AGS Magazine March 1935

-

OA- eir5/449 Mt

THE

ABERDEEN GRAMMAR SCHODL MAGAZINE

ABERDEEN

priract forThe Former Pupils' Club at-The University Press • March, 1935.

Volume X.XXVIIL No. 2.

PRICE ONE SHILLING.

-

EDUCATIONAL BOOKS JAMES G. BISSET CONTINUES to supply all the Class Books (New or Second-hand) suited for the requirements of the Higher Educational Institutions in the City, at the Lowest Prices.

N.B.—Best Value in Students' Note Books.

JAMES G. BISSET, Classical, Medical, and Educational Bookseller,

85 BROAD STREET (Opposite Mari:it-4ml College).

Healthy children need NOURISHMENT and nourishment means Hutchison's Bread. It is made with only the finest of Empire flour, and growing children are sure to thrive on it.

Phone 753

\\

13 BRANCHES THROUGHOUT THE CITY

ENGAGEMENT RINGS

A. & J. SMITH Jewellers, Watchmakers Gold and Silversmiths Opticians

191 UNION STREET ABERDEEN

A. C. LITTLE& SONS L11).

Costumiers, Furriers Gown Specialists UP-TO-THE-MINUTE

FASHION WEAR FUR TIES COATS GOWNS SUITS FUR COATS FROCKS SKIRTS You'll find the selection we have to offer unique in point of Value, Quality, and Variety.

ALL ALTERATIONS AT TIME OF PURCHASE FREE OF CHARGE

WELL-TAILORED GARMENTS FOR THE FULL FIGURE

MOURNINGS. Black Garments to fit all figures and in a huge range of prices.

FIT IS GUARANTEED WITHIN 6 HOURS.

" THE HOUSE FOR VALUE"

105 UNION ST., ABERDEEN

AN

UNRIVALLED

FURNISHING SERVICE EVERYTHING FOR THE MODERN HOME

can furnish your home throughout from Bedroom WE Suite to Kitchen Chairs. Such a comprehensive service secures a certain harmony in the finished result, which Is the hall-mark of a perfectly furnished home. It is our pleasure to place this service at your disposal, assisting your choice with a range of furnishings, carpets, and fabrics, quite equal to any exclusive personal desires.

COMPLETE FURNISHING - SCHEMES gladly submitted on request BUY

YOUR FURNITURE FROM THE ACTUAL MANUFACTURERS

GALLOWAY 84, SYKES LTD. 361 - 363 UNION

ST., ABERDEEN

JAMES FYFE & SON PAINTERS AND GLAZIERS. •

.

a

OFFICE AND SHOWROOMS:-

11 DEE STREET, ABERDEEN. Telephone 304.

Telegrams--'Fyfe, Painters."

TELEPHONE .

NO. 1719.

TELEGRAMS I " HUB, ABERDEEN."

CAMPBELL & SELLAR, LTD. Engineers, Hirers and Qarage Proprietors

QUEEN'S CROSS GARAGE 1 o Fountainhall Road ABERDEEN OPEN DAY AND NIGHT

AGENTS FOR SINGER CARS

A?fILY COFFEE Cures Coffee is the favourite drink with everv0 Pk It is most one. delicious. esneciellY Your in cold weather. grocer can supply you.

•

1

CURR'S C0f Thomas Cur, 6 C o..

ABERDEEN.

Quality is our Truest Economy

ROBERT STOTT Family Grocer Italian Warehouseman, Tea, Coffee, Wine and Spirit Merchant

53 ALBERT STREET, ABERDEEN

a

z o z m

o o

BOOKS BOUND

111111.1111\ W P!.1 J A C40( SON

( ABERDEEN1LTP 18 BACK WYPIID

CIN 18 )1O OE3

Telephone 1848

z 0

m

ALL SORTS AND SIZES Telephone No. 291

Established

1855

Tailoring of Distinctive Character modelled on ULTRA-MODERN lines. FRED WATT'S Suitsto-Order bear the Hall Mark of Good Taste

80/- 95/- to 126/-

PRICES:

FRED WATT 23 BRIDGE STREET, ABERDEEN 'Phone 3515

,.

•

..ALe 4C 14

k

iv COPLAND V "01 ts DECORATOR .6

u-- STAINED GLASS &

MURAL DECO.

OJ

I~

A. D. COPLAND.

Telephone No. 2300.

Works: Rosebank Place.

Telegraphic Address : " Undertake, Aberdeen."

GORDON & WATSON FUNERAL UNDERTAKERS AND MOTOR HEARSE PROPRIETORS

12 HOLBURN ST. & 40 VICTORIA RD. ABERDEEN

W. KENNAWAY, Ltd. BAKERS and CONFECTIONERS,

5 and 7 Holburn Street.

Luncheon, Tea, and Reception Rooms, 1 73 Union Street and 8 Bridge Street, ABERDEEN

SPECIALITIESSHORTBREADWEDDING CAKES. ROYAL DEESIDE IN TARTAN TINS, ALSO A LARGE SELECTION OF PLAIN AND FANCY ICED CAKES.

Telephone No. 1891.

ARCHIBALD McKELLAR Family Grocer and Wine Merchant,

454- 456 Union Street, Aberdeen.

-

. . We Specialise in . .

Cooked

Gammons, "Sinclair's" Belfast Smoked Hams, "Harris's" Wiltshire Bacon.

Medicinal Wines—Vibrona, Hall's, Wincarnis, Glendenning's.

Ask for

HAY'S

Gold Medal Aerated

Waters

X.L.

Still Raspberry

, X.X.X.

Kola

No. 1

Soda

Lemino

Dazzle

Lemonade

Ginger Ale

Iron Brew

Lime Juice & Soda

Ice Cream Soda

Stillime Ginger Beer Cream Strawberry Still Grape Fruit

Stillemon

Still Pineapple

Stilorange

CAKES AND SHORTBREAD of Finest Quality FOR THE FESTIVE BOARD AND FOR FRIENDS AT HOME AND ABROAD

MITCHELL & MUIL LTD.

ESTABLISHED 1897.

A. & W. ALEXANDER : Butchers and Fishmongers : Game and Poultry Salesmen _

PURVEYORS

492

OF

-

THE

FINEST

QUALITY.

UNION STREET ABERDEEN

Telephones-5172 (3 Lines).

Telegrams— " Alexanders, Fishmongers, Aberdeen."

Telephone-Aberdeen 1710.

The Mastrick Dairies Ltd. 1 DESSWOOD PLACE, ABERDEEN WE offer you a Choice Selection of DAIRY PRODUCE from our own Farms, and produced under the direct supervison of members of the family. Our Customers may rely upon the absolute Purity and Cleanliness of all our products.

Distributors of

Lord Carnegie's and Cairnbrogie Certified Milk.

Head Dairy: 3, 5, and 7 WHITEHALL ROAD. Branches: 33 FOUNTAINHALL ROAD. 7 MID STOCKET ROAD. 25 BEDFORD PLACE. 473 GREAT WESTERN ROAD.

CONTENTS ILLUSTRATIONS. . . .

Miss Winifred Robertson . .

Colonel H. J. Kinghorn, C.B. . .

Professor J. J. R. Macleod, F.R.S. .

General Sir Andrew Skeen, K.C.B., K.C.I.E. . . .

Miss Edith Davidson . . .

School Rugby Football 1st XV . .

Mr. George Gordon Whyte .

F.P. Club Rugby Football Section tat XV

Facing page 93 94

•

•

•

•

•

•

•

11

•

•

.

11

•

•

.

>I

•

•

•

1.1

•

•

.

11

•

•

.

11

•

11

,1

,,,

109

124 148

E 117084

. . . . .

• The New Infant Mistress - • Page 93 . ,, 94 . . .

• • • Notes About Old Boys .

• • . . „ io6 . . . .

Marriages . .

107 Obi . . „ 118 .

An F.P.'s Pioneer Work in the British Museum . „ 119 .

On a West African Estate. By C. O. W. Bowman . . „ 124 . . .

• • • • Miss Edith Davidson . ,, 124 The Library . . .

The School's Benefactions. By the Secretary of the F.P. Club . „ i zi . „ i z8 . .

• • • .

• The Shanghai F.P.s . . „ 129 • .

The Outer Isles in Winter. By E. R. B. .

Passing By in Southern Rhodesia. From the Diary of " 138 • . .

• • • .

• " Hindustani " . ,, 1 43 . .

• • • • A Bursary for the School School Section— • • . ,, 148 . .

Atir Random Notes . ,, 149 A Winter Landscape (Verse). By Ronald B. Killoh . . . . . . . . .

School Rugby. „ 136 . . . . . . .

House Notes . . . . . . . .

Scout Notes . ., 157 . . .

The Literary and Debating Society .

59 tuary

.

•

.

•

•

•

The Former Pupils' Club— .

The Annual Meeting of the Club Glasgow Centre : The Annual Dinner Edinburgh Centre : The Annual Dinner . . . .

Cricket Section . .

Rugby Section . . .

Hockey Section List of New Members .

Club Office-Bearers, 1935-36 .

•

.

.

.

•

•

•

•

•

• •

.

,,,

,,

150

,.

1

161

•

•

•

•

•

•

•

•

•

•

•

•

. . . . .

•

•

•

•

•

.

, 168 „ „ ,, „

169 170 171 178 179 „ t80

Men's Ready-to-Wear CLOTHES E. & M.'s Ready-to-Wear Clothes are distinguished by the same careful attention to detail, the same faultless style and cut, as good made-to-measure clothes. There is an excellent range of these, in over 40 fittings, at 5 Guineas. Other prices arc 3 Guineas, 4 Guineas, 6 Guineas, 7 Guineas, and 9 Guineas.

d, The

Man's Shop

Esslemont & Macintosh Ltd.

" I shot an arrow into the air, It fell to earth I know not where."

So run the words of the song, but it will be no blind shot if you take home one of McPherson's "Walnut loaves."

W. M. McPHERSON 15 FOUNTAINHALL ROAD 8 ST. SWITHIN

STREET

ABERDEEN

LOW'S Wm. Cay & Sons BOOKSTALLS ESTABLISHED 1843.

39-50 New Market Gallery ABERDEEN

iftmeral 111nOettallers, 415 UNION STREET AND

209 GEORGE STREET, ABERDEEN. Motor Hearses and Cars for Town and Country Funerals.

Boom on All Subjects and at All Prices Over 500,000 Volumes in Stock Educational Books in Great Variety CATALOGUES ISSUED

Telegrams—"Cay, Aberdeen."

'Phones Nos. 92 and 54.

'PHONE 3332

ESTABLISHED

BY APPOINTMENT

1 8 18

TO H.M. THE KING

J. WILLIAMSON & SON (w. B. WILLIAMSON. PPOPPUTOP)

Meat Purveyors and Poulterers 1, 2, ct 3 MARKET BUILDINGS, ABERDEEN 'PHONE 452 BRANCHES t

35 FOUNTAINHALL ROAD 'PHONE 1724

THE SQUARE, CULTS 'PHONE. CULTS 2

ALSO AT CHURCH SQUARE. BALLATER 'PHONE 38

D. Wyllie & Son 247 Union Street, The SWEETS

Aberdeen.

That always please

4

RADIO GUMS RADIO CARAMELS 8117-7`,7 SUPERFINE CUT ROCK . -Above three in Assorted Flavours ROYAL TOFFEE — made with Creamery Butter GINGER CREAM LUMPS ASSORTED CREAM LUMPS

-

Latest in Literature and First Editions of Modern Writers

All 4d. Qr.

4 Agents for Ordnance Survey Maps

BLUEBELL " QUEEN MARY" (Cunarder) SELECTION A choice selection of various sweets. including Crystallized Ginger and Radio Gums

1/- & 2/- per Box Established 1814

'Phone 402

John E. Esslemont Ltd. ABERDEEN

We Specialise in—

GALLOWSES AND SOCK SUSPENDERS

W. J. MILNE, LTD. MEN'S OUTFITTERS

ABERDEEN (OPPOSITE ROYAL NORTHERN CLUB) Telephone 1293

Handicrafts

BUY BEST

BUY BRITISH

THE IMPERIAL TYPEWRITER Raffia and Cane Seagrass and Stool Frames

ioo% British, is the beet and loweet-priced Standard Typewriter. No increase.

THE IMPERIAL PORTABLE The Beet Portable, ioo% British.

DRAWING MATERIALS of every description

Taylors' Art Saloon Picture Framers and Artist Colourmen SCHOOLIIILL

49-51

ABERDEEN

Second-Hand Bargains of all Makes of Typewriters.

EASY DEFERRED PAYMENTS (Hire Purchase) ON ANYTHING.

C. H. WEBSTER 4 Rose Street, Aberdeen BUY BEST

Telephone 2870.

'Phone 505

BUY BRITISH

Why Wait for Watch Repairs?

Buy a CRUSADER Watch and never be bothered with repairs.

Instead of repair, a new movement is fitted while-you-wait t3,any CRUSADER Agent throughout the world.

Call for Demonstration or write for Free Catalogue.

Prices f rom

3 Gns.

Cru5aber EXACT TIME -

Chromium, £4 10 0

NO REPAIRS

Stainless Steel, £6 0

JAMIESON

0

Over 100 Models for Ladles and Gentlemen.

Gold, £8 15 0

& CARRY

Watchmakers, Jewellers, and Opticians

142 UNION STREET (next Union Bridge)

COAL ELLIS & McHARDY LTD. 1880)

(ESTABLISHED

18

QUAY

REGENT AND

130 .- UNION STREET

ABERDEEN-Telephone

Telegrams

2889

" COAL, ABERDEEN "

GEORGE BISSET'S Clan Tartan Warehouse

15 UNION STREET ABERDEEN

.

'•

/

. ' •<:-1 - ,

CLOTHIER TO THE

ADMIRALTY, R.N.R., , and R.N.V.R. .,•

•

v.

.

• sA„

HIGHLAND OUTFITS :: a Speciality ::

‘111.1 ("6.

-.

•

for Boys, Youths, and Gentlemen, also for Maids' and Ladies' Wear; and will gladly supply patterns of Ladies' favourite Tartans for Kilts.

I

Telephone 2680.

Co-operation HE enthusiastic co-operation of many minds and hands make possible the fine productions of the HOUSE OF OGILVIE. For over three-quarters of a century our constant endeavour has been to give the best possible service to our Customers. We base our claim to your patronage on our ability to please you.

T

J. & A. OGILVIE 369

UNION

STREET,

ABERDEEN. Telephone : No. 433.

For

RANGES STOVES COOKERS and Fireplace arrangements in Marble and Tiles We cordially invite you to visit our Showrooms and inspect the many Designs displayed

Telegrams : " Interiors."

COUNTRY HIRES AT CHEAP RATES

COLIN S. CLARK DAIMLER TAXI HIRER Day .51' Night Servic,

James Scott & Son (Aberdeen) Ltd.,

PHONE 4422

483-485 UNION STREET, ABERDEEN.

46 Hardgate, Aberdeen.

Telephones—Aberdeen 1881-2.

SALES AND SERVICE in the North Consult—

UNION RO\\ ABERDEEN Works

-

49 Huntly Street

NORTHERN ASSURANCE COMPANY LIMITED. Assets £23,000,000.

Established 1836.

ALL CLASSES OF INSURANCE, INCLUDING:-

LIFE MOTOR CAR

FIRE ACCIDENT

Life Assurance Branch. The Company's Tables of rates for Life Assurance include every class of Policy.

Write for Particulars of Life Policies Endowment Assurance Policies Educational Endowment Policies Children's Deferred Assurance Policies House Purchase with Life Assurance Life Bonus Year 1935.

Participating Policies effected before 31st December, 1935, will rank for Bonus at the Valuation to he made as at that date.

