8 points was a galling experience. A rather wretched aimless performance against Gordon's College resulted in School being convincingly beaten 6 points to nil.

There is undoubted ability in the side but a certain deficiency in defence has often proved too costly. Much will depend on how the side can adapt to wet, heavy pitches. The 2nd XV have done well and are a very keen and enthusiastic side who have lost only to a strong Glenalmond team. If they maintain current form the 2nd XV can look forward to a most successful season. xst XV Matches 26 September v. Dundee High School at Rubislaw School won the toss, and playing downhill, with a slight wind at their backs, soon showed their superiority by pressing bard inside the High School's "twentyfive". With Yule jumping well in the line-outs, School's three-quarters were given many chances to show their ability to run and pass the ball. It was not long before Bisset made a break, to let Inkson score beneath the posts. Will converted. School continued to attack with Clark making a good debut on the wing, and further tries were added by Robertson and Millar. Will converted both and kicked two penalties.

This game was a very good start to the season, with the forwards linking well with the backs.

Result: School z1 pts.; Dundee High School o pts.

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48

Aberdeen Grammar School Magazine

3 October v. Glasgow Academy at New Anniesland School pressed hard in the first ten minutes, but poor finishing let them down.

Then the Academy showed their real form and only good covering by Millar and Glover prevented their scoring. Gracie, troubled by an injured leg, had to go off, but School's defence still held.

In the second-half, everything seemed to go wrong. Millar, who sustained a head injury, just managed to carry on, but with virtually only thirteen men, School were struggling. Academy made a break and their winger scored beneath the posts.

Gracie returned but was just a passenger. Will equalised with a good penalty kick, but the Academy's fitness showed. In the last ten minutes, they scored eleven points, two tries and a goal, and School were very glad to hear the final whistle.

Result: Glasgow Academy r6 pts.; School 3 pts. to October v. Gordonstoun at Rubislaw School showed slackness at the start of both halves, allowing a much improved Gordonstoun side to score 5 points on each occasion. However, after these setbacks, School rallied and began to play fast open rugby. Collier was hooking well, and on several occasions both wing-forwards joined into the three-quarter line. Tries were scored by Gray, Inkson and Glover. Will converted two tries and two penalties.

Result: School 19 pts.; Gordonstoun to pts.

17 October v. Dollar Academy at Dollar Once again School started very badly by virtually giving Dollar 8 points, in the first five minutes. However, with the forwards playing well, School soon pulled back and, in fact, took the lead. Grade followed up to score after a break by Glover.

Will converted and kicked a penalty, and just after half-time, Hendry scored a try after a blunder by Dollar. However, Dollar attacked again and scored a try, followed, a few minutes later by a drop goal which gave them victory. School were unlucky to lose Smith with a dislocated finger, but had really no excuse for losing the game.

Result: Dollar Academy 14 pts.; School i t pts.

24 October v. Aberdeen Academy at Rubislaw School played uphill and Inkson soon scored an unconverted try. The balance of play was very even, changing from one end of the field to the other very quickly.

Academy scored a try when a lucky bounce of the ball beat Clark, but the same player put School back in the lead, when he "battled" through to score in the corner.

Playing downhill in the second-half, School dominated the play with Marr and Anderson working well in the loose. Gray and Davidson were linking very well, and the latter's tactical kicking gave the Academy defence many anxious moments.

Further scorers were: Smith (z tries), Inkson and Gracie each a try, and Will, three conversions.

Result: School 24 pts.; Aberdeen Academy 3 pts.

D. W. S.

Badminton Club The officials for the season are as follows: Captain, Henry R. Millar; Secretary, Michael B. Colvin.

The Club is this year blessed with a superbundance of players. There are, in all, twenty-two, of whom eleven are new to the game. While the standard of play is possibly lower than in previous years, it is improving with every meeting, and we propose to hold some matches later in the season.

MICHAEL B. COLVIN, Secretary

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Aberdeen Grammar School Magazine

5o

Swimming The School has now had its pond for a full year. It has been a wonderful addition to the Physical Education facilities in the School, and everyone has thoroughly enjoyed it. Considerable progress in swimming has taken place. In the first year it was necessary to concentrate on getting "everyone a swimmer", for in each year there were many boys unable to swim. With considerable effort on the part of the Physical Education Staff, who arc teaching thc swimming, this aim has been achieved.

There very few boys who arc not yet "off", and these are mostly in the first year. Life saving has now been added to thc work in the pond and this will be reported on at the end of the year. Evenings have been set aside for Life Saving classes and, in addition, provision has been made for the usual Swimming Club activities. Some attention has been paid to competitive swimming, in as much as a team took part in the North District Schools Swimming Gala. I. Smith and G. Good won their events and proceed to the Scottish Schools' Swimming Championships in Hamilton.

Other members of the team, though they did not win their events put up a good performance. In time it is hoped to develop this side of School swimming—but not at the expense of the very many boys for whom swimming is an enjoyable recreation, and excellent exercise.

The School Gala will be held in the Bon Accord Baths on Friday, 22 January.

Officials—Captain, M. Batchelor; Vice-Captain, A. F. Shearer.

Ski Club Mr. Anderson has now taken over the position of Mr. Wilson in the running of the Ski Club and we welcome his advice and encouragement. It has been decided that the Club will, in future, devote most of its energy to introducing beginners to the ski-slopes. To this end we now possess four pairs of skis and three pairs of boots and can provide very cheap ski hire. We have also been offered eight places on a comprehensive skiing course run by the Education Committee on the lines of last year's very successful one.

Despite last season's unfortunate weather conditions we look forward to a good winter's skiing this year, utilising the new much improved facilities in the Cairngorms and Deeside.

JAMES SCOTT, Secretary'

Scout Notes r st Group G.S.M. (acting) C.M. S.M. (acting) A.R.S.L.

A. II. Cairns, 414 Great Western Road, Tel. No. 36321.

Miss E. Slessor, 21 Viewfield Crescent, Tel. No. 36820.

M. L. Wolkoff, 37 Lcggart Terrace, Tel. No. 24585.

T. Paton, 21 Harcourt Road, Tel. No. 35156.

Pack This summer, although the typhoid epidemic cancelled a number of meetings, the Pack have had a varied programme. We had meetings at Clinterty in May and September, and these were thoroughly enjoyed by all.

This autumn eight of the older boys "went up to Scouts" and we welcomed nine new Cubs. There have also been changes in the scouters. Judy Carry and Hugh Munro have left us to attend college in London and Glasgow, and we welcome Diana Edwards.

Scout Notes

51

The Pack have gained several badges including three leaping Wolves. We look forward to some hard work for the rest of the term culminating with the Christmas Party on Saturday, 59 December.

Troop Owing to unfortunate circumstances we were not able to carry out our usual programme of summer activities this year. Our greatest disappointment of course was the cancellation of our Summer Camp. We did, however, make up for this, to some small degree, with the September week-end camp, which was held at Templars Park, on the occasion of the visit to the ground of the Chief Scout. A thoroughly enjoyable time was had by all, including our P.L.s who provided everyone with a great deal of amusement in their efforts to bring honour to the Troop, on the "Commando Course".

During this week-end, Mike Colvin, one of the three to win the Queen's Scout Badge this year, was presented with his certificate by Sir Charles Maclean. The two others, Alan Stewart and Hugh Munro, have, like Mike, moved up to the Rover section of our Group.

In spite of a very considerable effort by Brian Begg and the Eagle patrol, we did not manage to win the County Challenge this year, but everyone had a great time trying hard to track down agent "007", and each patrol which entered was presented with a magnificent "bomb". During the October holiday some of the Seniors and Scouters spent a busy but enjoyable week-end at Clintcrty, where they were usefully employed making some repairs to our premises there.