CHIEF OFFICES :

ABERDEEN LONDON

-

-

- -

1 Union Terrace.

1 Moorgate, E.C.2.

Aberdeen Board of Directors.

The Right Hon. The LORD FORBES.

A. S. R. BRUCE, Eso The Right Hon. The EARL. OF CAITHNESS. FRANCIS J. COCHRAN, ESQ. WILLIAM L. COOK, ESQ. Manager Secretary

A. MARTINEAU, ESQ. R. W. ‘VALKER, ESQ. R. MACKAY. J. L. WILLIAMS.

Aberdeen Grammar School Magazine Both year : No. 229

Vol. XXXVIII

(New Series, first year, No. r2o)

MARCH 193 5

- - _

No. a

The "Grammar School Magazine" is issued under the auspices of The Former Pupils' Club, in March, June, and November. All communications with regard to the " Magazine " should be addressed to the Editor (the Secretary and Treasurer of the Club), THEODORE WATT, M.A., The Rosemount Press, Aberdeen.

The New Infant Mistress.

Miss Winifred Robertson Appointed.

To fill the vacancy caused by the death of Miss Edith Davidson, the Aberdeen Education Committee have appointed Miss Winifred Robertson, who will enter on her duties soon after the Easter holidays.

Miss Robertson was educated at the High School, Kirkcaldy, and at George Watson's Ladies' College, Edinburgh. She acted as Pupil Teacher in the Infant Department of the latter school for the year 1922-23, and then underwent a three years' Kindergarten training at St. George's College, Edinburgh.

She holds the Higher Certificate of the National Froebel Union, having passed First Class in Teaching, Arithmetic, Advanced History, and Music, and has various other qualifications.

Having started on her career as a teacher in Glasgow, Miss Robertson came to Aberdeen in 1927as assistant in the then newlyestablished Kindergarten Department of Robert Gordon's College, and three years later was placed in charge of the class which connects the Kindergarten with the other Primary classes.

Her interest in children, however, is not confined to the classroom : she has served as an officer in the Wolf Cub Movement for ten years, and enters wholeheartedly into various out-of-door school activities.

Miss Robertson comes to the Grammar School with the highest recommendations, and we wish her all success and happiness in the very responsible post to which at an unusually early age she has just been called.

94

Aberdeen Grammar School Magazine

** * It is requested that the Editor be informed of all new appointments and interesting incidents in the careers of Former Pupils.

The dates given in parentheses after names indicate the sessions of attendance at the School.

New Year's Day Honour.

The President of the F.P. Club.

Henry Jackson Kinghorn* (1876-80), T.D., D.L., Colonel, Territorial Army (retired), was created a Companion of the Order of the Bath (Civil Division) at the New Year. He has been associated with the Volunteers and Territorials for nearly half a century. He joined the Volunteer Battalion of the Gordon Highlanders in 1883, three years after he had left the School, and received a commission in the Aberdeenshire Royal Engineers (Volunteers) in 1893. From the Adjutancy of the corps he was promoted in 1910 to be a Major in the Territorials, and on the outbreak of the Great War he was in command of the znd Highland Field Company R.E. He served in France with the 7th Division from December 1914, being one of the first Territorial Engineer Officers in the battle zone, and was badly wounded at Neuve Chapelle in March 1915. The remainder of his War service was in this country. In May 1916 he was promoted to be Lieut.-Colonel, and was appointed C.R.E. to the 64th Highland Division. He was " mentioned in dispatches " in August 1918 for valuable services at home. On the resuscitation of the Territorial Army, he was appointed C.R.E. of the 51st Division, and on retiring from the position in 1923, was promoted Colonel. In 1927 he was made Honorary Colonel of the 5 x st Divisional R.E., and in the following year was appointed Chairman of the County of the City of Aberdeen Territorial Army Association, of which he became a member in 1910. He relinquished the chairmanship in December x93 x .

In civil life he is sole partner of the well-known firm of Messrs. James Kinghorn & Son, silk mercers and drapers, Aberdeen, and is a director of various public companies. He is one of the original members of the F.P. Club, and at the recent Annual General Meeting was appointed President for 1934-35* Members of Former Pupils' Club,

MISS WINIFRED ROBERTSON.

-

Colonel H. J. KINGHORN, C.B. President of the Former Pupils' Club, 1935-36.

Aberdeen Grammar School Magazine

•

95

James Smart Abernethy* (1924-26), LL.B., W.S., has been assumed as a partner by Mr. David Smith, solicitor, Montrose, the name of the firm now being Smith & Abernethy, W.S. Abernethy was the first Secretary of the Edinburgh Centre of the F.P. Club.

William McCombie Alexander* (1887-96), M.A., B.L., was in March appointed the P. J. Anderson Memorial Lecturer in the University of Aberdeen for the ensuing year. He is the scholarly author of " The Four Nations of Aberdeen University and their European Background," published last year.

Robert Allan* (1919-23) received last October an appointment with Southern Malayan Tin Dredging, Ltd., at Batu Gajah, Perak, F.M.S. He served his apprenticeship as an engineer with Messrs. Clyne, Mitchell & Co., Ltd., Aberdeen, and thereafter was with the British India Steam Navigation Co., Ltd. His brother, Albert Allan* (1919-26), C.A., is in the service of Messrs. Thomson, McLintock & Co., chartered accountants, London.

The Right Hon. Lord Alness* (1884-85), P.C., LL.D. (Edin. and Aberd.), is to receive the honorary degree of LL.D. from the University of St. Andrews.

George Johnstone Anderson* (1921-28) passed the final examination of the Royal Institute of British Architects at the Aberdeen School of Architecture in June of last year, and is now an assistant in the office of Messrs. George Bennett Mitchell and Son, architects, Aberdeen.

Edward Percy Barnett* (1895-1903), who has been for a long period in the service of the Eastern Sumatra Rubber Estates, Ltd., is now manager of the Boekit Maradja Estate, Pematang Siantar, East Coast Sumatra.

William George Rowntree Bodie* (1913-22), A. R.I.B.A chartered and registered architect, who was formerly an assistant with Messrs. Auldjo Jamieson & Arnott, FF.R.I.B.A., of Edinburgh, has since last June been acting as assistant to Mr. A. Lorne Campbell, F.R.I.B.A., 6o Castle Street, Edinburgh.

Robert Mitchell Bonner* (1922-28) has recently passed the final examination of the Chartered Accountants of Scotland and been admitted a member of the Society of Chartered Accountants in Aberdeen.

James Edward Bothwell* (19 i 5-2 3), M.A., LL.B., solicitor, was in January admitted a member of the Society of Advocates in Aberdeen.

Eric William Harcourt Brander* (1894-1901), M.A., LL.B., has been appointed a member of the newly created Herring Industry Board. He is a partner in the firm of Messrs.

Brander & Cruickshank, advocates, Aberdeen, and has for a long time been connected with the herring industry, latterly as

96

Aberdeen Grammar School Magazine

chairman of the Scottish Herring Producers' Association, Limited.

David Cairns (1912-16), M.A., assistant in Govan Old Parish Church, who is the son of the Very Rev. Principal D. S. Cairns, Aberdeen, has accepted a call from the congregation of Trinity Church, Bridge of Allan. After leaving the School he continued his studies at Merchiston, Aberdeen University, and Balliol College, Oxford. In July 1928 he was placed in Class I in the Final Honour School of Liters Humaniores (" Greats ") at Oxford, and thereafter he studied divinity in Aberdeen, being licensed by the Aberdeen Presbytery of the Church of Scotland in 1931. He was then fot a year on the Continent.

Patrick Ashley Cooper* (1896-1901), B.A. (Cantab.), LL.B. (Aberd.), was announced in the Court Circular of 16th January as having arrived at Sandringham, and on the following day as having left Sandringham.

Just before Christmas there was published by the Hudson's Bay Company, Winnipeg, a very handsomely produced volume, profusely illustrated, entitled " Trading Into Hudson's Bay: A Narrative of the Visit of Patrick Ashley Cooper, Thirtieth Governor of the Hudson's Bay Company, to Labrador, Hudson Strait and Hudson Bay in the Year 1934." The volume is a very worthy record of a remarkable expedition. A copy of it has been presented to the School Library.

Sinclair Couper* (1876-78 and 1882-80, M.B., C.M., who has been in medical practice at Blackpool since 1894, has recently been appointed by the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster to the Commission of the Peace for the Borough of Blackpool.

William Flett Cron* (18 81-91), M.A., M.D., has just resigned from the post of physician at the Aberdeen Royal Infirmary. He has been a member of the honorary staff for over 22 years. His services are to be retained as a consulting physician.

James Gordon Danson* (1 894-1903), M.D., Surgeon Captain, R.N., has been stationed at the R.N. Barracks, Portsmouth, since Christmas.

Donald James Dawson (1919-27), B.Sc., was in November last awarded the Venn Prize in Physiology at the University of Aberdeen. The prize is of the value of approximately £14 los., and is awarded annually for the best essay on a prescribed subject.

Frederick John Dean* (1896-1901), M.A., who is in the service of the Stirlingshire Education Committee and was formerly head master of Limerigg School, was in December appointed head master of Blackbraes-California School. He began his career as a teacher at Camelon Public School, Falkirk, immediately after graduating M.A. at Aberdeen in 1904.

Aberdeen Grammar School Magazine

97

John Henderson Ducat* (1881-86) and William George Melvin* (1888-96), M.Inst.C.E. (who was for many years in the Public Works Department, Bengal), are the promoters of a private company, Tagu Tin Ltd., which has recently been formed to acquire mines, mining rights, and metalliferous land in Burma. The capital is L2,ooo in LI shares.

James Logie Lyall Duffus* (191 2-14), who was formerly an officer in the Royal Air Force and resigned in 1924, has for some years been manager of an estate at Figtree, near Bulawayo, Southern Rhodesia.

Walter Angus Elmslie* (1904-10), who is an Admiralty harbour engineer, has recently been posted to H.M. Naval Base, Singapore. He expects to be there for about three years.

After a spell in Ceylon he was in this country from 1930.

His son, GORDON SINCLAIR ELMSLIE, is at present a pupil at the School, and is resident in Grammar School House. Mrs. Elmslie, by the way, is "almost an F.P." As Miss Jean Sinclair she was Rector's secretary for a number of years, and is remembered with esteem by hundreds of old Grammar boys.

William Lawrence Ferrier* (1912-13 and 1916-20) is now at the Metropolitan Police College, Hendon, training as a Junior Station Inspector. He was formerly in the service of the National Bank of India, at first in London and later at Kampala, Uganda, and left in 1931 to join the Metropolitan Police.

Adam Fyfe Findlay* (1879-85), M.A., D.D., has been appointed as from April 1935 to the Chair of Christian Ethics and Practical Theology in the University of Aberdeen, this being one of the two new Chairs founded in the University under the new Universities (Scotland) Act, in accordance with the arrangement come to with the Church of Scotland. Dr. Findlay, who was formerly minister of the High U.F. Church, Linlithgow, was appointed Professor of Church History and Christian Ethics in the U.F. Church College, Aberdeen, in 1 924.

James Francis Forbes* (1921-27) has recently passed the final examination of the Chartered Accountants of Scotland and been admitted a member of the Society of Chartered Accountants in Aberdeen.

George Topham Forrest* ( i 879-89), F.R.I.B. A., Architect to the London County Council and Superintending Architect of Metropolitan Buildings since 1919, is retiring on 31st March on grounds of ill-health. The L.C.C. has placed on record its appreciation of his services. Prior to his London appointment Mr. Forrest was in the service of the West Riding of Yorkshire County Council from 1899, Education Architect to the Northumberland County Council from 1905, and County Architect for Essex from 1914.

98

Aberdeen Grammar School Magazine

Rex Fowell* (1912-23) has been engaged since June 1932 as contractors' engineer and manager for the firm of Messrs.

Charles Dick & Son, Monifieth, on the construction of the new Inverbervie Bridge. This bridge, which is a reinforced concrete structure of seven spans and a total length of over i,ooo feet, with piers over 8o feet high, is now nearing completion. Numerous difficulties were encountered with the foundations, and a " spate " in April 1934 caused considerable damage to and loss of plant. The bridge, which will carry the main AberdeenDundee road (A92), is unusual in that it is built to a plan curve of 400 feet radius, so as to eliminate bends on the approaches.

Prior to his appointment at Bervie, Fowell was responsible for various improvements to the same road in the County of Angus, including the reconstruction of a three-mile section between Lunan and Inverkeilor, and he also supervised the construction of two new bridges on another section, south of Arbroath.

Andrew Crawford Ganson* (1881-84), who from 1917 was chief accountant of South American Stores (Gath & Chaves), Ltd., Moorgate Hall, London, has now retired, and is resident at Brighton.

Edgar Reuben Gauld* (1917-23), M.B., Ch.B., who is in the West African Medical Service, is at present stationed at Dunkwa, Sekon-Di, via Kumasi, Gold Coast.

William Wallace Gauld* (1893-98), M.A., minister of Queen's Cross Church, Aberdeen, has left for a six months' special engagement in Sydney, Australia.

Alexander Rennie Giles* ( I 920-21 and 1927-29), B.Sc.(Agr.), has received an appointment with the Budla Beta Tea Company at their Budla Beta Tea Estate, Doom Dooma P.O., Upper Assam.

Alister Munro Gill* (1916-30), who was at the School Boarding House for two years, being House Captain 1928-30, and is now a fifth year medical student at Aberdeen University, has recently become a Life Member of the F.P. Club.

James Norrie Gordon* (1919-24) is in the Mercantile Marine. He left Aberdeen in June 1933 on a three years' engagement, and is meantime trading between Aruba and Maricabo in the Dutch West Indies.

Alexander Gray* (1920-28) has recently qualified as a chemist and druggist, and is now a member of the Pharmaceutical Society. He has also recently become a Life Member of the F.P. Club.

Alexander Merrie Hardie* (t 9i 8-z8), who graduated M.A. at Aberdeen in 1931 and B.Sc. in Electrical Engineering, with First Class Honours, in 1933, received in November the degree of B.Sc. in Mechanical Engineering, also with First Class Honours.

Aberdeen Grammar School Magaine

99

David Sinclair Hay* (19.37-1I) is Assistant Secretary of the Scottish Milk Marketing Board, Glasgow.

Charles Helmrich* (1880-85), of Messrs. Charles Helmrich and Sons, wholesale stationers, Aberdeen, has now retired from business, after 42 years' association with the firm.

Stanley Hurry* (1916-21), B.Sc.(Eng.), is at present in the service of Messrs. Worthington-Simpson, Ltd., Manchester.

He was formerly with the same firm in Glasgow.

Alexander Robert Hutchieson (5904-07), B.Sc., A.M.I.Mech.E., has recently been promoted to the Keepership of the Technological Department of the Royal Scottish Museum, Edinburgh. His school education was completed at Bruton, Somerset, and thereafter he served his apprenticeship as a millwright. He studied at the Heriot-Watt College, Edinburgh, from 5908, and from October x919 was a student of engineering science in Edinburgh University. When the War broke out he was a trooper in the Lothians and Border Horse, and he served in Gallipoli (Cape Helles), 1915 ; in Sinai Desert, 1956 ; in the Senussi Campaign, 1916 ; and in Palestine with the Royal Engineers, 1917-19. In 5922 he graduated at Edinburgh with special distinction in mechanical engineering, being medallist and prize-winner in the senior course of engineering design.

He was later associated with Messrs. G. & J. Weir, the Glasgow engineers, with whom he carried out much successful research and development work in connection with Diesel engines, air-compression plant, and super-pressure steam generation.

He joined the staff of the Royal Scottish Museum in 5925, and has been closely associated with all the activities of the Technological Department.

Archer Irvine-Fortescue* (1892-97), D.S.O., M.B., Ch.B., who entered the Royal Army Medical Corps in 5907, has recently been promoted to the rank of Colonel, and has been appointed to command the British Military Hospital at Rawalpindi, one of the largest military hospitals in India.

William Grenville Irvine-Fortescue* (1910-13), M.C., who holds the rank of Major in the Royal Engineers, has been appointed to the staff of the Baluchistan District as Deputy Commander, Royal Engineers, with headquarters at Quetta.

Percival Robson Kirby (1892-1901), M.A., D.Litt., Professor of Music in the University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, is the author of a large and exhaustive volume on " The Musical Instruments of the Native Races of South Africa," recently published by the Oxford University Press at the price of 35s. In the preface he tells how his investigations took him into all sorts and conditions of native areas. At times he lived in native kraals and took part in performances of the

too

Aberdeen Grammar School Muse:Tine

natives' music. The book amplifies the vague information of predecessors in the field, and contains much new matter. Rattles and clappers, drums, xylophones, horns and trumpets, bullroarers and spinning disks, whistles, flutes, vibrating reeds, and many weird stringed instruments are dealt with in various chapters, and the book is fully illustrated. It is dedicated to Professor Sanford Terry, under whom Professor Kirby in his Aberdeen student days rendered valiant service as a tympanist.

After graduating in Arts he took up music as a career, studying at the Royal College of Music, and being elected F.R.C.M. in 1924.

John Laird* (1901-03), M.A., F.B.A., Regius Professor of Moral Philosophy in the University of Aberdeen, is to receive the honorary degree of LL.D. from the University of Edinburgh.

Douglas John Marr Dalgarno Lamont* (1922-27) has just started in business as a private motor hirer in Aberdeen.

William Still Littlejohn (1872-75), M.A., LL.D., Principal of Scotch College, Melbourne—the second largest public school in the British Empire—who died in October, 1933, is commemorated in a handsome volume entitled " Life of Dr. W. S. Littlejohn," recently published in Melbourne at the price of 15s. He is acknowledged as having been one of the greatest educational leaders in Australia, and just prior to his death was unanimously appointed Chairman of the Conference of Head Masters of Public Schools in the Commonwealth.

Charles Alexander Low* (z 915-z5) has recently passed the final examination of the Chartered Accountants of Scotland and been admitted a member of the Society of Chartered Accountants in Aberdeen.

Alexander McBain—formerly Alexander Bain—(1900-03), M.A., has recently been appointed Rector of Christ Church, Mile End, Glasgow, in succession to his brother, Canon John McBain, who retired on 31st December last. The one brother has served under the other for 21 years. Both are Labour Members of the Glasgow Town Council and are deeply interested in social reform movements.

Bryan Walter Whyte Mackay* (1913-14) and George Neil Whyte Mackay* (1922-25), who were for a number of years at Kendrew, Cape Province, South Africa, are now resident at Walmer, Port Elizabeth.

John Macmurray (1902-04), M.A., Grote Professor of the Philosophy of Mind and Logic, University of London, is one of four authors of a volume entitled " Marxism," recently published

by Messrs. Chapman & Hall. Professor Macmurray's contribution is an essay on the philosophical presuppositions of Marxism.

Aberdeen Grammar School MagaVne

101

George Poison Merson* (1918-28), M.B., Ch.B., is now on the staff of Queen Mary's Hospital, Stratford, London.

Stuart Auldjo Middleton* (1918-29) has recently passed the final examination of the Chartered Accountants of Scotland and been admitted a member of the Society of Chartered Accountants in Aberdeen.

Graham Douglas Miller (1921-24) is now in his second year at Oxford. He holds an Open Scholarship in History at Brasenose College. Harley Ogilvie Miller (x921-24) is on the staff of a newspaper. They are sons of Mr. Douglas G. Miller, formerly Rector of the Aberdeen Grammar School, and now High Master of Manchester Grammar School.

John Irvine Miller* (1918-25) is now on the Sam Sing Tea Estate, Matelli, Dooars, Northern Bengal.

Arnold Statham Milne* (1883-9o), who has been for many years engaged in goldmining in South Africa, has now retired from the position of manager of the Durban Roodepoort Deep, Ltd., and taken up wine and fruit farming at " Natte Vlei," Klapmuts, Cape Province.

Christian Hoyer Millar Milne* (1881-87), M.A., D.Litt., who has been Head Master of Daniel Stewart's College, Edinburgh, since 1911, is retiring at the end of the present session.

John Minto* (I878-8o), M.A., is retiring for health reasons from the position of Librarian to the Society of Writers to the Signet, Edinburgh, which he has held for 29 years. He started on his career as a librarian at King's College Library, Aberdeen, immediately after graduating M.A. in 1885. Thereafter he was appointed Sub-Librarian to the Aberdeen Public Library in 1892 ; Librarian of the Sandeman Public Library, Perth, in 1896 ; Chief Librarian of the Public Library, Curator of the Museums, and Director of the Public Art Galleries, Brighton, in 1902 ; and Librarian to the W.S. Society, Edinburgh in 1906. He has compiled and edited numerous library and other publications.

Sir Peter Chalmers Mitchell* (1879-80), M.A., D.Sc., LL.D., F.R.S., who is retiring from the Secretaryship of the Zoological Society of London in April, after 32 years' service, is to have his portrait in oils hung in the offices of the Society as a memorial to him. He has indicated that a memorial in this form would be more agreeable to him than any personal gift.

Sir Peter is the son of the late Rev. Alexander Mitchell, D.D., minister for half a century of the North Parish Church, Dunfermline, who died in 19oz at the age of 91.

Alexander Forbes Moir* (1925-28) has recently gone out to Australia to a large dairy farm, 7o miles from Brisbane, under the auspices of the Church of England Council of Empire

loz

Aberdeen Grammar School Magazine

Settlement. He was previously analyst with the Milk Pool at the Scottish Milk Agency, Ashgrove Road, Aberdeen.

Donald Alexander Campbell Morrison (1922-25), son of Dr. George A. Morrison, M.P., was in December elected to an Open Scholarship in Classics at Christ Church, Oxford. He has latterly been at Fettes College, Edinburgh.

John Gray Munro* (1920-31), B.A.(Cantab.), has recently received a permanent commission in the Royal Air Force. He studied at St. John's College, Cambridge, for the Mechanical Sciences Tripos.

George Gordon Nicol* (1894-1903), D.S.O., who is a partner in the firm of Henderson & Nicol, chartered civil engineers, Aberdeen, has been elected a Member of the Institution of Civil Engineers (M.Inst.C.E.) as from 19th February, 1935.

He was previously an Associate Member of the institution.

Henry Peterkin (1886-93), M.A., M.B., Ch.B., has resigned from the office of surgeon to the department for the treatment of diseases of the ear, nose, and throat in Aberdeen Royal Infirmary. He has been a member of the honorary staff for nearly 32 years, and has now been appointed an honorary consulting surgeon.

John Riddell Knight Pirie* (1915-26), B.Sc., is serving as a law apprentice with Mr. J. Downie Campbell, solicitor, Aberdeen.

William James Profeit (1885-87), M.A., B.Sc.(Agr.), is retiring from the position of Senior Lecturer on the Principles of Agriculture in the North of Scotland College of Agriculture, to which he was appointed in 1914.

Robert William Reid (1865-66), M.D., F.R.C.S.(Eng.), is having his long connection with the University of Aberdeen as Professor of Anatomy commemorated by a fund subscribed by graduates and others to found a Lectureship in Anthropology.

The fund was handed over on 3rd December last, and at the same time Professor Reid delivered the first lecture under the R. W. Reid Fund. His subject was the development of the subject of anthropology in the University.

David Lindsay Rennet* (19 i 4-26), M.A., LL.B., solicitor, was in January admitted a member of the Society of Advocates in Aberdeen. He is a partner with his father, Earms-r RENNET* (1879-88), M.A., B.L., C.A., in the firm of Messrs. Butchart and Rennet, advocates, Aberdeen.

George Alexander Riddell* (1915-26), C.A., was last year appointed Secretary of Messrs. D. Napier & Sons, Ltd., Aero Engine Works, Acton Vale, London. He went to the Company as assistant to the Chairman, and after four months was appointed Secretary.

Aberdeen Grammar School Magazine

103

Charles Macdonald Ross* (1917-25), M.B., Ch.B., is at present assistant physician at Craig House, Morningside Drive, Edinburgh.

Charles Scott* (5925-28) graduated B.Sc. at Aberdeen University in November last.

George Thomas Garland Shepherd* (1925-28), son of GEORGE SHEPHERD (1 8 8 2-8 5), Raxton, Tarves, has recently received an appointment with Messrs. Duncan Brothers of Calcutta and London, on the Daling Kote Tea Estate, Mal P.O., Dooars, Bengal.

James Gordon Shepherd* (1920-29), who for the past four years has been an apprentice with the Ellerman City Lines, Ltd., in July last year passed the Board of Trade examination for Second Mate.

Harold William Shirreffs* (1915-16) is at present a student at the British-Israel College, and is resident at Harrow Weald Park, Middlesex.

James Harold Sim* (1901-06), who for the last five years has occupied the position of Assistant Manager at the Halifax (Nova Scotia) Branch of the Canadian Bank of Commerce, has recently been promoted to the Managership of the Yarmouth (Nova Scotia) Branch. He entered the service of the Bank in 1909.

William Douglas Simpson* (1901-13), D.Litt., Aberdeen University Librarian and Vice-President of the F.P. Club, is the author of a fascinating volume entitled " The Celtic Church in Scotland : A Study of its Penetration Lines and Art Relationships," recently published as No. 111 of Aberdeen University Studies. In a scholarly investigation of the spread of Roman influences beyond the Wall of Hadrian, he disposes of the notion that the Picts were primeval savages, incapable of receiving any tinge of Christian culture. Then he traces the work of Ninian and its penetration directly from Candida Casa, and indirectly through the daughter monasteries of Ireland, into Pictland.

Tracks of the activities of outstanding Pictish apostles are indicated in special maps. His main contribution, graced and illumined by many excellent plates, is on the development of what he regards as the distinctively Pictish Christian art, from the Whithorn Slab to the Dupplin Cross. The book is having an excellent reception.

James Cruickshank Smith* ( I 8 8 2-8 3), B.Sc., is now resident at Villa Escocia, Torres de Can Oriol, Rubi, Barcelona (Prov.), Spain.

John Morrison Smith* (5924-32) went out to Burma in December. He is in the cotton department of the Rangoon office of Messrs. Steel Bros. Co., Ltd., India merchants.

104

Aberdeen Grammar School Magatine

Oswald Hastings Ritchie Still* (1922-33) is at present serving as an apprentice in his father's wholesale millinery warehouse, Upperkirkgate, Aberdeen.

James Stewart Tawse* (1913- z 6), C.A., recently received an appointment with Messrs. Price, Waterhouse & Co., chartered accountants, in their Paris office. He was previously for two years with Messrs. Cooper Brothers & Co., chartered accountants, London.

Graeme H. L. Thomson* (1907-17), a son of the late GEORGE LAURENCE THOMSON (1882-86), is in business in Port Elizabeth, South Africa, as a hide, skin, and wool merchant.

David West (1883-84), the well-known water-colour painter, has recently been elected Vice-President of the Royal Scottish Society of Painters in Water Colours, and had four pictures in the recent annual exhibition at the R.S.A. Galleries in Edinburgh.

Robert Moir Williamson* (1882-83), M.A., LL.B., was in January granted a commission as an Honorary Sheriff-Substitute of the County of Aberdeen. A member of the firm of Messrs.

Paull & Williamsons, he is a former President of the Society of Advocates in Aberdeen, and until recently was Lecturer in Constitutional Law and History in the University of Aberdeen.

Raymond Graham Wilson* (1906-12 and 19 x 5-17), who was formerly engaged in the contracting business in Malaya, has recently left Aberdeen for Singapore, where he is joining his old firm, Messrs. United Engineers, Ltd. He will receive a warm welcome from the other F.P.s in the Straits Settlements.

ABERDEEN UNIVERSITY HONORARY GRADUATES.

The Senatus Academicus of the University of Aberdeen has decided to confer the honorary degree of Doctor of Divinity (D.D.) on the following F.P.s :— The Very Rev. Joseph Brewer Jobbcrns* (188o-86), O.B.E., M.A., Rector of St. Mary Magdalene's, Dundee, and Dean of the Episcopal Diocese of Brechin.

Rev. James Lumsden* (11379-Bo), M.A., B.D., minister of Ratho, Midlothian, who is at present Moderator of the Presbytery of Edinburgh.

Rev. William George Robertson* (1884-9o), M.A., B.D., minister of the Old Church, Cullen, and formerly Principal of Gujerat College, Ahmedabad, India.

The Senatus has also decided to confer the honorary degree of Doctor of Laws (LL.D.) on Henry Alexander* (1 88 1-91), M.A., Lord Provost of Aberdeen.

Aberdeen Grammar School Magazine

I05

ABERDEEN UNIVERSITY S. R. C. JUBILEE.

To mark the Jubilee of the Aberdeen University Students' Representative Council special celebrations were held in January, when a very attractive brochure was published. In this there was much of interest to F.P.s. One article dealt with the first President of the S.R.C.—the late PATRICK WHYTE RATTRAY (1872-77), M.A., M.B., C.M., F.R.C.S.(Eng.). Another article dealing with the origins of the S.R.C. was contributed by Emeritus Professor EDWARD FIDDES* (1 876-81), M.A., LL.D., formerly of the University of Manchester. He was President of the Aberdeen University Debating Society for the session 1884-85, and it was in the course of his presidential address that the idea of founding an Aberdeen Students' Council was first mooted. Dr. Fiddes was present at the Jubilee Luncheon, when he made a most interesting speech, in which he gave a brief comparison of student life fifty years ago with that of to-day. JOHN MALCOLM BULLOCH* (1877-80), M.A., LL.D., contributed an informative article on the early history of the S.R.C. In the latter part of the brochure there was given a complete list of the past Presidents of the Council, the names in most cases being accompanied by a photo. Of the fifty Presidents it should be noted that not only was the first (as already mentioned) an F.P., but the fiftieth and present one is also an F.P. He is JAMES SOUTER STEPHEN* (1919-29), M.A., the Convener of the Jubilee Celebrations Committee, to whose initiative and energy the outstanding success of the celebrations was largely due. In going over the list of Presidents one cannot but be struck by the large proportion of F.P.s—they number about one-third—and it will be of interest to record their names here :1888-89, Donald McMillan (1876-83), M.A. ; 1893-94, John RR -7,); 1 R_94-95, James Charles Philip* (I 886-89); Everard Rae* (,— I5-tt 1900-o1 , Charles Forbes* ( i 884-86) ; 1901-02, William Bain Griffiths 1\ linto (1888-98) ; 1905-06, Andrew Ritchie Williamson (1898-19oz) ; 1907-08, William Wilson Jameson* (1892-1902) ; 1909-10, Harold Edgar Smith* ( 18 89-97) ; 1910-I1, Frederick Wishart* (1897-1906) ; 1911-12, Richard Reginald Maitland Porter* (1895-1906); 1914-15, Robert Daniel Lawrence* (1900-09); i 9 i 5-16, James Sutherland Balkwell Forbes (1903- i o) ; 1924-25, George Carmichael Kelly* (1905-14) ; 1928-29, Charles Grant Brown* ( i 92i-24) ; and 1933-34, James Alexander Barclay* (1920-25).

I o6

Aberdeen Grammar School Magazine

MARRIAGES. Bain (1915-23).—At the Palace Hotel, Aberdeen, on zoth February, 1935, ROBERT DUNCAN BAIN,* second son of the late J. A. C. Bain and of Mrs. Bain, z King's Gate, to Olive Margaret, only daughter of Richard F. Stephen, printer, Aberdeen.