September week-end camp was regretfully the last troop function attended by our S.M., G. N. Ducat, who had to leave us owing to pressure of work. During the past seven years or so, the Troop has almost taken for granted Nick's pleasant, reliable efficiency as a scouter, and we are all very sorry he has had to leave us.

Another Scouter who left us at the same time was Peter Jeffrey. His originality and enthusiasm is going to be missed by us also.

Owing to these unfortunate departures, a gap was left at the top of the Troop.

This was, however, ably and willingly filled by George Nicol, Mike Colvin and Douglas Stewart, all from our Rover Crew.

Although slightly limited in our activities, the Troop has had another useful and interesting year of scouting.

Crew The Crew is now in excellent shape, with a membership of twenty in all, although a few of these are "non-playing" members, scattered throughout the country in varying occupations.

During the summer vacation, the crew was still active, though not as a body.

Two members played an important part in the successful Icelandic Expedition, while another five spent an enjoyable fortnight on a gastronomic tour of France.

Those who stayed at home, however, found much to do in painting the hut, and decorating our new Rover Dcn, part of the recent extensions to the hut.

An interesting programme is already under way for the new session—a car rally and an inspection of vintage cars having provided much didactic pleasure.

At the end of this year our R.S.M., Mr. J. G. S. MacGregor will resign his warrant. During his few years leading the crew, "Mac" has been largely responsible for its growth and its present healthy position. We would, as a crew, therefore, like to take this opportunity of thanking him sincerely, and at the same time, of wishing him well in his new job in West Lothian.

5z

Aberdeen Grammar School Magazine

gth Group G.S.M. Dr. P. E. G. Mitchell, 2 Pinewood Road, Tel. No. 35428.

C.M. Miss Sheila M. Fraser, 17 Argyll Place, Tel. No. 20400.

C. Mackenzie, 3; Bonnymuir Place, Tel. No. 29618.

S.M. For the first time in a great many years the Troop was unable to hold its annual Summer Camp. Preparations for this, which was to be held in Glen Gairn were well advanced when typhoid struck and the ban was put on camping. By the time it was lifted it was found impossible to run a camp, which was a great pity. However, at the September holiday weekend a number of the Troop had an enjoyable camp at Templar's Park. This was when the Chief Scout, Sir Charles Maclean, visited the camping ground, and during his stay presented Gary Joss with his Queen's Scout Certificate. Mike Carry, Ian Colvin and Alan Cowie have now also gained the badge.

We offer them all our congratulations on gaining this highest scouting award.

At the moment all our efforts are directed towards the Autumn Fair in the Music Hall on Saturday, as November. So far we have raised £430 towards out target.

The fair is to be followed in January by a Group Show written by our previous S.M. Ken Thompson. It is hoped to hold this in the School Hall on x5/16 January 1 965.

Many changes have taken place since the last issue of the magazine, among them being Bob Page's departure to take on the job of S.M. of his original troop the x 9th (Robert Gordon's College). We wish him the best of luck and thank him for all the hard work he has done for the Ninth. A. Burns and I. Reid have returned to the Troop as Scouters and Hunter Will an A.S.M. has gained his Wood Badge.

The roll of the Cub Pack stands at twenty-five but with three Cubs moving on to the Troop in January there will be room for a few recruits on Wednesdays at 6.3o p.m. We should also like to congratulate Stuart O'Hara on gaining his Leaping Wolf Badge. i 7th Group G.S.M. F. R. Paterson, 26 Osborne Place, Tel. No. 310'3.

C.M. Miss Joyce Park, 270 Union Grove.

John K. Blair, 8 Pitstruan Place.

S.M. The biggest disappointment was the cancellation of our Summer Camp due to be held in Glen Prosen. An excellent September camp was held at Kingswells when thirty boys spent the weekend under canvas.

Our extensions to our H.Q. are now complete and already serving a great boon in the general scout training of the Troop.

The Troop was one of eight troops which took part in the County Flag competition. This was a most enjoyable and excellently organised weekend.

We are once again delighted to offer our congratulations to another Queen's Scout. Gordon Morrison is the third member of the Troop to gain the badge this year. Well done Gordon!

The Pack was extremely disappointed on the cancellation of their annual outing, Cub Sports, and seven-a-side football competition.

For the first time for many years the Pack has had to form a waiting list. The roll of the Pack stands at present at forty-two, but work is progressing extremely well and since our last issue three of the Pack have gained their Leaping Wolf badge Douglas Forbes, Peter Milne and David Wood.

Literary Section

53

Literary Section Edinburgh Festival 1964 A larger party than usual, comprising eighteen Vth formers, made the annual pilgrimage to Edinburgh for this year's Festival. Under the not too eagle eyes of Messrs. Henderson and Ryan, I think it would be true to say that everyone enjoyed the widely varying programme which the two English masters had carefully prepared for us. We arrived in Edinburgh about 9.3o on the Saturday morning, and an hour and a half later we were seated in Leith Town Hall awaiting the start of a concert given by the Scottish National Orchestra conducted by Alexander Gibson.

The highlight of the concert was provided by Julian Bream who demonstrated his artistry to the full in an exciting guitar concerto.

I found that the programme's claim that "The Golden Legend of Shults" was written "purely in the hope of giving pleasure", was surprisingly accurate. This play by James Bridle was excellent entertainment and very well performed. 1 was especially impressed by the acting of Alex. McAvoy as Davie Cooper the principal character in the play. It is a simple story and the constant changing of scene from place to place in conjunction with a whole host of assorted characters kept the play alive and thoroughly entertaining.

Although most of the party viewed "Les Ballets Afticains" with a certain amount of scepticism before the actual first night performance, this brightly coloured spectacle of African dances performed to a background of rhythmic jungle music, proved to be the highlight of our visit. Perhaps the very absence of any resemblance to a conventional British stage production was one of the things that made this such an enjoyable and novel experience for us.

No Festival visit is complete without Shakespeare, and since it is his (patercentenary year, in addition to "Henry IV", "Henry V" and "Love's Labour's Lost", the "Shakespeare Exhibition" was staged in Edinburgh. This exhibition traced Shakespeare's life and work chronologically, with original folios and copies of some of his works as well as a background history of the period. There was on display an intriguing model of the Globe Theatre in which one would sit and listen to recordings of some of the well-known speeches from Shakespeare's works.

Time was against a careful study of this interesting and most informative exhibition as it would have taken the best part of a day to study it in any detail.

Joan Littlewood's controversial production of "Henry IV" by the "Theatre Workshop" did not appeal to me and the general feeling of boys and masters alike was one of disappointment. It was agreed that the modern costuming together with what was decidedly indifferent acting spoiled what could have been a memorable performance.

Of those shows which had not been selected for us, "Footlights '64", the Cambridge University revue was a very• slick and thoroughly entertaining show.

This revue, performed by only four students had obviously been carefully rehearsed before-hand, and the result was a first-rate performance. Other "fringe" shows which were discussed in the "wee small hours" and sensed to have been well received were "Chaganog" and the Oxford Revue.

Boarding the train for the homeward journey, I felt that our visit had been all too short.

JOHN F. HENDRY, Upper VI

54

Aberdeen Grammar School Magazine Tour of Israel and Greece

The National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain has about one hundred and fifty members, selected from all over Britain. They meet three times a year, in the Christmas, Easter and Summer holidays, in various towns throughout the country.