Bisset (I9ot-o8).—At Perth, Western Australia, on 24th January, 1935, DOUGLAS MAITLAND BISSET,* to Daisy Rosina Taylor, of Sydney, New South Wales. C/o Watkins, Perpetual Trustee Chambers, Perth, Western Australia.

Brown (1921-24).—At King's College Chapel, Aberdeen, on loth December, 1934, CHARLES GRANT BROWN,* elder son of Mr. and Mrs. Charles Brown, Westwood, Craigton Road, Aberdeen, to Constance Elizabeth, third daughter of Mr. and Mrs. William Ross, 6o Fountainhall Road, Aberdeen.

Cruickshank (t9t4-21).—At St. Cuthbert's Parish Church, Edinburgh, On 7th January, 1935, JAMES STANLEY ROWLAND CRUICKSHANK,* B.A., LL.B., W.S., advocate in Aberdeen, to Anne Grace, elder daughter of Mr. and Mrs. John Watt, 3 Shandon Terrace, Edinburgh.

Duncan (1915-22).—At St. Ninian's Church, Aberdeen, on 6th February, 1935, WILLIAM JOSEPH DUNCAN,* youngest son of Mr. and Mrs. A. Duncan, 287 Great Western Road, Aberdeen, to Agnes Hart Park, younger daughter of Mr. and Mrs. James Ross, 35 Richmondhill Road, Aberdeen.

Duthie (1918-z;).—At St. Mary's Chapel, Aberdeen, on 2nd February, 1935, SYDNEY WILLIAM DUTHIE, son of Mr. and Mrs. William Duthie, 77 Poplar Road, London, to Hilda Burnett, younger daughter of Dr. and Mrs. J. Miller Chrystie, Waulkmill House, Peterculter.

Irvine (1922-26).—At the Caledonian Hotel Aberdeen on 22nd December, 1934, CHARLES Ross IRVINE, * son of the late Captain Irvine, Royal Scots, and of Mrs. Irvine, Tain, Ross-shire, to Margaret Beatrix, eldest daughter of Dr. and Mrs. Malcolm W. Murray, " Woodlands," Woodstock Road, Aberdeen.

M'Combie (z893-96).-At St. George's Church, Tufnell Park, London, on and March, 1935, GORDON STUART M`COMBIE,* M.A., son of the late Mr. H. D. M'Combie (1861-66) and Mrs. M'Combie, Kemnay, Aberdeenshire, to Eleanor, daughter of the late Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Lovell, of • London.

Murray (1922-27).—At the Church, Newhills, on 14th December, 1934, GEORGE QumrroN MURRAY,* stockbroker, Aberdeen, youngest son of Mr. and Mrs. Wm. Murra, Shanghai, Newburgh, to Eileen Sellar, youngest daughter of the late James Sellar and Mrs. Sella!. of Bucksbum House, Aberdeen.

Rennie (19 x 4-24).—At London, on 4th February, 1935, IAN S. RENNIE, only son of the late Dr. John Rennie, Aberdeen University, and of Mrs. Rennie, Selbome, Torphins, to Allison Currie, youngest daughter of the late Alexander Wooley, Brodick, Isle of Arran.

Ritchie (1882-86).—At St. Mary's, Carden Place, on 26th December, JAMES RITCHIE, M.D., Old Deer, to Anna, eldest daughter of the late William Park and Mrs. Park, Newlands, Mintlaw Station. (See Obituary, p. i r5.)

Robertson (I884-90).-At St. Cuthbert's, Edinburgh, on zist November, 1934, Rev. WILLIAM GEORGE ROBERTSON,* B.D., Cullen, to Daphne, widow of A. W. Taylor, Newcastle-on-Tyne.

Walker (1917-2 0.—At Ellishill, Peterhead, on 7th December, 1934, THOMAS WALKER,* only son of the late Mr. Andrew Walker, Thomgrove, Aberdeen, and of Mrs. Walker, a Rubislaw Den North, Aberdeen, to Margaret Lumsden, eldest daughter of the late Mr. Robert L. Mitchell and of Mrs. Mitchell, Ellishill, Peterhead.

Aberdeen Grammar School Magazine

107

OBITUARY. Since the last Magazine went to press three months ago, the deaths of no fewer than zo F.P.s have been recorded, of whom 16 were members of the F.P. Club.

A RENOWNED PHYSIOLOGIST.

John James Rickard Macleod* (1884-93), M.B., Ch.B., D.Sc., LL.D., F.R.C.P., F.R.S., Regius Professor of Physiology in the University of Aberdeen, died at his residence, Craigievar, Bieldside, Aberdeen, on 16th March, 1935, aged 58 years. He was a son of the late Rev. Robert Macleod, at one time minister of John Knox United Free Church, Aberdeen, and received the whole of his schooling from the age of seven at the Grammar School. He graduated in medicine with honours at Aberdeen University in 1898, being at the same time awarded the Matthews Duncan and the Fife Jamieson Medals, and the Anderson Travelling Scholarship. Thereafter he spent a year of study in the Physiological Institute of Leipzig University. His first appointment was that of Demonstrator in Physiology at the London Hospital Medical School, from 1899 to i9oz, when he became Lecturer in Biochemistry. In the same year he was awarded the Diploma of Public Health at Cambridge. In 1903 he was appointed Professor of Physiology in the Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio, U.S.A., a post which he continued to occupy until 1918, when he went to the Chair of Physiology in the University of Toronto. It was in the laboratories there that his work and that of his collaborators on carbohydrate metabolism, with special reference to diabetes, culminated in results that have made the word " Insulin" familiar in all countries.

Professor Macleod's name will always be associated with the discovery of Insulin. It was in 1921 that a young scientist of London, Ontario—Dr. Banting, a worker in the same field as Professor Macleod—brought to him his difficulties and his ideas. The result was ardent co-operation in constructive research ; all available resources of Toronto University were utilized, and extraordinary progress was made. Early in 1922 the possibility of obtaining a long-sought therapeutic agent for the treatment of diabetes was established beyond doubt. Insulin was found and its efficacy proved. But Professor Macleod did not rest with mere scientific discovery. The treatment had to be readily available for suffering humanity. How that was done is another instance of the unique combination of medical genius with organizing and executive power. He called to his aid his colleagues, his staff, the law, his University, and the Medical Reseach Council of Great Britain, and thus safeguarded the production and quality of Insulin. These wonderful achievements were possible only by the genius which Professor Macleod

to8

Aberdeen Grammar School Magazine

had for organizing team work, which he not only directed and inspired, but in whose toil he shared assiduously. The results constituted a brilliant example of the value of competently directed co-operative work in the solution of scientific problems.

Professor Macleod was always anxious to share the credit of the discovery of Insulin with his young colleague, and as the value of Insulin became more and more apparent on further investigation, the two men were together awarded the Nobel Prize for Medicine in October 1923, each receiving about £4,ooo.

Macleod divided his share with Dr. J. B. Collip, then Professor in Alberta University, and now Professor of Biochemistry at McGill ; while Banting divided his with Dr. C. H. Best, who, he declared, had played an important part in the discovery, and to whom he felt that proper credit had not been accorded.

This action gave to the four men who worked on the Insulin experiments an equal division of the prize-money. As Macleod said, it was only team work that made Insulin possible.

Professor Macleod received the honorary degree of D.Sc. from Toronto University in November 1923, and he and Banting were afterwards the guests of honour at a banquet given by the Governors of the University and attended by four hundred representatives of the medical profession and the Universities of Canada, and of Johns Hopkins, Chicago, and other American Universities. In the same year Macleod was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society, and was Cameron Prizeman of Edinburgh University.

In April 1928 Dr. Macleod was appointed by the King to be Professor of Physiology in the University of Aberdeen.

Shortly afterwards he became a member of the Medical Research Council of Great Britain, and in that important capacity gave splendid service. In addition to his occupancy of the Chair of Physiology, Professor Macleod was head physiologist at the Rowett Research Institute, and by his energy and his great reputation he helped in no small measure to extend the influence and importance of that institution, particularly in regard to the study of nutrition and its influence on the health and lives of the community.

Professor Macleod was a member or fellow of numerous scientific societies and associations. He was also an Honorary Doctor of Aberdeen, Pennsylvania, Jefferson Medical College, and the Western Reserve University, and was the author of numerous books and papers on his own special subjects. He had been ill for some time, but he carried on his University duties till the end of last summer session.

In the Grammar School Professor Macleod took a life-long interest. He was the honoured President of the F.P. Club for the year 1930-31, and presided with great acceptance at the Annual Dinner on 1st November, 1930.

Professor J. J. R. MACLEOD, F.R.S.

Sir

ANDREW SKEEN, K.C.B., K.C.I.E.

Aberdeen Grammar School Magazine

109

A FINE SOLDIER.

General Sir Andrew Skeen* (188o-86), K.C.B., K.C.I.E., C.M.G., Indian Army, a Life Member of the F.P. Club and one of its Honorary Vice-Presidents, died suddenly at Trinafour, Broadway, Worcestershire, on 18th February, 1935, aged 61 years, having collapsed at the wheel of his car while driving from Evesham. He will, said The Times, long be remembered not only as a fine soldier, but also for the important part he took in shaping the plans for training Indians for the higher commissioned ranks of the Indian Army.

Born in 1873, he was a son of the late Deputy SurgeonGeneral William Skeen and a nephew of Surgeon-Major Andrew Skeen, who both were graduates of Aberdeen University and both entered the Indian Army. He was one of six brothers who all attended the Grammar School, and four of whom graduated in medicine at Aberdeen University, these being WILLIAM ST. JOHN SKEEN (1876-83), JAMES FILIMPHRY SKEEN (1876-85), GEORGE SKEEN (1878-86), and DONALD TRENCH SKEEN* (1895-99). The other brother was Major OLIVER ST. JOHN SKEEN (188i-86), who was also in the Indian Army

and was killed in action on the Persian Gulf in 1916. Of the six brothers Donald alone survives, being in the Malayan Medical Service, and F.P. Club Consul for Negri Sembilan.

Andrew Skeen was commissioned from Sandhurst to the King's Own Scottish Borderers in December 1891, at the age of 18, and within two years was appointed to the Indian Army, being posted to the z4th Punjabis. He served on the NorthWest Frontier fighting of 1897-98, receiving medal and two clasps ; he was in the Boxer Expedition to China in 1900, receiving medal ; he served in East Africa and Somaliland in 1902-04, being mentioned in dispatches and receiving the brevet of Major and medal with two clasps. In 1901 he was promoted Captain, and in 1909 Major. From 1907 to t9to he was D.A.Q.M.G. at Indian Headquarters, and from the beginning of 1912 until the outbreak of the Great War he was employed at the Staff College at Quetta. He was admirably fitted for training officers, for keenness in his profession was linked with an attractive personality and a quick brain. In January 1914 he was made Brevet Lieut.-Colonel.

Immediately after the outbreak of the Great War Skeen was General Staff Officer, 1st Grade, at Headquarters, India, until December 1914, and then with the Mediterranean Expeditionary Force to June 1915, when he was gazetted Brevet Colonel. Almost at once he was appointed Brigadier-General, General Staff, Australian and New Zealand Army Corps, Mediterranean Expeditionary Force, serving with General Birdwood's staff, and it was while holding this appointment that he won the warm commendation of General Sir Ian Hamilton,

ITO

Aberdeen Grammar School Magazine

who, in his dispatch of tab December, 1915, referred to the part General Skeen had played in the preparation of the ambush at Anzac in August, and added " I much doubt whether any more pregnant enterprise than this, of landing so large a force under the very eyes of the enemy, and of keeping them concealed there three days, is recorded in the annals of war." From Gallipoli General Skeen was moved to India, where he took up the post of Director of Military Operations in February 1916, and held it till November of the following year, when he was appointed Deputy Chief of the General Staff, India, with the rank of Temporary Major-General, his substantive promotion to that rank following in June 1918. In 1919 General Skeen was in command of the operations in Waziristan, and in 1921 he was appointed G.O.C., Kohat District, Northern Command, India. For his services in the field with the Waziristan Force he was created a K.C.I.E. in 1921. Some years previously he had been awarded the C.M.G., and in 1922 he was given the C.B. From January 1917 to June 1918 he was A.D.C. to the King.

In 1923-24 Sir Andrew held the Southern Command, India, and then Sir William Birdwood called him to Delhi as Chief of the General Staff. He was promoted to the rank of LieutenantGeneral and was made a K.C.B. in 1925. In the summer of that year it was announced that he was to be chairman of a Committee to examine how to attract the best qualified Indian youths to a military career and how to give them a suitable military education. After i5 months of labour the Committee presented a unanimous report recommending a great extension of the scope of the employment of Indians in the higher ranks of the Army in India and the provision in the country of facilities to train them. Some of Skeen's military friends, said The Times, had expected much conflict of views and shook their heads over his achievement ; but subsequent developments have more than confirmed his recognition of the reasonableness of the Indian claim for acceleration of Indianization. So impressed were Sir Andrew's colleagues, soldiers and politicians alike, that they insisted on the unusual course of appending to the report a tribute of " cordial and respectful appreciation of his services to them." They wrote that his " ripe experience, his breadth of mind and sympathetic outlook, and the patience, courtesy, and skill with which he has directed their proceedings have made their task a pleasant one and have very greatly facilitated its accomplishment."

Skeen returned to the Chiefship of the Staff when the Committee had reported, and the King honoured him in 1928 by making him his A.D.C. General. But he was not destined to do much further staff service, or to see, while on the active list, the opening of the Indian " Sandhurst" at Dehra Dun. At the close of 1929, when he was on leave, the Medical Board was

Aberdeen Grammar School Magazine

II I

unable to pass him to return to India, where he should normally have taken over command of the Northern District, the most important in India, including the North-West Frontier, upon which he was one of the greatest military authorities. He settled quietly in the Cotswolds, where, however, his last four years were clouded by illness brought on by high blood-pressure.

Two years ago he wrote an admirable book entitled " Passing It On: Short Talks on Tribal Fighting on the North-West Frontier of India." It is a purely technical work, but is written with a skill and care which place it far above most books of its kind, and it is already much used as a text-book for young Frontier soldiers.

Andrew Baxter* (1882-86), M.D.(Aberd.), D.P.H. (Manch.)

—one of four brothers who attended the Grammar School— died at Northcliffe, Alderley Edge, Cheshire, on 8th December, 1934, aged 64 years. He graduated M.B., C.M., at Aberdeen in 189z, and started in practice at Stanley, Perthshire. Thereafter he was at Darwen, Lancashire, and latterly at Alderley Edge. In the Great War he was medical officer to the Cheshire Yeomanry on the East Coast, 1914-15, and in the following year was D.A.D.M.S., 1st Mounted Division. In 1917 he became Officer Commanding the z/znd East Lancashire Field Ambulance, and served with it in France, with the rank of Lieut.-Colonel, until 1919, when he was demobilized For his services he was " mentioned " in 1916 and 1919.

George Gordon McLean Black* (1886-87), M.A., M.B., C.M., died at Tomintoul, Banffshire, on 3rd December, 1934, aged 65 years. The greater part of his professional life was spent at Tomintoul, where he was not only highly esteemed, but greatly beloved. He was an Honorary Sheriff-Substitute of the County of Banff.

Gordon Moncrieff Dean* (1909-18), B.A.(Cantab.), M.B., Ch.B.(Aberd.), died suddenly in Florida on 16th December, 1934, aged 34 years. He was the only son of the late Professor George Dean, Professor of Pathology in the University of Aberdeen. After leaving the Grammar School he went to Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, where he took a First Class in the Natural Science Tripos, Part I, in 1922, and a Second Class in Part II in 1924. He then returned to Aberdeen to study medicine, and graduated in 1927 with " much distinction," winning the Dr. James Anderson Gold Medal in Clinical Medicine and the John Murray Gold Medal to the most distinguished graduate in Medicine. After a year as a resident house surgeon in the Aberdeen Royal Infirmary, he was appointed by Sir John Marnoch to be junior assistant in surgery in Aberdeen University.

In 1929 he was awarded the George Thompson Fellowship for

/ t2

Aberdeen Grammar School Magazine

study abroad, and went to the Johns Hopkins Hospital, Baltimore. There, after a course in clinical surgery, he was appointed house officer in the Brady Urological Institute of the Hospital, and was finally resident assistant surgeon in the Department of Urology. He held a Rockefeller Fellowship and a Dorothy Temple Cross Fellowship for research. He had been specializing in urology, in which he had done valuable experimental work while attached to the staff of Johns Hopkins Hospital.

THE SENIOR MEMBER OF THE F.P. CLUB. John Hector* (18 S 7-62), M.A., D.D., sometime Principal of Duff College, Calcutta, died at his residence, 29 King's Gate, Aberdeen, on 19th December, 1934, aged 89 years. Leaving the Grammar School as Dux in 1862, after going through the whole five years' curriculum of that period, he entered the University of Aberdeen shortly after the fusion of King's and Marischal Colleges, and graduated M.A. in 1866. He then went through the theological course in the Aberdeen Free Church College. He was ordained as a missionary in the Free South Church, Aberdeen, on 14th December, 1871, and was appointed Professor in the college for Indian students at Calcutta associated with the name of the pioneer Alexander Duff. Later on he became Principal of the College and Secretary of the Free Church Mission. Many beyond the circle of his own church remember with gratitude the kindly welcome which he gave especially to newcomers, both missionaries and young business men. For health reasons he retired in 1903, and in the following year he received the honorary degree of D.D. from his Alma Mater. He settled in Aberdeen, where for nearly a third of a century he kept up a correspondence with many of his former Indian students. He was Secretary of the Aberdeen Branch of the British in India Mission, and spoke at a meeting of the Branch less than a fortnight before his death.

In the Grammar School he took a life-long interest, and in June 1932 was present on the platform at the Prize-giving— in the seventieth year after he himself was Dux of the School— and delivered a short address in a voice that carried distinctly to the far end of the Hall. This address was published in full, together with a portrait, in the Magazine of November 1932.

For many years he had been a member of the F.P. Club, and at the time of his death he was Senior Member.

Dr. Hector's three sons were educated at the Grammar School. GEORGE PITTENDRIGH HECTOR* (1889-97), M.A., D.Sc. —named after his uncle, the late Rev. Professor GEORGE PirrENDRIGH (1872-76), D.D.—entered the Indian Department of Agriculture in 1908, and has recently retired from the service ; JAMES MASSON HECTOR (1889-1900), B.Sc., has been Professor of Agricultural Botany in the Transvaal University College,

Aberdeen Grammar School Magazine

113

now incorporated in the University of Pretoria, since 1917 ; and KENNETH STUART HECTOR (1893-1901) entered the service of the Bank of Madras, which was later amalgamated with the Imperial Bank of India, latterly acting as secretary and treasurer at the Madras Presidency headquarters. He died at Cheltenham in August 1933, shortly after his retirement from India.

Harry Alexander Holmes* (1881-8 5 ) died at his residence, Fairfield, Aberdeen, on 8th February, 1935, aged 62 years.

He was a partner in the firm of Messrs. A. & M. Smith, export fishcurers, Aberdeen, Leith, and Hull, and in the firm of Messrs.

Smith & Holmes, trawlowners and fish salesmen, Aberdeen.

He was also either managing director or a director of a considerable number of local companies connected with the fishing industry. He was a member of the Aberdeen Town Council as Dean of Guild from 1919 to 1926. During the Great War he was appointed Fishing Captain of the Port of Aberdeen, with the rank of Lieutenant of the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve. He was also President of the Fishing Advisory Committee of the Port. This involved onerous work.

Fleets had to be made up, convoys arranged, and everything possible done to lessen the risks to men and ships at a time when the enemy were pursuing their ruthless submarine and mine warfare on the seas. He was also appointed by the Blockade Department to represent it in the sale of articles which were brought to this country in order to prevent their going to Germany. In all the War work which he accomplished for the British, Italian, and other Allied Governments, he gave his services gratuitously, declining commission, and refusing to be paid anything whatever, even his railway fares or travelling expenses. He was made a Deputy Lieutenant of the County of the City of Aberdeen in 1926.

He is survived by three sons—JoHN BARRON HOLMES* (1905-17), who is manager of Messrs. Smith & Holmes, Aberdeen ; WILLIAM HOLMES (190...-1..„ R R) who is with Messrs.

A. & M. Smith ; and RONALD HOLMES (1910-21), who is in Buenos Aires, representing Messrs. A. & M. Smith in South America.

James Cruickshank Henderson Macbeth (18 8 1-8 5 ), eldest son of the late JAMES MACBETH (1866-68), died in New York on 21st March, 193 5, as the result of an accident, aged 6o years. For a considerable time he was in business in Aberdeen with his father as a pianoforte-maker and music-seller, but in 1907 he went to Penang to join his brother DAVID MAcarrpi* (1884-85) in the management of a large emporium there. In 1916 he joined the Marconi Company to bring out " The Marconi International Code." This appeared in 1918 in four volumes, each volume in three world languages. He later edited " The Marconi Dictionary, specially arranged for Code Users," which

11

4

Aberdeen Grammar School Magazine

was published in 192o. He went to New York in the following year. While resident in Aberdeen he was well known as a talented violin and 'cello player.

William McCombie (1857-58), a son of the founder and first editor of the Aberdeen Free Press, died in Vancouver, B.C., on list March, 1935, aged 91 years. He was one of the early reporters on the original weekly Free Press, and later was a subeditor on the daily Free Press. He was for a time in Australia, but later went to Canada, where in the past fifty years he worked at a big variety of jobs, eventually entering the hotel business.

Lewis Auldjo Lamb Middleton* (1888-94) died at Belmont House, Aberdeen, on 29th December, 1934, aged 54 years. He was a son of the late Mr. Alexander Middleton, and after leaving the Grammar School went into his father's business at Belmont Auction Mart, where he had been engaged for about 37 years, latterly as joint managing director. He was particularly noted as an expert in the sheep trade. He is survived by four sons— STUART AULDJO MIDDLETON* (1918-29) ; LEWIS MIDDLETON* (1919-32), the well-known Aberdeen University golfer; and twins-JAMES FLETCHER MIDDLETON (19 24- 3 4) and ALLAN ADRIAN MIDDLETON (1 924-34).

Alexander Ogilvie* (1866-67) died at his residence, 119

Hamilton Place, Aberdeen, on zoth December, 1934, aged 81 years. On leaving the School he entered the office of the late Mr. Harvey Hall, advocate and chartered accountant, to whom he served an apprenticeship as clerk, after which he was on the staff of the Aberdeen Journal for a period of two years. In 1874 he entered the service of the Partick, Hillhead, and Maryhill Gas Co., Glasgow, returning to Aberdeen three years later, when he joined his late brother, Mr. James Ogilvie, in the firm subsequently well known as J. & A. Ogilvie, cabinetmakers and upholsterers, whose place of business was then at No. 5 Crown Street. Mr. Ogilvie was continuously associated with 'that enterprising firm until his retirement in December 1930.

He is survived by his son, GORDON OGILVIE* (1904-14), who is a partner in the firm of J. & A. Ogilvie.

William Robinson Pirie* (1861-66), M.A., D.D., formerly parish minister of Nairn until 1931, died at Leith on zoth December, 1934, aged 83 years. He was the last surviving son of the Very Rev. William Robinson Pirie, D.D., Principal of the University of Aberdeen, 1877-85. He graduated M.A. at Aberdeen in 187o and B.D. in 1874. Two years later he was appointed to his first charge, that of Martyrs' Parish, Glasgow.

His succeeding appointments were to the North Parish, Stirling, in 1878 ; to Keith in 1880 ; and to Nairn in 1898. At Keith and Nairn he took a leading part in the educational and philanthropic life of the county. He was chairman of the Nairn School Board for many years, and his public services gained for

Aberdeen Grammar School Magazine

115

him the high esteem of the people of the district, while in the Church life of the community he exercised a tremendous influence.

He received the honorary degree of D.D. from his Alma Mater in 1911. Dr. Pixie took a warm interest in the F.P. Club, and made a memorable speech at the Dinner held in the School Hall in October 1923 to celebrate the Sixtieth Anniversary of the opening of the present School buildings.

Miles Walker-Pole* (1886-87) died at Rustenburg, Transvaal, on and February, 1935, aged 6z years. He was the third son of the late Mr. William Pole, Mossbank, Lerwick, and served his apprenticeship as a chemist in Edinburgh. After studying in London he went to Durban, Natal, and later became a wholesale chemist at Braamfontein,Johannesburg. He was also owner of the Hexkrantz Orange Farm, Rustenburg, Transvaal. He was elected a Fellow of the'Chemical Society, London, in 1905.

Patrick Manson Rennie* (189 5 -1 9o1 ), Lieut.-Colonel, Indian Medical Service (retired), died in a nursing home at Norwich on 16th December, 1934, aged 5o years. Born at Hongkong, son of the late Dr. Thomas Rennie of Foochow, China, he graduated in medicine at Aberdeen in 1906, and entered the Indian Medical Service in the following year. He served in it for over twenty years, retiring in 1928 with the rank of Lieut.Colonel. He held the Diploma in Tropical Medicine from Cambridge and in Public Health from Aberdeen. During the War he served in the Gallipoli and Mesopotamia campaigns with the Indian Forces, and was twice mentioned in dispatches. After the Armistice he saw further war service on the North-West Frontier of India, being D.A.D.M.S. to the Waziristan Field Force, 1919. He returned to this country about seven years ago, and settled at Diss, Norfolk, where he was Medical Officer of Health. His widow, a graduate in medicine of Aberdeen University, is a daughter of the Rev. JoHN LENDRUM (1879-84), M.A., D.D., Elgin.

James Ritchie (1882-86), M.D., died suddenly at his residence, Mavis Bank, Old Deer, on 27th December, 1934, aged 64 years. Only on the previous day he was married, for the second time, in St. Mary's Episcopal Church, Aberdeen. Dr. Ritchie graduated M.B., C.M., at Aberdeen University in 1893 ; M.D. in 1897 ; and took the D.P.H. with credit in 1901. He was in medical practice at Old Deer, Aberdeenshire, for about thirty-two years. He was a typical country doctor, always answering, day or night, the call of duty whenever it came.

Allan Wallace Robertson (1919-24), second son of Mr. J. Ferguson Robertson, 33 Salisbury Terrace, Aberdeen, died at Woodend Hospital, Aberdeen, on 5th March, 1935, aged z6 years.

I16

Aberdeen Grammar School Magazine David Brown Douglas Stewart* (1873-77), M.A., died at

Banchory House, Banchory-Devenick, on 14th March, 1935, aged 72 years. He was a son of the late Sir David Stewart, Lord Provost of Aberdeen, 1889-95, and after graduating in Arts at Aberdeen University in 1882, became in 1889 a partner in his father's firm of Messrs. S. R. Stewart & Co., comb manufacturers. Ten years later this firm was amalgamated with other firms carrying on the same business, under the name of The Aberdeen Combworks Co., Ltd., of which he was appointed managing director, and was chairman from 1919. With the Volunteers and Territorials he had long service. He obtained a commission as Lieutenant in the 1st Volunteer Battalion The Gordon Highlanders in 1884, and received promotion until in 1906 he became Lieut.-Colonel commanding the Battalion. In 1908 the 1st V.B.G.H. became the 4th Battalion The Gordon Highlanders under the Territorial Force Act, and he was appointed Lieut-Colonel and Honorary Colonel commanding the Battalion. His term of command having expired in 1910, he was reappointed for an additional two years, and in 1912 was again reappointed for another two years. He was in command of the Battalion in camp at Tain just before the Great War broke out, and brought it back to Aberdeen. Immediately thereafter it went south under Colonel Stewart to Perth, where the Highland Division was mobilized. There Colonel THOMAS OGILVIE* (1884-87) assumed command and took the Battalion to Bedford.

During the War Colonel Stewart served at home, his name being brought to the notice of the Secretary of State for War in February 1917. He succeeded his father as laird of BanchoryDevenick in October 1919.

John Thom* (187z-75), M.I.Mech.E., died at Hayes, Middlesex, about the end of February 1935, aged 74 years. He was the eldest son of the late Mr. James Cowie Thom, Quithel, Durris, and after leaving the School served his apprenticeship as an engineer with Messrs. Wm. McKinnon & Co., Aberdeen.

Thereafter he took up marine engineering, and served in various companies until 1898, sailing as chief engineer from 1886.

From 1899 he had charge of a number of cold stores, including their construction and equipment. For some years he was engineer to the London Central Markets Cold Storage Company, but latterly was living in retirement. For two years he acted as Secretary of the London Centre of the F.P. Club, very acceptably filling a gap until a younger man could be persuaded to undertake the duties.

John Thom* (1882-84), son of the late William Thom, Outseats, Pitmuxton, Aberdeen, died at Bournemouth on 26th February, 1935, aged 72 years. He served as an apprentice engineer with Messrs. Alexander Hall & Co., Aberdeen, and was for many years general manager of the Hunwal Tea Co., Ltd.,

Aberdeen Grammar School Magazine

117

Moriani, Assam, retiring after 3t years' service, and eventually taking up residence in Bournemouth.

A BENEFACTOR OF THE SCHOOL.

George Gordon Whyte* (1869-70), C.A., of 4 Carden Terrace, Aberdeen, died in a nursing home in Aberdeen on z i st December, 1934, aged 81 years. He was the last surviving son of the late Rev. JAMES Wxrrx (1818-23), D.D., Methlick.

From the Grammar School he passed to King's College, where he studied for two sessions. From 1872 to 1875 he served in the Union Bank at Aberdeen, and for the next five years he was apprenticed to Mr. James Tytler, chartered accountant, Aberdeen. In 1880 he was admitted to the Society of Accountants in Aberdeen and to the Aberdeen Stock Exchange Association.

At the same time he set up in business on his own account. In 1894 he assumed as a partner CHARLES WILLIAMSON* (1883-85), M.A., the firm being known as Whyte & Williamson. He retired from business in 1914.

Mr. Whyte was an elder of Rubislaw Parish Church, Aberdeen, for 51 years, and was annually returned as a representative elder to the General Assembly for forty years. As a leading authority on Church property, he was frequently consulted in connection with committees of the Assembly. To him the Presbytery of Aberdeen entrusted the important work of supervising and keeping up to date the Benefice Register of the Presbytery, and at a meeting of the Presbytery not long ago he was highly eulogised for the punctilious care and accuracy with which his work had been carried out. It had occupied much of his attention from the time of his retirement. To him the safeguarding of the property of the Church was of the greatest importance, in view of the serious losses which the Church had suffered in the past. It was not only, however, the boundaries of glebes and properties of the Church and the many interests associated with the Benefice Register that occupied Mr. Whyte's special attention. He also took a keen interest in the movement for the better endowment of the smaller ministerial stipends within the bounds of the Aberdeen Presbytery.

By his will Mr. Whyte left £Soo to the Aberdeen Grammar School. Particulars of his bequest are given on p. 143. His gross personal estate amounted to £48,7/3.

Portrait of Mr. Whyte faces p. 164.

1i8

Aberdeen Grammar School Magazine

An F.P.'s Pioneer Work in the British Museum.

Syllabary and Commentary.

Edited from Papyri and Waxed Tablets in the British Museum and from the Antinoe Papyri in the possession of the Egypt Exploration Society, by H. J. M. MILNE, B.A., Assistant Keeper in the Department of MSS., British Museum. With nine plates. London: Egypt Exploration Society, 1934. Price, £z 2s.