Since I was accepted as a member last October, I have attended courses in Sunderland, the Isle of Man, and Croydon. Each course consists of expert tuition for about a week, at the end of which we give one or two concerts in the area where the course is held.

After the summer course at Croydon, the Orchestra, with about one hundred of its members (four of whom were Scots), set off from London on the first stage of its tour of Israel and Greece.

During the ten days in Israel, the Orchestra was based in Tel-Aviv, where we stayed in an international youth holiday camp, the Kfar Maccabiah, which slightly resembled a Butlin's Holiday Camp with a private swimming pool and other sports facilities. We gave a total of six concerts in Jerusalem, Tiberias, Tel-Aviv, Caesarea, Beersheba and Haifa, the concert works being the Benvenuto Cellini Overture by Berlioz, Bach's double violin concerto, Benjamin Britten's Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra, and Dvorak's Seventh Symphony. Playing in places varying from the inspiring modern Congress Hall in Jerusalem to a baseball stadium in Tel-Aviv caused considerable havoc with the acoustic balance of the Orchestra, and on top of that, we sometimes had to play above the constant grating of crickets or the beating of waves on the Mediterranean shore. In Tel-Aviv, Dvorak's symphony was drowned out for fully two minutes by an aeroplane passing excruciatingly slowly over the stadium.

Although we were working hard for much of the time, we did have opportunities for sight-seeing in most of the towns where we gave concerts. At Jerusalem, we were given a conducted tour of the city and shown round the impressive new University where we were allowed to see the Dead Sea Scrolls. In Nazareth, we saw the underground dwelling where Christ is reputed to have lived during the winters, and also the Temple to the Virgin Mary which is still under construction.

The most striking impression one gets throughout Israel is of the tremendous numbers of buildings and motorways which have been constructed within the last twenty-five years, and the amount of building actually in progress. This is made obvious when, in the wastes of the Negev, where the only signs of life arc a few Bedouin camps, there suddenly appears the modern city of Beersheba, complete with blocks of flats and tall office buildings.

More and more land is being developed for agriculture, which is pioneered and carried on mainly in kibbutzim (collective farms). A tremendous amount of irrigation is needed everywhere in summer. In fact, during our ten days in Israel, the sky was practically cloudless and the temperature went soaring into the eighties every day.

The highest temperature we experienced was reported as i 09°F. One interesting coincidence is that the British Charge d'Affaires in Israel, whom I was fortunate in meeting, is a Scotsman, educated at none other establishment than Aberdeen Grammar School.

We were in Greece for only two days, to participate in the Athens Festival of Music and Drama. We gave two concerts in the Herodus Atticus Theatre under the Acropolis, which were enthusiastically received despite the fact that the British are not too popular in Greece at the moment. We spent both forenoons sight-seeing, our main objective being, of course, the Parthenon.

The tour came all too soon to its end. Two days later I was back in Aberdeen ready to resume work at school, and this great experience became just a memory.

ALEx. G. WILSON, Upper VI

Literary Section

55

The Rise and Fall of an Unknown I want to write a poem For the magazine It will have to be the best one The Editors have seen The first of its type It's going to be unique Praised by all the masters Even by the "beak".

1'11 have a scholarship at Oxford A bursary of a hundred pounds My income will increase, I hope, By pounds and pounds and pounds.

A weekly column in the Times A broadcast on T.V. A contract to a publisher In English, a degree.

A roomy fiat in Mayfair A brand new E-type Jag' Well known in best society 1'11 have my special flag.

There is just one slight hindrance That puts me in a plight I haven't got a notion Of what I'm going to write.

GRAHAM WATT, MIL

A Dog's Life Pleading eyes and tail a-wagging "Surely now it's time for walk.

Leave your school books—let's be going", Who denies that dogs can talk?

Through the woodland, "1 smell rabbits, What's inside this hollow tree?

Watch the catch this falling beech leaf, This is fun, just you and me."

Over moor of turf and heather "On the scent of some big game.

Now I've lost it! Here's an ant-hill!

Aren't you feeling glad we came?"

Homeward by the banks of river, "Water tastes so fresh and cool, Wish we could stay here forever Must you really go to school?"

Home again, familar gatepost, "Here's my bowl of meat. Smells good!"

Sleeping, dreaming by the fireside, Doggies' life,—walk, home—and food!

KENNETH CARNEGIE, IIA

56

Aberdeen Grammar School Magazine A Shipwreck Now roars the cold and angry ocean grey, High waves surge hungry, crowned with flying spray.

Deep yawning chasms gape between their peaks, While overhead the startled seagull shrieks.

One lonely vessel braves the stormy tide, The waves relentless pound on either side; Around its rigging whistles shrill the gale, The helmsman struggles hard—to no avail.

The tossing vessel sighs:and heaves:and groans, And drifts yet nearer to those cold, black stones, Whose hungry teeth project above the waves, Where many fated seamen have their graves.

A sudden shudder marks the doomed ship's end, Like twisted twigs its stoutest oaks now bend.

Through gaping gashes floods the ocean grey, And timbers cleft asunder drift away.

Another victim now the sea has ta'en— Its great untiring might will never wane, For ever will it surge in restless waves, While men in puny ships remain its slaves.

RICHARD C. SIIIRREFFS, Upper VI

Tube Station: Winter Meeting the blast of warm stale air, The shades of men swarm Hades-bound, The dead executives and clerks Descend to the London Ungerground.

There the vision never blossoms, The lightning-bolt does not transfix; How should their eyes in this foresee The searing darkness of the Styx?

These, who, daily briefcase-bearing, Assume the general pose of life, Ignore the figure which divides The surgeon's from the killer's knife.

The symbols of a myth become For earth and sky the sign of day.

Behind the world the spring sun waits.

Pluto awaits Proscrpinc.

IAN TELFER, V,

Literary Section

57

Sunset A lark sings in the towering oak; A long clear note, as if to herald The fast approach of Demon Night.

Coming to engulf the Day In void and cheerless black.

All eyes turn heavenwards.

There, in the West, a priceless jewel in the vaults of space, Hangs, in awesome splendour, the dazzling sun.

"0 Sun! To thee we owe our existence!

Without thee we could no longer live!

Shine on, 0 Sun, in thine eternal splendour, And do not let us perish in the cold and dark.

Thou dost reveal to us, the beauties of our planet, Thy radiance the eyes of all hath dazzled, Fall not, before the swift approaching Night!"

Soon all is over.

The flaming orb dips low behind the sky line, And night creeps on.

Yet man goes back to his work, His wars, his sins and his petty toil, Defying the magnificence of heaven, Living and dying, ignorant of the many beauties, Which, unheeded, are all around him.

CHRISTOPHER C. BROWN, III=

November The cold wind rustles icy in the tree tops Floating the red-brown leaves to a barren ground, The dying embers of spring's great fire From chimneys perched on a score of dark-grey roofs, Dark clouds of smoke pour out to a dark-grey sky, A sky of clouds dark-faced in ire.

The chill mist swirls, eddies, twist around, A fine white veil, masking a world of shadows.

A world of black and grey but never green.

Out in the street, some headlights glow and buses purr But they are things apart of another bright-lit world, Not part of this, the dismal, cheerless scene.

DAVID NOR➢ROOK,

III Ht

58

Aberdeen Grammar School Afagaine Paradise Lost Birds sing.

Swallows flit by, Dark flashes against the sky.

Everything is bright and gay, A typical summer's day; And birds sing.

Birds sing.

Down the valley, across the lake, Echoes the cry of the corncrake.

The bee hums from flower to flower, The honey increases hour by hour; And birds sing.

Birds sing.

In the field and the lush meadow, Where the townsmen seldom go, The rabbit ventures from its burrow, A stoat waits behind a furrow; And birds sing.

Birds sing.

Then comes the rumble of mechanisation, The relentless advance of automation, Houses, shops spring up in a day, A flyover links the motorway; And no birds sing.

DONALD SIMPSON, /1"2

The Headless Horseman With steed of white and ghostly light The spectral horseman rides the night.

Over hills and under bridges, Through the trees and over ditches, Over fence and over fen, The headless horseman rides again.

People hiding safe at home, Hear the dreaded horseman roam Through the dark and gloomy streets Emitting loud and dreadful shrieks, O, shut your doors and windows tight, The headless horseman rides tonight I ARCHIBALD TAIT, I G

Literary Section

59

Music's Cycle The vibrant notes from reed or taut-drawn string, Invisible, intangible, take wing, Play briefly on the human mind and heart, Ephemeral, impalpable, depart Beyond the narrow bourn of this world's light In meteoric, cometary flight.

Ye transient captives of the human eat, Ye deathless nomads of the aerial sphere, Eternal voyagers beyond the skies, Where other suns on other worlds arise, Salute ye, as ye pass, in outer space, The brother phonic waves that earthwards race From Pluto, Mars, Deneb, the Pleiades, From Alphard, Castor and the Hyades, To fall enmeshed in lone composer's mind, Antenna-like receptive to their kind?

From where, new-fused, new-blended, new composed, One day, by fertile synthesis transposed, They burst, released upon the atmosphere, To voyage starwards on their new career.

J. LACHLAN MACKENZIE,

All Quiet on the Western Front His eye tried to pick out the enemy's lines Through the dirt and the dead and the sand: But all he could see Were those who were free In the hell of No Man's Land.

He searched with his eye for a movement, a sign, For something alive in the mud: But all to be seen Was a ragged smoke screen And the River Somme, running with blood.

He thought of the booming, the battle, the din, Of shouting, shelling, and bomb; Flow the many that fell Were left out in Hell, Left to die on the banks of the Somme.

The men had stopped yelling, the guns had stopped firing And drizzle was killing the day; But scattered around On the Killing Ground Were blotches of khaki and grey.

PETER MAY, Ill

Rh

6o

Aberdeen Grammar School Aragaine The Hill Climbin' Loon "Then awa' tae the hills Tae the lea, tae the rocks", Wi' ma big muckle boots An' three pairs o' socks.

Wi' loads o' aul' jaickets An' a toorie forbye I'm a braw-lookin' sicht Tae gladden the eye.

I clump the lang miles Wi' micht an' wi' main An' I yell an' I sing Till the hills ring again.

The birds an' the beasts They a' get a fleg Fan I'm stcppin' oot An' showin' a leg.

Up the ae side An' then doon the ither, I stan' weak an' weary Then sink in the heather.

I'm gled o' ma soup Ma sandwiches o' ham, Ma aipples, ma crisps, Ma baps fu' o' jam.

Syne wi' mony a creak An' a sigh an' a groan I haul masel' up.

0' strength I ha'e noan, Tae the 'bus in the distance I'll nivvcr get there.

Ma heid it is spinnin', Ma legs they are sair.

I stagger and trip On the step o' the 'bus; I yell an' I howl An' mak' a big fuss.

The loons lift me up An' bung me inside; I lay me richt doon I've lost a' ma pride.

The next that I ken We're in Aiberdcen toon; An ma mither is waitin' For her hill-climbin' loon.

DAVID MILNE, HIG(3)

Former Pupils' Club Section (Club Founded xi September 1893)

Club Office-Bearers, 1964-65 Honorary President : JOHN VASS SKINNER, M.A., B.LITT., DIP. ED.

(Rector since 1959) Honorary Vice-Presidents : HENRY JACKSON BUTCHART (1890-99), D.S.O., O.B.E., T.D., B.L., LL.D., D.L. DOUGLAS PATERSON COCHRAN (1906-13).

ALEXANDER GRAY (1910-22), M.A., LL.B. THE HoN. LORD JOHNSTON (1913-26).

JAMES GRAY KYD (1891-98), C.B.E., F.P.A., F.R.S.E. JOHN ADAM LILLIE (1893-1903), M.A., LL.B., Q.C. ERIC LINKLATER (1913-16), C.B.E., M.A., LL.D., T.D.

The Right Hon. Lord MESTON (1901-02).

GEORGE GORDON NICOL (1894-1903), D.S.O.,

M.CONS.E.

JOHN LENNOX RIDDELL (1907-16).

Sir JAMES JACKSON ROBERTSON, O.B.E., LL.D., M.A., B.D., F.R.S.E., F.E.I.S.

(Rector 1942-59).

WILLIAM DOUGLAS SIMPSON (190I-13), C.B.E., M.A., LL.D., D.LITT,, F.S.A.(SCOT.), F.S.A.

Sir JOHN WILLIAM TAYLOR (1906-II), K.B.E., C.M.G. Sir WILLIAM ROBERT TENNANT (1904-10), C.LE., M.A., LL.D. Sir JOHN MACKAY THOMSON, C.B., M.A., F.R.S.E. (Rector, 192o-21).

Sir LANDSBOROUGH THOMSON (1899-1908), C.B., O.B.E., D.SC., F.R.S.E., LL.D. ROBERT BERTRAM WILLIAMSON (1906-18), D.S.O., M.A., LL.B. President : CECIL A. G. SAVIDGE (1913-24), M.B.E., M.A. Vice-President of Club and Chairman of Executive : ALAN CROMBIE ROBERTSON WATT (1925-i7) M.A., LL.B. Secretary and Treasurer : JOHN SCOTT MACLACHLAN (1922-32), M.A., LL.B.,

220 Union Street, Aberdeen General Editor of Magazine : RAE C. BARTON (1942-55), M.A., LL.B., 10 Belmont Street, Aberdeen

61

6z

Aberdeen Grammar School Magazine

Secretaries of Centres : Bengal and Assam—DR. WILLIAM GEORGE MACMILLAN (1916-22), Cfo Indian Jute Mills Research Institute, 3 Taratala Road, Calcutta, 27.

MITCHELL GROAT (1927-40), P.O. Box 394, Salisbury.

Africa—GEORGE Central Dundee—ROBERT S. RILLEY (1946-55), c,'o Bank of Scotland, Blackford, Perthshire.

Edinburgh—ALLAN CAMERON FRAZER (1925-30), M.A., W.S., 10 Atholl Crescent, Edinburgh 3.

Glasgow—JOHN GORDON MICHIE BIRSS (1926-38), M.C., M.A., A.C.W.A., 99 Essex Drive, Scotstoun, Glasgow W.4.

London—P. G. M. MACPHEE (1930-41), Ranger, 34 Dukes Wood Drive, Gerrards Cross, Bucks.

Malaya—BRIAN SCOTT GRAY (1943-49), B.SC., P.O. Box 207, Banting, Selangor, Malaya.

Yorkshire—ARTHUR JAMES ADAMS (1919-30), " Guyscliffe ", Clara Drive, Calverley, Pudsey, Yorks.

Ireland—ANDREW M. M. STEPHEN (1936-50) M.A., LL.B., 28 Elmwood Avenue, Belfast 9.

Secretaries of Sections : Cricket—ALEXANDER

MUNRO DAVIDSON (1937-45), B.L., 18

Golden Square,

Aberdeen.

Golf—GEORGE ALEXANDER CRAIG WALKER (1917-23), 164 Market Street, Aberdeen.

Hockey—H. K. LAWSON, I I 4 Hamilton Place, Aberdeen.