By far the greater part of this book (a copy of which the author has presented to the School Library) is drawn from papyri and waxed tablets in the British Museum, and a minor part from papyri discovered at Antinoe in Egypt by Dr. John Johnson, who has placed them in Mr. Herbert Milne's hands, and has thus enabled the latter to make a more extensive survey of the Greek shorthand system.

The author, in his introduction, after dealing with the lack of material in ancient Greek times, tells us that we are not on solid ground till the age of Cicero, whose freedman Tiro used a system of shorthand which certainly came from Greek sources.

This system was founded upon the alphabet itself, in contradistinction to modern systems, like Pitman's, where the signs are arbitrary.

Now a document from the Oxyrynchus papyri, dating from A.D. 153, in which a former government official contracts to place his slave with a shorthand teacher for two years, shows clearly that a regular course of training was then in vogue.

The documents published in this book were written i3o years after the Oxyrynchus papyrus, and illustrate it fully. The pupil had first to master the Syllabary, that is, the shorthand signs, for vowels, then for diphthongs, then for vowel ± consonant in order of frequency. A much more exacting task now awaited the student, to learn by heart the Commentary, designed solely to train the associative faculty, so necessary for a bold use of shorthand. The main symbols and their values are rearranged at random, and to each main element is attached a group of four words (which could be extended), the so-called tetrad, probably founded on word-lists in school-books. In the main symbol they are represented by the shorthand equivalent of each final syllable.

The weakness of the system lies in the fact that without a clue the same sign might admit of different interpretations ; and the stenographer probably took the precaution of writing out his notes in longhand as soon as possible.

An account is next given of the material previously published on the Syllabary and the Commentary, and there follows a synopsis of the new material, consisting of five papyri from the British Museum, and five fragments from the Antinoe papyri.

GREEK SHORTHAND MANUALS.

Aberdeen Grammar School Magazine

119

The new materials are detailed in full. A bibliography is given, but only a short one, as so much has become superannuated.

Then follow the Syllabary and the Commentary, with appropriate footnotes, and an index to the Commentary, and finally, nine plates of papyri, splendidly reproduced.

Mr. Milne may be very heartily congratulated on his notable achievement in writing this book. The work has already received much praise in the press, and has had more notice taken of it than is generally the case with Classical treatises.

Mr. Milne was a pupil at the Grammar School from 1900 to 1905, and graduated in 5909 at Aberdeen and in 191z at Cambridge with First Class Honours in Classics. In the latter year he joined the staff of the MSS. Department in the British Museum.

He gained the principal prizes at Aberdeen, and was also Ferguson Scholar in Classics in 5909. He has published other contributions to Classical learning, marked by distinction and fine taste.

G. M.

On a West African Estate.

Some few years ago the Editor suggested I should write an article for the old " Mag." but somehow or other this has always been put off till to-morrow, and the long overdue article is only now being written. I honestly can't put off any longer, otherwise I could never face our Secretary again.

I find it very hard indeed to pick a special subject to write about, and I think if I just make a survey of life in the West African Bush in general and of a planter's life in particular, I shall have done quite well. To begin with, I shall start with the day that a " first timer " sails from Liverpool on his first voyage out to the Wilds.

It gives the " first timer " a queer feeling when he comes on deck the first morning out, to realise he is still within British Waters ; but the shores of Old England can't be seen and are not likely to be seen for another zo long months. There are two things one can do aboard ship—first, one can spend money and have a good time ; or secondly, one can join the library and spend most of the time reading. Personally I prefer the latter procedure, as one soon discovers aboard ship that a good book is a good friend.

Time passes quickly, however, and one bright morning the exile lands at his destination. For convenience I shall just give my own personal experience.

I was booked for the British Cameroons, and on a certain Sunday morning at the end of July I disembarked at Calabar in Nigeria. I was met by one of my firm's officials, conducted ashore, and after a hasty lunch I was put aboard a motor launch, which was to be my home for about three days.

i zo

Aberdeen Grammar School Magazine

At 8 o'clock on the evening of the first day I arrived at a trading factory on the Cameroon border, which was run by my company, and glad I was to discover the agent was a Scotsman, and from Dundee at that.

After a nice hot bath and chop we sat on the verandah talking, and discovered there were quite a lot of people at home who were known to each of us. However, all good things must come to an end, and the next morning I was again on my way up river.

The scenery got wilder and there were quite a few crocodiles to take pot shots at, but, needless to say, I was far too excited to aim straight.

My second night was spent at the last outpost my company had on that river, and when I was advised that I still had a few hours to do on horse-back before I should arrive on the plantation, well, I didn't care if it snowed—I was tired out, fed up, lonely, and felt very far from home.

The next morning the horse arrived from the estate, and after breakfast I set out on the last lap of my long journey up country ; and to make matters worse, it was raining as only it can rain in the Cameroons.

About midday I arrived on the estate and was met by the manager and the assistant I was to take over from. I must say I felt just as a fish must feel out of water.

When the other two fellows discovered I was Scotch and came from Dundee, I was made to feel as if the estate belonged to me. It so happened that the manager also came from Dundee, and the assistant from Edinburgh, but his fiancée lived in Dundee and I knew her well.

From the foregoing it will be gathered that a Scotsman need never fear to go abroad, as he can always depend on meeting other Scots, and what can beat a real good old welcome in the good old Scottish way ?

Now the particular plantation I was on grew rubber and cocoa, and as I knew nothing about either, or about the language, I had " to get on with it " and take over my duties as early as possible, in order to let the other fellow get away to the Coast to catch the homeward-bound steamer.

I shall never forget the first time I had occasion to talk to a native. He happened to be one of the tappers, and I could not make out a word he said. I said something to him, and although he understood me quite well, he played the usual game and pretended he did not understand me either. I'm afraid this boy was batting on the wrong wicket, for I got even with him some time later, after I knew my way about.

After about three months I had quite a good knOwledge of the natives and their ways. I was up to all their tricks, and they were many ; but in a hard school like this, one soon learns.

Aberdeen Grammar School Magaine

12z

In addition to my usual duties of Tapping Master I had to keep an eye on the cocoa, and also do my share over on the New Clearing, which was then part of our programme.

I was out of my bed at 4 a.m. every morning, down to the office to take morning muster, then I had to drive the boys out to work, do my rounds of the tapping tasks, and get back to the house for breakfast about 9 o'clock. After breakfast I usually went over the new area and arrived at the rubber factory about 1 2 o'clock to superintend the rubber manufacture, getting back to my house about z p.m. for lunch. In the afternoons I went to the office to make my report to the manager, and was usually finished for the day about 5 p.m.

Evening is the worst time of the day to the man in the bush.

He has no friends to visit and no entertainments to go to.

Usually he spends his time either writing or reading, and when one has been a few months like this, one naturally becomes peculiar and fights shy of company.

During the course of my first tour I obtained many thrills.

One of them was really very exciting while it lasted, and could quite easily have cost me my life, as I couldn't swim at the time.

It happened as follows.

It was part of my duties to go 15 miles down the river to our trading station to collect the month's wages. Pay-day was to be on the Saturday and I left the estate on the Thursday morning, intending to arrive back about 3.3o in the afternoon.

It was raining very heavily in the morning, but I reached my destination in good time. When I had had lunch with the agent there, the river had risen about to feet, and it was quite impossible to cross in the dug-out canoes which the natives use.

There was only one thing to do, as I did not like running the risk of losing about £5oo for the pay roll. I picked out two of my best carriers, gave each a book (letter) to the manager, and told them to try and get through to the estate, each going a different way round. About 8 o'clock that evening the first boy returned. He had done his best, but all the rivers were swollen and he could not cross. The second boy arrived about to o'clock with a nasty wound in his leg. He had been swept off his feet at one stream and dashed against a rock.

Things were not much better next morning. The river was almost up to the factory door, and there was no sign of the rain going off. By to o'clock, however, the rain had stopped, and after lunch I decided I should try my luck and take to the road.

I set out about i p.m. and had got probably about half way to the estate when we came to a stream which was pretty badly swollen, with the water just lapping over the bush bridge.

Before risking the carriers with the money boxes, I decided to test the strength of the bridge myself. I got half-way over

ua

Aberdeen Grammar School Magazine

when all of a sudden the thing went from under me. I was thrown into the water, and before I could do anything to save myself, I was about zo yards down stream and swallowing water by the gallon.

Fortunately for me I was able to catch hold of a branch and drag myself ashore. There we were—five carriers, each with a hundred pounds in a box, a native headman, and a European very much the worse of wear, but still determined to have another try rather than turn back.

After about an hour's walk up the stream we came to the only stick which could be used as a bridge, and as I had been once nearly drowned that day, I wasn't in the mood for a second ducking, so I got the boys over first.

All landed safely on the other side, " yours truly" then took to the stick. It all sounds very easy, but picture me trying to balance myself on a stick about six inches in diameter and about zo feet long, and wearing hob-nailed top-boots. However, I got started, and when about two yards along the plank I did a perfectly good semi-circle to one side, then to the other, and after I had repeated this about three times, I decided I'd better get down on the seat of my trousers and do the rest of the journey that way. All would have gone well if one of the boys had not come along the stick to give his kind master a hand.

With our combined weight the stick bent, and before I could cry out, we were both in the water, and I'm afraid I touched bottom with the stick on top of me.

How I came to the surface and got ashore 1 have no idea, but the headman told me after that they had all been at the job, as I had become tied up in weeds, etc. That headman, I'm afraid, found life rather easy after that experience, and had it not been for his timely action, there is no saying what sort of accident might have happened.

Another nasty experience I had was while surveying a piece of new land which my company had decided to fell the following year. I had been working by compass for about four hours and was well inside the bush, waiting for the boys to cut about too yards in order to let me take another reading and give them their new line. I was very intent on my job, as I had the idea they were going the wrong way. All of a sudden the carrier at my side gave me a hefty push and I fell backwards into a small stream, giving myself a nasty cut on the shoulder. I was of the opinion the boy had gone mad, and rose up with the intention of laying him out, when he shouted, " Massa, bad snake live for stick" ; and when I looked up, there was the largest mamba I have ever set eyes on. Seemingly the brute had made a flying leap just at the time the boy pushed me, and while I do not think it was making for me, there is always that possibility.

The most nerve-racking experience I have ever had in this

Aberdeen Grammar School Magazine

123

country happened a few years ago, while I was in charge of the felling operations at one of our estates not far from Calabar.

I usually came back to breakfast about 9 a.m., and there was one particular morning which will never be forgotten. I used a motor cycle on this estate, and I had just come to a part of the road where, on turning a corner, one had to change down to low gear, as there was a very bad hill to go down. I came round the corner at about zo m.p.h., changed down to low gear, and on taking my eyes off the gear lever, I discovered a snake at least 15 feet long, with its head in a culvert at one side of the road and its tail in the culvert at the other side. The brute was as thick as a man's thigh, bright green on the back, and bright yellow underneath. Its head was flat and it had the largest mouth I've ever seen on a snake. I was no more than four feet from it when I first realised what would happen. So I cut my throttle and rammed the side o£the road, fell off my machine, and ran for all I was worth in the opposite direction. Once I had put a few hundred yards between us I sat down on the side of the road, and I never wish to experience a reaction like what I had that morning. My legs shook, perspiration came out all over me, and I think even my hair stood on end. I have no idea what kind of a snake this was, but it was large enough to eat a bullock and would have made short work of me had I gone over it.

One can hardly live a planter's life in this country without meeting with experiences, and while I have many more I could relate, I think I might weary my readers were I to continue.

We have our hard times, and they can be very hard indeed, but there is a bright side to our life. The native is very stupid, and one gets a good laugh at some of the things he does. Then, again, the native can be very trying. Time means nothing to him, and what he can't do to-day he will do to-morrow, if he remembers. When one has to work to certain costs and complete a job within a given time, it is this which really gets the European down.

We have all one very bright ray of sunshine, however, and that is the day when we can hand over our job of work to the relief man, pack our cargo, and say, "Well, that's that for another four months, I'm off to Bonnie Scotland."

C. O. W. Bow (1910-15) OKAT, WEST AFRICA, 23rd December, '934.

124

Aberdeen Grammar School Magazine

Miss Edith Davidson.

It is with very deep regret that we record the death in a nursing home in Aberdeen on 4th February, 1935, of Miss Edith Davidson, Preparatory Mistress in the Grammar School.

She was the youngest daughter of the late Mr. John Davidson, who was a tea planter in Ceylon, and started her career as a teacher in Ruthrieston School, Aberdeen, in 1894. She was transferred to the Infant Department of Ashley Road School in August 1895, and remained there until 1917, when she was appointed Preparatory Mistress of the Grammar School in succession to the late Miss A. C. Adam. By her death the School has lost an extremely competent and enthusiastic teacher, who not only gave of her best to her Department, but also identified herself wholeheartedly with the various activities of the School. She was a lady of marked personality and dignified bearing, proud of the School and of its ancient traditions.

A Tribute from the School.

By the death of Miss Edith Davidson School has suffered the loss of a very outstanding personality. Miss Davidson's love for the School was very deep-seated, and it is not an overstatement to say that the School was her main life's work. As Head Mistress of the Infant Department she had a very important duty to fulfil. She it was who impressed upon boys for the first time the great traditions and noble ideals of the School which they had but newly entered. This task she accomplished well in her own gracious and impressive manner, so that no boy can have left the Infant Department without a sense of pride in the School on whose threshold he stood. But Miss Davidson did not lose touch with boys once they had left her own sphere of influence. Many a boy in the Upper School has been very agreeably surprised to find that, even after the lapse of so many years, Miss Davidson's remembrance of him had in no wise dimmed. Miss Davidson gave of her best ungrudgingly for the School, and by her passing the School is the poorer. Her energy for the School's well-being never flagged. Si monmmentum requiris, circums,pice.

The Library.

During the period of eleven weeks since the former report, a serious decline in borrowing is indicated, the number of volumes borrowed being 292 less than for the corresponding period last session. In the Upper School Modern Vi. has borrowed most (38 volumes) ; in the Middle School Li, with 163 volumes, has made most use of the Library ; in the Lower School IVA, with z58 volumes, has used the Library most.

MISS EDITH DAVIDSON.

Aberdeen Grammar School Magazine

125

The School's Benefactions. * Greatly Improved Bursary Provision.

When thinking over what I might say to you this evening, I recalled that in a speech at the last School Prize-giving, when dealing with a recent gift—that of a table and three ceremonial chairs for the School platform, in memory of George Kinnear Fleming, who was Dux and Gold Medallist of the School in 1871 —Rev. Professor Henderson expressed the hope that this would be a stimulus and inspiration and encouragement to others to seek some similar way of benefiting the School to which they owed so much. He pointed out that there was still abundant opportunity for Old Boys and other friends attaining fame by giving something really magnificent to the School, and he cited as desiderata some good Entrance Scholarships, a Grand Stand for the Playing Field, and Swimming Baths.

Following this train of thought, I decided to review the School's situation with regard to benefactions as it had developed in recent years. As a preliminary, I got from the splendidlykept records of the Education Committee a list of the gifts received by the School since the close of the War. You will be surprised to learn, as I was, that in the list there are over 5 o items. These include, of course, such notable ones as the Rubislaw Field Pavilion, the Byron Statue, the fine Tower Clock presented by the Shanghai Branch of the Club ; and there are in it a number of portraits in oils, such as those of Dr. McLeod, Dr. Morland Simpson, Mr. Keith Leask, Professor Alexander Bain, and James Gibbs ; also a number of very welcome and valuable contributions both to the School Museum and the School Library ; also a House Trophy, and a House Cup for Rugby. But in addition to these, the number of gifts and bequests in money is remarkable. They include— £a5 for the Samuel Pope Medal,

£175 for the John Mortimer McBain Gold Medal for Mathematics, £5oo from Lieut.-Colonel Waters (used in providing the Organ in the School Hall), £5o from Mr. John No Dawson (Club Consul at Singapore) for a Prize to the winner of the All-Round Trophy, £zoo from Dr. Thomas I. Rowell (which was joined to the gift from Lieut.-Colonel Waters), £loo from Licut.-Colonel and Mrs. Archer Irvine-Forteseue to found a Prize in memory of their son, David Alexander Irvine-Fortescue, and £zoo from Mr. and Mrs. James A. Mackie to found a Prize in memory of their son, Norman O. A. Mackie.