Rugby—GEoRGE M. M. SLATER (1935-47) 164 Craigton Road, Aberdeen.

Executive Committee : The Vice-President of the Club, Chairman.

Vice-Chairman—WILLIAM LEWIS CONNON (1930-40), B.L.

The Secretary and Treasurer, and General Editor of Magazine, ex officils.

The Rector of the School, ex officio.

AIRD (1946-61).

JOHN McP. Murcit (1932-45), C.A. MACQUEEN HECTOR IAN LEWIS SMITH (1918-30).

JOHN H. CRADOCK (1940-46).

WILLIAM WALLACE PORTER (1915-23).

BRIAN K. CROOKSHANKS (1934-46).

Dr. RANALD FYEE FINDLAY STEVEN A. J. M. EDWARDS (1908-21).

WILLIAM MILNE EwEN (1932-44).

(1933-43).

GORDON HARVEY HENDERSON (192I-34), ERIC DOUGLAS WATT (1937-50).

HAROLD MURRAY ROBERTSON M.A. LL.B. PHILIP NOEL LOVE (1952-58), M.A.

(1926-38), M.A.

JOHN MORTIMER (1923-27).

Section Representatives Cricket—IAN D. F. THOMSON (1944-48).

Golf—GEORGE ALEXANDER CRAIG WALKER (1917-23).

Hockey—DR. C. LESLIE FORBES (1938-5O. Rugly-GEORGE M. M. SLATER (1935-47).

Staff—ALEXANDER BRUCE, T.D., M.A., B.SC.

Hon. Auditors : Messrs. BOWER and SMITH, C.A.

WATT

The Annual Dinner

63

The Annual Dinner The President of the Club, Cecil A. G. Savidge, M.B.E., presided at the Dinner, held at the Douglas Hotel, Aberdeen, on z3 October 1964, the function being attended by z3z F.P.s and guests.

"THE SCHOOL AND THE CLUB"

The principal guest Mr. J. R. Clark, the Director of Education for the City of Aberdeen, proposed this toast in philosophical and forward-looking manner. Mentioning that the work of extending the School was nearing completion, Mr. Clark hoped that the Club might mark the occasion by having the 1965 Dinner in the new Hall and suggested that this was a time to direct our thoughts to the century ahead, the most challenging period of educational development in the history of mankind. While sure that the expanded School would be more suitable to meet future needs, Mr. Clark felt that some day we would be wanting rather more flexibility in provision than is possible with granite solidarity, e.g. fitted carpets, such as he had seen in America, to lessen staff fatigue and induce a more mature pupil attitude! Having referred to the need for a contented staff who required new equipment such as television, tape-recorders and, soon, computers, Mr. Clark suggested that it was in the field of curriculum development that the most dramatic changes would come and that there was no reason why the School should not lead in this as it had done since James Moir in 1886 wrote about the success of teaching French orally.

"The only certain thing about the future is that it will be fantastic", said Mr. Clark, who went on to stress the need to prepare our boys for the world by taking note of what is happening in that world and to give a greater breadth to the basic work of the School by the integration of informal work into the curriculum with more opportunities for courses of the Outward Bound type and encouragement for young men to do Voluntary Service Overseas. Making a plea for Schools to be allowed to tackle the basic task of educating, Mr. Clark referred to the difficulties which Commonwealth countries found with the examination requirements of the British Universities, and stressed that a lot of thinking had to be done about the form of examinations. Indeed, there might come a time when University entrance would be determined by an assessment of character by an I.B.M. computer such as had in New York given Mr. Clark his best-ever testimonial! The new School would see "a complete overhaul of the whole educational system to meet the requirements of the age of automation", and Mr. Clark wished the School well as it entered this "most thrilling period in its long history".

THE RECTOR'S REPLY

Replying to the toast on behalf of the School, the Rector thanked Mr. Clark for the personal interest which he had taken in the School but was glad that his speech had not been "comprehensive"IMr. Skinner then detailed the various alterations to the fabric of the School although

Aberdeen Grammar School Magazine 64 he rather ruefully commented that, having taken leave of the old Hall at the last Dinner, it was, at least at the time of this year's Dinner, still in use. He felt that there was a happy marriage of the old with the new and that the forward view was as important as the backward.

The School, said Mr. Skinner, still produces men of good quality and character and instanced Graham Caie, who, as reported in the last issue of the Magcqine, spent a year in Guinea; another young F.P. who had recently gone to Antarctica; yet another off to Canada on a flying scholarship and, nearer to home, those F.P.s who at University were this year Presidents of the S.R.C., Union and Debater.

THE PRESIDENT'S REPLY

Mr. Savidge, replying on behalf of the Club, noted that while Aberdeen and "twal' mile roon" was a sufficient horizon in his young day, there must have been something in the air to make so many F.P.s go overseas for which the School had been a good training-ground.

Our tradition for good teaching aroused the envy of others and he hoped that the character of the School would not be detracted from by innovations, e.g. the closure of the primary department. Nevertheless, in these days of "angry young men", he felt that the Club would not look back in anger and could look forward in confidence.

The toast of "The Guests" was proposed by Mr. Derek Marnoch, slightly less grey of hair than the previous speakers, in a crisp and witty manner which was well received by the company and the equally racy reply by Chief Constable William Smith was equally well received.

The formal conclusion to the Dinner came when the Vice-President of the Club, Mr. A. C. R. Watt, proposed the vote of thanks to the Chairman.

The following members of the Club were present at the Dinner, the list being arranged in order of seniority based on date of entry to the School: 5901 W. Douglas Simpson (19o1-13).

5 905 J. Leith (1 905-57).

1906 D. P. Cochran (1906-15), H. J. Edwards (1906-57), R. B. Williamson (19o618).

1907 G. R. Fraser (59o7-o8), J. L. Riddell (1907-16).

1908 J. Cooper (59o8-14), A. J. M. Edwards (1908-21), E. J. Galloway (1908-18).

1909 F. S. Anderson (5909-5O, J. G. Kilgour (t9o9-16).

1910 Alex. Gray (I950-22), L. R. Harper (1910-17), I. G. McPherson (1910-17), W. G. Thow (1910-22).

1911 R. J. Maitland (1911-18).

5912 J. G. Sellar (1952-18), N. B. Sellar (1912-21), W. N. Stewart (1912-19).

5913 J. B. Esslemont (191(3-24), M. G. Gibb (1953-2.2), G. W. Kemp (1913-18), H. S. Milne (5913-25), J. I. Scott (1913-22).

1914 W. G. Hutcheon (5954-23), J. W. Johnstone (1954-22), M. C. Ross (191 4-21), N. S. Williamson (1914-59)1915 F. B. Cartwright (5955-22), H. Esslemont (191 5-19), R. L. Milne (1915-27).

1916 A. M. Campbell, Sen. (1916-27), Maurice Cramb (1916-29), R. H. Duguid (5916-23), G. P. Fyfe (1916-24).

1917 James Alexander (1917-28), W. W. Porter (1917-23), G. A. C. Walker (1917-23).

1

The Annual Dinner

65

1918 D. S. Brown (1918-26), W. M. Miller (1918-23), R. J. Milne (1918-3o), W. R. Wisely (1918-24).

1919 A. Christie (1919-29), N. S. Clark (1919-29), I. L. Smith (1919-3o), W. I-I. Stephen (I 9I 9-29).

1920 W. C. Youngson (1920-31).

192t N. R. Beattie (1921-31), G. H. Henderson (1921-34), D. I-I. McDougall (1921-34).

1922 J. S. MacLachlan (1922-32).

1923 G. E. C. Barton (1923-26), G. G. Cook (1923-25), A. Forsyth (1923-30), J. 0. Jeffery (1923-29), J. Mortimer (1923-27).

1924 G. C. Massie (1924-37), J. C. Williamson (1924-34).

1925 W. L. Forbes (1925-28), A. C. Frazer (1925-30), A. C. R. Watt (1925-37).

1926 Joseph Craig (1926-39), A. S. Matheson (1926-31), H. M. R. Watt (1926-38).

1927 William Milne (1927-39).

1928 D. G. Patterson (1928-36), J. T. Scorgie (1928-4O, R. A. Williamson (192836).

1929 R. J. Bain (1929-41), K. J. Peters (1929-41), A. F. Taylor (1929-35).

1930 W. L. Connon (1930-40), T. W. N. Davidson (1930-40), P. G. M. McPhee (1930-41).

1932 W. M. Ewen (1932-44).

1933 Eric Craig (1933-46).

1 934 C. R. A. Archibald (1 934-45), R. J. Armstrong (1934-41), B. K. Crookshanks (1934-46), S. McK. Davidson (1 934-44), J• M. Milne (1934-46), A. G. Westland (1 934-45)• 1935 A. C. Mutch (1935-41), G. M. M. Slater (1 935-40: 1945 -47).

1 936 Eric McLeod (1936-49)1937 G. S. Cowie (1 937-51), J. D. Rust (1937-48), E. D. Watt (1937-50).

1938 D. N. Armand (1938-51), D. G. Kilgour (1938-40: 1945-50), J. A. Leith (1938-51), J. McBain (1938-51).

1939 Q. A. Aitken (1939-45), A. M. D'Agostino (1 939-49), J. R. W. Leiper (1939-48), S. A. C. Robertson (1939-51).

1940 D. G. Marnoch (1940-52), C. P. Skene (1940-47)1941 J. H. Galloway (x941-55).

1 942 R. C. Barton (1 942- 55), J. M. Jeffrey (1942-57), I. M. S. Park (1942-55).

M. F. Watson (1942-56), W. S. Wilson (1942-55).

1943 A. H. Cairns (1943-56), A. M. Campbell, Jun. (1 943-53), A. M. H. Crawford (1 943-57), A. E. Philip (1943-56).

1944 Robert Bain (1944-52), D. A. Fowlie (1944-57), D. B. Galloway (1944-58), William Gatt (1944-48), Edwin Greive (1944-5o), J. P. Jeffrey (1944-59), J. C. A. Michie (1944-5 8), J. C. Milne (1944-50), I. D. F. Thomson (5944-48).

1945 H. M. Aird (1945-61), Thomas Craig (1945-50), D. F. Ross (1945-58).

1946 R. S. Brown (1946-55). J. G. Pollock (1946-53), C. T. Preshaw (1946-60), G. D. Reid O946-6O, G. A. Robb (1946-60), A. R. Smith (1946-61).

1947 K. M. Gorrod (1947-61), A. H. MacLeod (1947-61), M. L. Wolkoff (1947-59), R. W. Youngson (1947-60).

1948 F. M. Coutts (1948-61), G. W. Glentworth (1948-6O, R. W. Grant (1948-61), S. A. Howard (1948-58), D. I. Morgan (1948-54), R. S. Rilley (1948-55), R. C. Speirs (x948-61).

1949 Michael Plowman (1949-60), C. D. Rice (1949-6o), A. W. Rodger (1 949-61), K. J. Thomson (1949-63), M. G. Walker (1 949-57), G. E. Wood (1949-63).

1950 D. G. Fowlic (x950-64), H. A. B. Harper (1950-57), A. D. Milne (1950-58), G. G. Milne (1950-61), T. J. Paton (x950-60).

1951 Alexander Grieve (x951-64), M. G. King (195x-60).

1952 H. 0. Cameron (1952-53), P. N. Love (1952-58), A. B. Matheson (1952-58).

1954 H. D. Munro (1954-60).

66 1956 1957 1958 1959

Aberdeen Grammar School Magazine Roderick Watson (1956-61).

S. P. Hepburn (1957-63), I. G. Mackenzie (1957-63).

G. H. Mennie (1958-59).

R. N. Pedersen (1959-63).

Staff Members—D. Anderson, A. Baxter, A. Bruce, K. Henderson, R. Henson, E. Morrison, J. Morrison, J. Murray, J. L. Nicholson, S. Smith and I. Stephen.

Another Gift from Malayan Members Members will recall the presentation to the School by members of the Club in Malaya of the clock which is in the present School Hall.

Recently Brian S. Gray, secretary of the Malayan Centre was home in this country on leave and, on behalf of the members of the Club in Malaya, handed to the Rector a further generous cheque.

Discussions took place as to the form of the gift and it has been decided that a cup will be provided for competition as an Inter-House seven-a-side Trophy. Detailed arrangements are being worked out but it is probable that there will be competition in each of the first four years of the Secondary Department and combined fifth and sixth years and, on an overall aggregate, the Cup will be awarded to the successful House.

In addition, a die is to be provided for the stamping of medals for winners at the Athletic Sports and the Swimming Gala each year.

These generous gifts are much appreciated both by the School and the Club as is the continued interest of our Malayan members.

Centre News Dundee The Dundee Centre, now in its second session since its inception last year, has gone from strength to strength with the numbers of Old Boys increasing at every meeting.

F.P.s are entertained and enlightened by guest speakers at these informal meetings as well as enjoying the congenial company of old friends and School associates.

Our Annual Dinner, which was the highlight of the previous session, will again be held in February and with the Rector of the School, Mr. J. V. Skinner as Principal Guest, we shall again be assured of a most enjoyable evening.

Former Pupils now resident in Angus and East Perthshire and yet unable to attend previous meetings are invited to communicate with the Secretary of the Centre or any of the committee members.

Sports News

67

London The Annual General Meeting of the London Centre was held on zo October when nineteen members met in the Caledonian Club, London. Supper was served in the Stewart Room and the Meeting followed with A. H. K. Slater in the Chair.

The following were elected to serve on the committee to fill vacancies: 1964-65 W. Simpson; 1964-66 G. Bowes; 1964-67 J. Benzie, T. Robertson, E. Cohen, R. D. Bruce.

With a view to increasing the scope of and interest in the Centre, it is hoped to publish a list of F.P.s in the London area in the next issue of the Magazine.

Edinburgh The Annual Dinner will be held in the Roxburgh Hotel, Edinburgh, on Friday 5 February 1965 at 7 for 7.3o p.m. This is on the eve of the Scotland v. Wales rugby International. The main toast will be given by Alexander Thomson, Q.C., Dean of the Faculty of Advocates and Douglas Reich, Q.C., will be in the Clair. F.P.s and their guests who may be coming to Edinburgh for the International will be very welcome at the Dinner and should apply to the Centre Secretary for tickets (price z5s.).

Sports News Cricket At the Annual General Meeting of the Section held on Friday, 6 March 1964 the following appointments were made: Honorary President, K. J. Peters. Strathmore Union XI: Captain, A. M. Davidson; Vice-Captain, R. Bain. Grade XI: Captain, A. M. D'Agostino; Vice-Captain, J. M. Weir; Secretary, A. M. Davidson; Treasurer, W. M. Ewen.

The Strathmore Union side had again a very creditable season, winning 5, losing 5 and drawing 8 and finishing seventh in the table with exactly 5o per cent.

The figures do not reflect the true performances of the side as the majority of the draws would have been victories if the games has been brought to a conclusion.