These seven benefactions alone amount to kt,z5o, and just the other day intimation was made of a legacy of Soo, which, subject to a life rent, will come to the School for the * A speech (printed here by request) delivered by the Secretary of the F.P. Club at the Annual Dinner of the Edinburgh Centre, t 5th February, 1935.

'26

Aberdeen Grammar School Magazine

foundation of a Mathematical Bursary " to be paid in each year to the student most needy and deserving in merit." This legacy has been bequeathed by the late Mr. George Gordon Whyte, C.A., who was himself a pupil at the School for only one session (1869-7o). It is to be called the G. G. Whyte Endowment Fund, and has been created in memory of his father, the Rev. James Whyte, D.D., who was a pupil of the School from 1818 to 1823, and was minister of the Parish of Methlick from 1839 until his death in 1881. Other Prizes presented annually but not yet founded are the Morland Simpson Silver Medal in Greek, presented by Dr. W. Douglas Simpson ; and the Geddes Silver Medal for Science, presented by Dr. Alexander Mare Geddes, formerly Club Consul at Capetown.

Altogether, I think you will agree that the School has done remarkably well in the way of benefactions during the last fifteen years, but as the hymn says, " yet there is room " I In connection with these gifts, one's mind turns, perhaps a little apprehensively, to a body about which some of you here may have heard—The Educational Endowments (Scotland) Commission. This Commission has been subjected to a great deal of criticism—some of it, I think, thoroughly justified, and some of it, perhaps, not so. Certainly the Grammar School has no cause for complaint—indeed, very much the opposite is the case, as I hope to show you.

First of all, the William Brebner Prizes in Modern Languages, the Arthur Johnston Silver Medal and Prizes, the Samuel Pope Medal and Prize, and the Smith Gold Medal for the best Latin Version have all been left as they were. So far, good.

Now with regard to the School's most important benefaction.

Those of you who read " that bright little periodical," the Grammar School Magazine, will no doubt have been interested in an article that appeared in the last issue by the Vice-President of the Club, Dr. W. Douglas Simpson, on Dr. Patrick Dun's great bequest to the School three hundred years ago. It is a sorry story that he has to tell of how Dr. Dun's gift of the lands of Ferryhill to the Masters of the Grammar School was to a very large extent dissipated by the trustees—the Town Council of Aberdeen, and how some sixty years ago an arrangement was made whereby the Council agreed to pay to the School Board the sum of L164 annually, the tragically small amount agreed upon as being the actual income of Dr. Dun's mortification, instead of £Soo at the very least, if the trustees had acted properly.

This mortification, like many others, has been under the review of the Endowments Commission, and in the scheme now accepted by the Town Council, provision is made for an annual grant from the local Endowments Trust of not less than £15o " for the benefit of boys attending Aberdeen Grammar School." This is an entirely new benefit, which, it is understood, takes the

Aberdeen Gram mar School Magazine

1 2.7

place of the former payment of £164 from the Dun Mortification to the Town Council, with the result that the local Education Fund will now be minus that amount. As the whole scheme is educational, the provision should doubtless read "for the educational benefit of the boys." Anyway, the only proviso is that none of the £r 5o shall he spent " in relief of expenditure which would in the absence of the endowment ordinarily be incurred from any other fund." How this annual windfall is to be applied has not so far been discussed, but general regulations will doubtless be drawn up by the local Endowments Trust, after consultation with the Rector and the Town Council.

But this is not all. With regard to bursary provision, the situation is going to be very greatly improved so far as the School is concerned. Up to now the dice have been very heavily loaded in favour of " the other place," as its Endowments Trust Foundations have been of the cash value of £14 and carried with them free education—a total value of £24 los. (f 14, plus £Io los. for fees). In the case of the Grammar School, the Endowments Trust Bursaries (three in number) were of the annual value of £ao, but from this the pupil had to pay LI2 in fees. The pupil at Gordon's, therefore, had £r4 cash in pocket, whereas the Grammar boy had only £8.

In the case of the Town Council Bursaries at the School (four annually), the position was worse. Their value was £io per annum in the first three years, and L x 2 in succeeding years, with no allowance for fees, so that these bursaries in the first three years did not even cover the fees of £z 2. The consequence was that in many cases a boy who could get a bursary at either institution naturally selected the other one. This discrimination is now done away with. The cash value of the bursaries— increased to five yearly in the case of the Grammar—is to be the same at both schools—£io first year, L I 2 second year, £14 third year, £16 fourth and subsequent years, and in each case the award carries a free place. It could easily be arranged that a common examination be held and the candidates get free choice of either school, there being no financial bias. The total sum available for bursaries at the Grammar School from the Town Council and the Endowments Trust remains at £650, but the beneficiaries have now to pay no fees.

In this connection I might also mention that boys coming to the Grammar School from outside Aberdeen have, as a rule, to pay an additional fee of £3 3s. beyond the regular fees of LI 2 ; whereas the fees at the other fee-paying secondary school are only £to Los., and there is no additional fee for outsiders.

This arrangement was sanctioned about ten years ago, but as it is obviously not a fair one, it is now being reviewed, and will, let us hope, be altered.

You will see, then, that lots of interesting things—mainly

t z8

Aberdeen Grammar Scbool Magazine

financial—have been happening recently with regard to the School, but this does not apply to the School alone, for quite recently I received intimation that, subject to a life rent, the F.P. Club was to get a legacy of £1OO, free of all expenses and without any conditions, from a lady whose brother, formerly a member of the Club, was drowned while serving as an engineer in a hospital ship that was torpedoed in the English Channel in 1917. This legacy when actually received will be very welcome. It is the first to be intimated as coming to the Club, and it is surely a striking testimony to the Club that it has come from one who was neither an F.P. nor a parent of an F.P. No discussion has, of course, yet taken place as to how it might be applied ; but for my own part I should like to throw out the suggestion that it be made the nucleus of, or applied to, a fund for helping members of the Club who, through no fault of their own, may find themselves in straitened circumstances, for one of the objects for which the Club was founded was to assist former pupils in whatever way might be deemed advisable. So far very little has been done in fulfilment of this object, and I should certainly like to see a start made. I feel sure that if once such a fund were initiated, it would soon come to be regarded by F.P.s making their " testamentary dispositions " as a very worthy object of support ; and, in any case, there must be many who, in grateful remembrance of what the School has done for them, would in their life-time welcome outlets for their generosity such as those that have been suggested.

The Shanghai F.P.s.

When the F.P.s in Shanghai heard in November that ARTHUR CUNNINGHAM LOTHIAN (1892-94 and 1898-1904), C. I .E., of the

Political Department, Indian Civil Service, was passing through on his way home, a " tiffin" was hastily arranged in the Shanghai Club on zznd November, at which the following were present :—Major F. W. Gerrard, C.I.E. ; A. M. Halley, E. J. Harper, C. B. Ogilvie, C. L. Panton, P. L. D. Raeburn, J. O. Rae, H. B. Scott, and W. E. Drummond Smith. They had great pleasure in meeting Mr. Lothian, and it was only due to the brevity of his stay in Shanghai that there was not a too per cent. attendance.

Mr. Lothian has since paid a brief visit to Aberdeen, before making an unexpectedly early return to India. He speaks enthusiastically of the F.P. Club consular system, having been warmly welcomed on his recent journey by the Club's representatives at Singapore, Penang, Hongkong, and Los Angeles, in addition to the special reception at Shanghai.

Aberdeen Grammar School Magatine

129

The Outer Isles in Winter.

Little do stay-at-homes realize how much they miss by preferring a fireside arm-chair to a sail across the Minch in December or a bathe in Barra in January. Such was my good fortune at New Year time, a three-hour bout of mal-de-mer being a trifle quite incapable of spoiling a wonderful week, and, did circumstances (i.e. my employers) permit, I would be back again next winter. But why, you say, do you not go in summer, which is surely preferable, whatever the attractions that only winter provides ? And so 1 do, having visited the Isles of the Strangers in spring, summer, autumn, and winter. Yet while June is, beyond dispute, the month par excellence to revel most completely in the charm of these distant lands, their grim severity in January makes an undeniable appeal to all who know the real meaning of " The Call of the Wild." Then is the wind bitterly cold, the skies heavy with lowering clouds, the roads devoid of traffic, so that one may walk many a mile without encountering a solitary human being or even the ubiquitous motor-car.

Then one sees the full fury of the Atlantic waves dashing against the rocky coast of Harris, or rolling noisily over the sandy shores of Uist and Barra. Then one wonders to the full how any form of life is possible on these glorified rocks in the midst of the tempestuous ocean ; how men can cultivate anything in the thin layer of soil ; how sheep can feed on the scanty pasture ; how fishing boats, so frail as those we see, can venture into that whirlpool, which contrasts as markedly with the glassy pond through which in summer we seemed to glide so calmly and gracefully, as does night with day. Withal, there is, contrary to general belief, an almost complete absence of snow, even on the topmost ridges of Clisham (z,622 feet), highest hill in the Outer Isles. This mildness of temperature is due largely to the Isles' proximity to the warm current of the Gulf Stream, which gives them, despite cold winds, an equability that would be the envy of those enduring the biting blasts of an East Coast town.

So I left Edinburgh on Friday night, z9th December, and slept for a good part of the way, even to near Strome Ferry.

For although some grand views may be had from the train going through Strath Spey, Strath Brahan, and Glen Carron, I have done this journey so often that it is preferable to make up for the broken night by indulging in bouts of sleep during the forenoon, especially having regard to the eleven-mile walk that is to follow arrival in Stornoway at 8 o'clock in the evening. But the last twelve miles of the Skye railway defy any attempt at dozing. One is continuously at the window, eyes held as in a trance by the magnificent scenery—mountains, islands, lochs. The calm serenity of the almost land-locked Upper Loch Carron, is, by very contrast, an excellent forerunner

130

Aberdeen Grammar School Magazine

to the glorious view obtained as one winds through the narrows and gazes in awesome admiration at the Cuillin in Skye, their majestic peaks forming a wonderful horizon behind the islandstudded Lower Loch and the picturesque little village of Plockton, its white-washed cottages easily visible across the three miles of water. We make a wide sweep under the tremendous rocky cliffs of Creag Dalaig, rising almost sheer to over i,ooo feet; then, looking across the Loch we can dimly make out the famous Bealach nam bo in Applecross.

This well-known motor-cycle test hill is the lowest of the five roads in Scotland, or indeed in Britain, rising to over 2,000 feet above sea-level, but it is probably the most difficult, although the Lecht is a close rival. Rising from the head of Loch Kishorn by a steep winding track in a gloomy glen, it reaches its summit of z,o33 feet in six miles by a series of zig-zags on fearsome gradients, and then makes a similar descent in the same distance to Applecross Bay. From Duirinish Station, on high ground above the Loch, we get a fine distant prospect of the Shieldaig and Torridon hills in the north-east, and between here and Kyle the view to the west is beyond description. All the way our train skirts the rocky shore of the Inner Sound, decked with islands ranging from mere isolated rocks to inhabited groups like Crowlin and Scalpay. Always in the background are the magnificent peaks of Skye. These must be seen ; only to read about them is to remain in ignorance of their spell. Indeed, to realize their majesty to the full one must stand on the grassy plain at the head of Loch Coiruisg and listen to the sough of the wind in the corries and the roar of the mountain torrent dashing down from the huge black crags—all else is still, grim, gaunt— desolate Nature at her wildest.

But our next visit to this Incomparable Isle must be deferred ; meantime we leave the train at Kyle and cross the pier to the fine new twin-screw vessel Loch Ness, built for MacBrayne's service in 1929, to replace the ill-fated Sheila. Passengers and cargo are transferred from the Fusilier, which has just arrived from Mallaig, and at 2.30 we are off to the Isle of Heather, as Lewis folks describe their native island. Since noon, the threatening skies have been getting gradually blacker, and we seem to be in for a hectic crossing of the Minch. The wind grows in intensity as we make for Applecross. There is no pier here, and a rowing boat comes out to the steamer, from which goods and passengers are handed gently into the strong arms of the boatmen as their small craft tosses beside its big brother. Five minutes complete the transfer, and we leave the mainland for the last time this year.

It is now after four, darkness is almost complete, the wind continues to howl and an eerie feeling grips us as we pass Cuaig rocks, where the Sheila foundered some six years ago at five

Aberdeen Grammar School Magazine

131

o'clock on New Year's morning. Away to the West the flash of Rona lighthouse is seen intermittently; I peer into the blackness to starboard in an effort to see Rudha Reidh light at the extremity of Gairloch. But without avail; night has definitely fallen, and the elements rage more wildly than ever.

What a prospect for crossing the Minch! Then, with an amazing lack of warning, comes a complete change : the wind dies, the sea is calm, the sky becomes clear, and under a bright moon-lit canopy we plough steadily across to Lewis. Far ahead is a dot of yellow, suggesting the presence of a lighthouse, but we know it cannot be Arnish yet. Gradually we come nearer, and find it is a fishing smack making for her home port at the close of the year. We overtake her ; leave her behind ; again the lamp at her masthead becomes a yellow dot. But now, ahead, numerous specks of light meet our eyes—one of them vanishing and reappearing at short, regular intervals. This is the famous Arnish lighthouse, at the south-west entrance to Stornoway harbour, and our memory goes back to that tragic homecoming of " Tomrnies " one Christmas during the War, when s.s. Iolaire foundered on a rock and almost every life on board was lost. A great crowd had gathered on the quay to meet their returning heroes ; rudely their joy was changed to terrible grief. One young lad swam from the sinking ship, and furiously fighting the waves, almost reached his friends standing on the shore. Willing hands stretched out to haul him on to land. Just then the ebb carried him back. Too exhausted to fight any longer against the turbulent waves, he was carried out to sea again and lost. Surely that was the most heartrending death of all.

This evening, however, a scene of gladness is evident all round. As might be expected, the crowd is even larger than usual ; there is the excitement of meeting friends after, perhaps, a long period of separation, and the rush of the inhabitants to get that morning's newspapers. A bundle of papers is thrown into a waiting motor ; at once the driver dashes off on his 36 miles' run to Tarbert in Harris, which will get its Daily Bleat at to p.m.—relatively early compared with, for example, Benbecula.

There, Friday morning newspapers arrive on Tuesday, probably in the afternoon. And this is in Britain, less than six hundred miles from London! It will readily be understood how much radio is appreciated in these remote islands.

Leaving the pier, I accost an old man and enquire the way " 0," he says, " the bus is over there." " But Barbhas. to I want to walk." " You can't " " Why ? " " It's eleven miles." " I know." And so we argue, he quite unable to understand my mentality. Eventually he indicates the road, and I set off, gradually rising to the crest of a brae, from which a fairly wide prospect is visible in the silver light of the moon.