It is interesting to note that the majority of the drawn games were played at Rubislaw and this fact indicates the excellent wickets which are still prepared for us by Mr. Matthews and his staff.

The Grade XI side, however, did not fare so well this year and unfortunately have been relegated. There has been no acute lack of playing strength but it has been found exceedingly difficult to keep a regular side and on several occasions there were changes of more than half the side from one Saturday to another. This situation has largely contributed to the disappointing results of the side.

Again the Annual General Meeting was held followed by a most enjoyable Dinner at the Douglas Hotel at which the President welcomed our guests and Mr. A. J. M. Edwards entertained the company with anecdotes from his wide experience of the game and thereafter the President presented his Trophies for batting and bowling to J. M. Milne and A. M. Davidson respectively.

The Meeting for the coming season has been fixed for 5 March to be followed once more by a Dinner and all members should, if it is at all possible, keep this date free. Circulars will be posted in February giving full details and again it is hoped that there will be a large turnout of members and friends of the Section at this function which has proved in the last two years to be most successful and most enjoyable.

Aberdeen Grammar School Magazine

68

In conclusion the Section's thanks are to be conveyed to Mr. Matthews and to the many friends who have helped the Section throughout the season and once more to appeal to any F.P. or schoolboy who may be leaving School this coming year and who is interested in the game to join a Section of F.P. activities which he will find to be most convivial.

Strathmore Union Averages BOWLING

A. M. Davidson J. R. Y. Mutch W. A. Stewart

Overt

Miles.

Rims

lVkis.

Av.

269 78 2 75

81 6 79

579 251 663

46 18 36

12.38 1 3'94 18.41

H.S.

I.O.

Av.

8o 47 18

3

34'72

BAITING

Inns.

14

R. Bain A. J. Simpson J. R. Y. Mutch

Ram 382

i6 7

2 37

63

2

16.92

3

15_75

Rugby For the second season in succession it has proved very difficult to get the 1st XV settled as a team early in the season. This was partly due to injuries to key players early on but mainly to the fact that many of the previous year's 1st XV were not available to play at the beginning of the season. This of course has had its effect on all the sides, but now that the teams are beginning to settle down a really successful season is still within their grasp.

The Section will be holding a Fair in the Music Hall on Saturday,t3 May1963, the objcct being to start a fund for the eventual purchase of a Section Clubroom or Clubhouse. It is hoped that all F.P.s will be prepared to help in this praiseworthy venture when further details are released later concerning what will be required in the way of work, jumble, donations and prizes.

Results 5 Sept.

12

= yr ~r~rrrr t-

6-o 5 Sept. v. Panmure v. Aberdeen Academicals 14-0 8 9-6 Wanderers Aberdeen V. 12 v. Aberdeenshire 15 3-3 v. Geo. Heriot's School F.P. 0-23 19 3-22 v. Jordanhill College 26 V. D. Stewart's College F.P. 8.9 28 6-32 3 Oct. v. Dunfermline 6-9 v. Dundee H.S. F.P. 5 v. Allan Glen's School F.P. 18-6 to 0-21 Academicals Edinburgh v. x7 x6-8 v. Howe of Fife 24 v. Aberdeen University 6-14 31 29-3 7 Nov. v. Perthshire Accies 8-3 v. Jordanhill School F.P. 14

17 19 28 3

Oct

zo 17 24

31 7 Nov.

v. Panmure 2nd XV 35-5 22-o V. Aberdeen Wand. 2nd 41-9 v. Aberdeen Accies 2nd 11-5 v. Aberdeenshire 2nd v. D. Stewart's Coll. F.P. 2nd 0-21 V. Dunfermline 2nd 0-17 o-6 v. Allan Glen's F.P. 2nd 21.9 v. Aberdeen Univ. 2nd V. Howe of Fife 2nd 14-8 x1-0 v. R.A.F. Kinloss 1st 14.20 v. Moray 1st

3rd XV 5 Sept.

3 Oct. TO

x7 24

31 7 Nov.

v. Gordonians 3rd 9. 3 9-25 v. Buchan R.F.C. 1st 9-16 V. Gordonians 3rd 10.0 v. Highland 2nd 44.0 V. Aberdeenshire 2nd v. R.N.A.S. Arbroath and 5-3 v. Moray and 9-3

W L L W W

w W

r ~E~rrr i<$~

and XV

1st XV

Sports News

69

Hockey The season has progressed as well as in past seasons with the ist XI having won all but one of eight games and the and XI having won seven out of nine. The 3rd XI, always disrupted by team changes, have won only twice in seven games and appear to be in need of a goal scorer.

Several new faces have appeared in the club colours this year: we bid them welcome and hope to see them for many seasons to come. Two sadly missed players are Jim Wight and Ian Middleton. Ian, for countless seasons a fixture on the left wing, has suffered all summer from the back injury which caused him to miss the Scottish Cup final. We wish him well and hope to see him soon. Jim Wight, after nine years as a regular ist XI player, has gone to Kirkcaldy and has already played for East District.

F.P.s have been prominent in District and National hockey. Eric Watt played for the S.H.A. during Lancashire Jubilee weekend and also coached at Largs. Three promising young players, F. K. Lawson, D. B. Campbell and A. Fyall were among those coached.

Six F.P.s: W. Dick, E. D. Watt, A. K. Campbell, C. L. Forbes, F. K. Lawson and A. E. Philip, played in the North District XI which defeated South West 3-1.

J. Leiper has since been chosen to play against East.

The Section begins its defence of the Scottish Cup on 18 November against Aberdeen H.C. Despite team changes we hope to retain the Cup, which is the only national trophy in Scottish hockey.

An invitation is extended to any F.P. who wishes to play hockey and an even heartier welcome awaits any budding umpire. We must also thank Mr. Matthews, for keeping the pitch in good order, and Mr. Stevenson for his willing co-operation.

Swimming The Swimming Section of the Club experienced a slow start to its second season, but the number of members currently attending on Tuesday evenings has increased and is further augmented now by the Rugby members who swim with us after their training. The total membership of the Section is now around fifty and it is hoped that of this total a greater number of "regulars" will attend in the future.

The Annual General Meeting of the Section was held in October 1964, when the office-bearers and committee were elected for a further session.

To those F.P.s who have not yet joined the Section we would extend a cordial invitation to do so. Members of the Section may, at the moment, invite one male guest along to the Section every evening, although this rule is subject to alteration depending on the numbers using the pool. It is hoped that F.P.s arc not deterred from joining the Section because they do not consider themselves good swimmers or because they cannot swim at all. There arc no Olympic hopes in the Section, as yet, and indeed a number of the members arc only now learning to swim. The Committee hopes, therefore, that more F,P,s (both new and of long standing) will come along to the Section on Tuesday evenings between 7 and 9 p.m. The Section does not meet during the School holidays.

Golf During the 1964 season excellent golfing weather was enjoyed and four outings were held at Ballater with the following results: Handicap: Scratch-11 12-a4 D. G. Patterson 76-5 = 71 May E. Craig 84-1 3 = 71

Aberdeen Grammar School Magaine

7o

W. G. Thow 85-20 = 65 79—8 = 71 R. J. Bain Special Scratch Prize to Dr. John McKay, 69 September: Stapleford Competition—T. F. Robson, 41 points J. C. Williamson, 85-20 = 65.

October: A. C. Mutch-75-6 = 69 Since 1953 the Queen Elizabeth Coronation Schools Trophy has been held annually at the course of the Royal Burgess Golfing Society at Edinburgh during the September holiday week-end. While a team has been regularly and faithfully entered by the Section, it was not until this year that the first F.P. success was recorded: the team of G. A. C. Walker, W. F. Mayor, G. N. Henderson, C. S. Beattie, W. L. Connon and J. C. Craig defeated Old Morrisonians in the first round only to succumb to Old Fettesians in the next round.

Although several new members have been welcomed this season, the Section would like to see many more next year. They can be assured of excellent company, a sporting golf course and first-class catering at the Invercauld Arms Hotel, Ballater, where the host, Mr. Logan, is himself an F.P. The Annual Section Dinner was held in the Northern Hotel, Aberdeen, on 11 December when the captain, A. C. Mutch, presided over a small but select gathering of members and guests. The principal toast was proposed in a racy manner by John A. S. Glennie, well known to all golfers in the North.

The winners of the various trophies are as follows: The Walker Cup (best 3 net rounds), W. S. Milne, 70. Russel Henderson Cup (best 3 net rounds for handicaps t-11), R. J. Bain, 71.33. Jeffrey Mug (best 3 net rounds for handicaps 12-24), W. G. Thow, 73.33. Gibb Thow Trophy (under match play), G. A. C. Walker.

The H. A. R. Trophy (for competition between F.P.s and Gordonians), was won

by F.P.s.

August

New Members of the Club (15 May 1964-15 November 1964) ORDINARY MEMBERS Abel, Roy John (1951-64), 75 Cairnfield Place, Aberdeen.

Adams, William James (1958-64), 2 View Terrace, Aberdeen.

Anderson, John Leeds, Jnr. (1958-64), 6 Granton Place, Aberdeen.

Anderson, John R. (1958-64), 79 Cairngorm Drive, Aberdeen.

Arthur, Ronald William (1958-64), "Greenbank", Cults Avenue, Cults, Aberdeen.

Auld, Stewart Raeside (1953-64), 22 Hammerfield Avenue, Aberdeen.

Brown, Colin Roger (1962-64), 48 Harlaw Road, Aberdeen.

Brown, David Stanley (1950-64), 53 Skene Street, Aberdeen.

Buchan, Michael James (1959-64), 16 Woodhill Terrace, Aberdeen.

Bums, Anthony Stuart (1950-64), 26 Albyn Place, Aberdeen.

Campbell, Douglas Bruce (1958-64), 6 Oakdale Terrace, Aberdeen.

Campbell, James Alexander (1950-64), 32 Gairsay Road, Summerfield, Aberdeen.

Carrie, Brian James (1952-64), "Pluscardyn", Bieldside, Aberdeen.

Cheyne, Dr. Gordon McLeod (1951-55), 18 Strachan Street, Burnie, Tasmania.

Cockburn, Wm. John (1916-19), 15 Tylney Road, Oldham, Paisley.

Cooper, Michael (1960-64), 41 Caperstown Crescent, Aberdeen.

Courts, Graham Webster (1951-64), 17 Richmonclhill Road, Aberdeen.

Cowie, James Alexander (1958-64), 18 Menzies Road, Torry, Aberdeen.

Cowling, Terrence J. (1960-64), 8o Caimcry Road, Aberdeen.

Crawford, George Patrick Mitchell (1953-64), 86 Morningside Avenue, Aberdeen.

D'Agostino, Anthony Michael (1939-48), "Bayview", 2t Robert Street, Stonehaven, Kincardineshire.

New Members

71

Davidson, Peter Ian (1960-64), 26 Polmuir Road, Aberdeen.

Edwards, Norman Keir Burry (1959-64),1 x Donbank Terrace, Woodside, Aberdeen.

Edwards, Peter Gordon (1956-64), "Ingleside", North Deeside Road, Cults, Aberdeen.

Forbes, David (1958-64), a Ramsay Gardens, Aberdeen.

Fowlie, Douglas (1950-64), z Carlton Place, Aberdeen.

Fullerton, Robert Keith Ross (1950-64), 18 Queen's Road, Aberdeen.

Gammack, George Cooper (1958-64), 103 Union Grove, Aberdeen.

Grieve, Alexander Millar (195x-64), 58 Elmbank Terrace, Aberdeen.

Hay, David Alexander (1951-64), 34 Beechhill Gardens, Aberdeen.

Hay, Iain Alexander (1951-64), 15 Viewfield Gardens, Aberdeen.

Knight, Michael John (1958-64), 17 Mount Street, Aberdeen.

Leslie, Alan Gilbert (195 8-64), 45 Albury Place, Aberdeen.

Lobban, Graeme Alexander (1958-64), 20 Gilcomstoun Land, Aberdeen.

Lorimer, W. Stuart (1949-62), 33 Stocket Parade, Aberdeen.

Mackie, Kenneth George (1952-64), 8 Cranford Terrace, Aberdeen.

May, Ian James, (1947-59), 49 Chapel Street, Aberdeen.

Mitchell, George Alexander (1957-63), "Birkdale", 40 Boyndie Street West, Banff.

Mitchell, Gordon D. (1950-64), "Red Roofs", x Harbour Place, Aberdeen.

Morgan, David William (1958-64), 89 Duthie Terrace, Aberdeen.

Morrison, James Edward (1958-64), 9 Craigie Park, Aberdeen.

Morrow, Ewan Murray (1961-64), 24 Edgehill Road, Aberdeen.

Munro, Hugh M. (195 1-64). 55 Forbesficld Road, Aberdeen.

Murray, James Frederick (1958-64), 246 Westbum Road, Aberdeen.

McBain, James C. (1958-64), 8 Urquhart Street, Aberdeen.

Macdonald, Alistair G. (5949-64), Waulkmill Cottage, Peterculter.

McDonald, Roderich Alexander (1951-64), 4 Brighton Place, Aberdeen.

McDougall, Ian George (1960-64), 75 Glendovan Road, Prenton, Birkenhead, Cheshire.

McEwen, Gavin Thomas (1958-64), 8 Westfield Terrace, Aberdeen.

McGregor, Colin Masson (1951-64), 38 Mount Street, Aberdeen.

Maclean, Iain Campbell (1963-64), 38 West Church Street, Buckie, Banffshire.

Philip, Alistair Fowlie (1953-64), 35 Hilton Street, Aberdeen.

Philip, Andrew A. B. (,944-50), 82 Hilton Street, Aberdeen.

Philip, John George Walker (1946-51), 279 Westbum Road, Aberdeen.

Rattray, Graham Alexander Lindsay (1957-64), 29 Cairncry Avenue, Rosehill, Aberdeen.

Reaper, Eric (1945-50), 13 Talisman Drive, Aberdeen.

Robertson, Michael Ross (1 951-54), 28 Union Place, Dundee, Angus.

Sherriffs, Murdoch John (1952-64), 65 Bonnymuir Place, Aberdeen.

Smith, Douglas McKinnon (1 950-64), 41 Mount Street, Aberdeen.

Sommerville, George H. Dugan (1949-64), 5 Argyll Crescent, Aberdeen.

Stirrat, Roy George Leonard (1959-64), 55 Oakhill Road, Aberdeen.

Thomson, Alan David (1951-64), 83 Hamilton Place, Aberdeen.

Thomson, Ian Norman (1958-64), 5 Beech Road, Aberdeen.

U'ren, William Graham (195B-64), 38 Ashley Gardens, Aberdeen.

Venters, Alexander Bruce (1955-63), 7o Union Grove, Aberdeen.

Worling, Alan (1960-63), 143 Gavin Terrace, Aberdeen.

STAFF MEMBERS Kennedy, Eric, 15 Albyn Terrace, Aberdeen.

Ramsay, Ian, 4z Powis Place, Aberdeen.

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