My eyes gaze with some regret at the Tolsta road, which I had

132

Aberdeen Grammar School Magazine

at one time intended to take, so as to end the year at the Butt of Lewis. However, the sparse steamer service between the Isles did not allow time for this, so my northern limit had to be fixed at Barbhas, on the west coast, a village notable from being the only one in Sinclair's " Statistical Account of Scotland " of the 18th century which not only had no school, but did not want one! A lonely road, and most uninteresting. The northern half of Lewis is flat, barren, bleak, and only a very short period sufficed to determine me against again visiting this district for a walking holiday. In hilly or wooded country the full moon would have provided some fine sights, but here my only desire was to hurry on and reach my destination before the folks were all abed. After an hour or so rain began to fall, and gradually deepened into a heavy downpour. However, I had been well clad for the steamer trip (semmit, shirt, jersey, waistcoat, jacket, leather jerkin and waterproof) and trudged on cheerfully. But after a while the rain dripping off my waterproof began to soak the knees of my trousers, producing a most uncomfortable, clammy feeling, and I was beginning to think of taking off the long trousers (I had shorts on beneath), when a ricketty old bus came along and the driver offered me a lift. On my entering, he produced a bottle of whisky and pressed me to have a drink, which, however, I declined, thinking it wiser on a fairly empty stomach. There were several young men and two girls in the bus, and they sang Gaidhlig songs—solo and in chorus—most of the way.

Arriving at Barbhas cross-roads, the driver refused to accept any payment and again pressed his whisky on me ; this time I gladly accepted, and felt the better of being warmed up, as my quick walking and plethora of clothes had made me perspire freely, and sitting in the draughty bus was calculated to bring on a chill. Knocking at the old inn door, I inquired if they could give me a bed, and was informed that the inn was closed some years ago and was now a private house. The man who had answered my knock went back to the kitchen and consulted his wife, returning to say that if I did not mind a shakedown on a sofa they would put me up for the night. Good enough!

The wife got out blankets and a quilt, which I arranged on a sofa and an armchair to make a sufficiently passable bed. I hurriedly undressed, to find semmit and shirt soaking with sweat, and immediately rolled myself in the blankets, prepared for a good night's sleep. However, in came the housewife with tea and biscuits, unexpected and very welcome, but not so pleasant was her husband's entrance to have a conversation: in reality, rather a monologue about his life in Canada before he had returned eighteen months previously to his native land.

It was quite interesting and would have been welcome in other circumstances. However, about 11.30 p.m. he departed, saying they were not early risers and hoped breakfast about ten

Aberdeen Grammar School Magaine

1 33

o'clock would suit me. It would. In a few minutes l was safe in the Land of Nod. Awaking about nine, I dressed quickly, hoping to get away soon in view of the short day. However, my hosts were typical West-Coasters in their indifference to the passage of time, and it was not until 10.40 that I managed to leave. The housewife would not charge me for her hospitality, so I pushed half-a-crown into the baby's chubby fist and departed, after thanking the parents for putting me up. The morning was inclined to be blustery ; a stiff breeze came off the Atlantic, whose white breakers sounded a continuous roll on the sandy shore. Still, the sky was fairly dear, and there was every prospect of a fine brisk tramp over the twenty miles or so to Garrynahine Inn. After about an hour's walk I began to pass people on their way to church at noon : all the women dressed in black, the men in dark blue or grey suits and bowler hats. They looked at me askance, and no doubt believed me on the high road to perdition. As a matter of fact, I usually do rest on Sundays while wandering in Highlands or Islands, partly out of respect for the views of the inhabitants, but the necessity for catching a once-weekly steamer at Rodel on the Wednesday did not permit of my doing so on this occasion.

The strong Norse influence in Lewis is evidenced by the names of villages along this coast—Bragar, Sheabost, Carloway —although the language of everyday use is invariably Gaelic.

Between the second and third of these hamlets is a long stretch of lonely road—not a house for miles, and the only human being I saw was a girl on a push-bike, who hastened past without a word. Perhaps her conscience pricked her for cycling on Sunday. At Carloway an old mariner, now retired to his native heath, declined payment for a most welcome glass of milk, and regaled me with several anecdotes of his life on the ocean wave. That sort of thing gives one furiously to think ; here was I, tramping the lonely parts of my native land in order to break the sordid monotony of office life in Edinburgh, and despising the softness of those whose delight is in arm-chairs and hot-water bottles ; yet what, after all, did I know of life compared with this poor ex-sailor, who had sailed the Seven Seas, rounded Cape Horn, seen sunrise off Yokohama and sunset at San Francisco ?

After half-an-hour's rest and a meal on Carloway bridge, I carry on past the famous Dun, a relic of pagan times which has involved archaeologists in heated controversy, and turn East along the North shore of Loch Roag. This island-studded inlet of the sea brings an end to the monotonous flat barrenness of North-West Lewis. Far in the distance, beyond the head of the loch, rise the majestic hills of Harris, only faintly seen now in the dull afternoon sky. Unfortunately the wind has veered round and is blowing hard right in my face, so that most of the

134

Aberdeen Grammar School Magazine

pleasure of walking is destroyed through the necessity of keeping the head down. Two miles past Breascleit occupy one hour— a poor rate of progress—and the result of this snail's pace is that it is practically dark by the time I reach the outskirts of Callanais. It was, of course, my intention to visit the remarkable Stone Circle here—another point of archaeological dispute— and if possible to take a photograph. Stonehenge in England is generally well known, but we have no reason to be ashamed of Callanais in Lewis, or Stenness in Orkney. However, in the gathering twilight I got probably a more impressive view than would have been the case in full daylight, the huge stones standing on the hill-crest black against the grey sky forming a most eerie picture. It was now 5.i 5 p.m. and the inner man was calling, so off again I footed in on the last two miles. They actually took me an hour and a quarter, so fiercely was the wind whistling against me, and it was a great relief to see the light of the inn in the now total darkness of a starless New Year's Eve. A very welcome high tea, with a tasty bit of fish and plenty of scones and oatcakes, was followed by a pleasant chat with the proprietor on the subject of fishing, Garrynahine being Britain's greatest angling hostelry. The walls contain photographs of some of the huge catches by rods from this hotel, and they would certainly take a deal of beating. A short spell of reading before a blazing fire induces a feeling of drowsiness, and at nine o'clock I depart for bed, leaving those who will to bring in the New Year. Castlegate and Tron Kirk find no place in my dreamless slumber.

Garrynahine is earlier astir than Barbhas, and at 8.4o on New Year's Morning I am off again for the 31-mile walk to Tarbert in Harris. The day is dull but dry and dear : an excellent start to the year. But just after leaving the Bhaltos road, two miles from Garrynahine, I almost fell into misfortune.

The moor is full of boggy pools, into one of which I stepped, right up to my hips. For a moment I feared I was going to fall completely in, but managed to avoid that calamity. It is the chance of such an event as that that gives additional point in favour of wearing shorts when tramping : what a miserable clammy, uncomfortable feeling one would have wearing trousers or plus-fours in these circumstances. Shorts, however, very quickly dry as one walks on; although stockings and shoes, of course, remain wet until evening.

The walker has three choices of route from Garrynahine to Tarbert—(i) due south, by the grand Glen of Bhaltos, and over moors to Kinresort, thence along the shore of West Loch Tarbert, past the Island of Mary Rose, rejoining the main road at Ardaiseag, two miles west of the isthmus ("tairbeart" means "isthmus") ; (a) south-east along Loch Langabhat and over Clisham, descending to Ardaiseag; (3) eastwards across moors to join the main Stornoway-Tarbert road near

Aberdeen Grammar School Magazine

135

the head of Loch Erisort, thence by road. The first of these would he the best for scenery, but if mist came down thickly, one would be lost miles from anywhere. The second is quite attractive, too ; indeed, since I had climbed Beinn Neamhais, highest point of the mainland, on New Year's Day 1933 (see A.G.S. Magazine, March 1933) it was for a while my intention to go up the highest point in the Outer Islands on the first day of 1934. However, it would probably have been dark by the time the summit was reached, and this fact, added to risk of mist and the boggy nature of the ground round Loch Langabhat, decided me on adopting the third route. This one also lies among numerous lochans, and one has to make frequent tiresome detours to avoid the long winding arms of some of these. Once I had to retrace my steps a considerable distance, having risked travelling without a map of Lewis and Harris. In any case, the lochs in this flat country vary in size considerably as between dry and wet weather, so that even Bartholomew, generally so reliable, is not always helpful in these parts.

About 11.3o I sat down on a knoll north of Roneval for a rest and a snack. The day continued dull, a slight breeze rippled on the water, a solitary bird sailed overhead ; all else was a sombre peacefulness. My thoughts strayed to the city where some of the friends who had thought me daft to go off here would, I was uncharitable enough to believe, be suffering at this moment from the effects of " the morning after the night before." They cannot understand my viewpoint, nor I their preference for over-eating and over-drinking to tramping in the wilds.

On again. Suddenly a cart track appears, and surmounting a brae I descry in the distance a road and telegraph poles, then a few houses. The cart-track descends by the bank of a stream, swollen by recent rains, its swirling waters making a fine sight as they clatter over stones in their rush to sea-level. Eventually I join the road south of Balallan, and turn south into the breeze, which is not, fortunately, of any great strength. Little traffic uses the road to-day ; not so frequently as once an hour does a motor-car appear.

Reaching the crest of a rise in the road, l am rewarded with a fine view of the upper reaches of fiord-like Loch Seaforth, winding far inland between steep hills for a distance of about eighteen miles from the Minch. Where I now stand is on the dividing line between the flat, uninteresting northern half of Lewis, and the more attractive southern part, gradually rising into the finely-rounded hills of Harris. For the next eight miles the road skirts the western shore of the Loch, and one gets some grand prospects over the water to Clisham and the other summits. At Airidhbhruaich (" shieling of the bank ") I again have difficulty in paying for milk. For a few minutes (the sun

i;6

Aberdeen Grammar School Magazine

tries to come out, then he gives up the effort, and some drops of rain begin to threaten. They soon pass, and the day reverts to its original dry dullness, with the breeze slightly strengthening and causing miniature squalls on the loch. The white foam draws the eye by contrast with the dark blue water and the sombre greyness of the distant hills.

Crossing the boundary of Lewis and Harris, the road makes a wide sweep round a small glen, circling the hamlet of Ardvourlie, and I indulge in another rest on the bridge above the village. Some boys, playing in a field some distance off, stare up in some wonder at the unusual spectacle I must present.

Then their game reclaims attention, but I notice their gaze follows me on my departure. Ardvourlie is on an inlet of Loch Seaforth, right at the foot of Clisham, and from the brae above the village one gets a glorious view of mountain and loch, which the dim light unfortunately prevented my photographing successfully. From this side the ascent of the hill is obviously fairly stiff, and I was glad now at my decision not to attempt it to-day.

From Clisham a turbulent stream comes foaming down over rocks, and passes under the road with a roar—a fine sight after several days of rain. That is one point in which winter or spring tramping is superior to summer—one sees waterfalls at their best, and are they not, perhaps, the most attractive features of a landscape? Beyond the stream the road forks, a deviation having been constructed some years ago to obtain an easier gradient over the hills to Tarbert. But the old road, being shorter, commends itself to walkers, and as darkness is approaching and the inner man making his presence felt, I push on briskly up the brae. By now the wind is bitter and fairly strong, and makes me step out despite a feeling of tiredness. Surmounting the crest of the brae, the road winds across a plateau among hills on all sides, without a sign of life—a solemn and impressive sight. Of a sudden, a series of short reports is heard, shattering the silence, and a motor-bike with side-car rounds a bend, passes rapidly, and disappears in the distance.

Again, silence. Now darkness is complete, and rain comes on —lightly at first, increasing to a heavy drizzle. It is in such a case as this that a motor cyclist's leather helmet comes in useful ; this warm and rain-proof article, costing half-a-crown or so at Millett's Government Surplus Stores, is without a rival for headgear in a rain storm on land or sea. Passing a small loch, inky black under the shoulder of a huge crag, the road descends sharply, and again I am rewarded with the sonorous crash of water dashing itself from rock to rock in a series of cascades, until we reach Mary Rose's road at Ardaiseag and turn eastwards along West Loch Tarbert. My pace has slackened considerably by this time, and it seems ages before the lights of Tarbert appear. At last I reach the hotel, to find it is 6.3o p.m., so that

Aberdeen Grammar School Magazine

1 37

I have walked 3a miles in just under ten hours—passably good going for one not in training.

First consideration was a bath, then an excellent meal of trout, scones, oatcakes, etc., to all of which I did full justice.

Being the sole visitor to the hotel for the night, I expected to be rather bored for the evening, and started to read in the smokingroom. My peace, however, was soon disturbed by the intrusion of four men who had come from Stornoway to celehiate New Year's Day, and were having a final (?) glass or two before returning. Eventually the most nearly sober one got the other three to leave, and I returned to my book. But in a short time I was again roused by sounds of revelry, and on going to investigate found a reel in full swing in the coffee-room, which had been cleared for the occasion, and was gaily decorated with coloured streamers, Chinese lanterns, etc. Imagining the function to be a public one, I entered and sat down beside a cheery-looking man wearing a paper hat. We chatted a little until the dance finished, when he moved off, and another man approached. Conversation with him revealed the fact that the cheery man was Mr. Robertson, proprietor of the hotel, and that he was holding the party for some personal friends, and also for the staff. I immediately went to him and apologized for so brazenly gate-crashing, but he very kindly pressed me to stay, and said he had thought of inviting me, but believed I would prefer bed after my tramp. However, the lively atmosphere had given me a new lease of life, and I gladly accepted Mr. Robertson's cordial invitation. And a most enjoyable evening it turned out ; reels, modern dances, fiddle solos, songs, recitations (of which I contributed one or two as my share in the proceedings) and stories kept the ceilidh going full swing until I.3o a.m., when some of the guests said they must be going.

To this one of the maids responded, " Why ? it's early yeti " However, we had all had a long day, and felt we could do full justice to our beds, so the visitors departed after a deoch-andoruis, and the hotel party retired upstairs. Insomnia certainly did not trouble me that night!

(To be continued.)

E. R. B. O920-22.)

138

lherdeen Grammar School Magazine

Passing By in Southern Rhodesia.

From the Diary of " HINDUSTANI." THE JOURNEY THROUGH PORTUGUESE EAST AFRICA.

The train was drawn up at the platform of Beira station, looking very imposing with all its reservation labels, yellow for first class and blue for second class. The train, which is bound for Bulawayo, is a corridor one, and is more luxuriously fitted than Indian trains are. This fact discloses, perhaps, the greater honesty of Africa ; for the floors are carpeted, towels and soap are put out for each passenger, and there is a big jar of filtered water standing in the corridor and from it you may fill your glass or bottle by turning the spigot. If you don't happen to have a glass, the railway will supply you with paper ones at four for threepence, and you throw them away after use. The gauge is only three feet six inches and so the compartments are rather small. They have no dust screens in the windows as in India, but only sun screens and glass. A bride and bridegroom for whose departure the whole of Beira society had turned up to wish Godspeed, duly appeared—the latter the typical publicschool boy in business, wearing a blazer, as is the custom of the country, and the latter a nice-looking girl. I suppose it was only natural that a little later these two should have been seen holding hands together in the corridor. The train started up to time at 9 a.m. with a terrific jerk and ran as noisily as the metre gauge railways in India run, and probably for the same reason—the heaviness of the carriages overhanging the narrow lines.

The country near Beira is very flat and green, and reminds one forcibly of the Thana-Kolaba lands just outside Bombay in the monsoon. Some rice was growing here and there, but the chief crop was merely lush grass. I missed the numberless divided fields and the hordes of little brown men and women working in them that would have characterized a similar scene in the ricelands of India. This kind of country continued for about forty miles with hardly a sign of life, save for occasional cattle in the long grass, till we crossed the Pongwe River at the Ponto do Pongwe, an unpleasant-looking tidal ditch with mud and swamp all round it. The country in this locality is all very unhealthy, which accounts for the sparse human and animal population. Almost the only live things to be seen were some kingfishers hovering over the stagnant pools of water.

At night the carriage windows have to be closed to prevent hordes of insects from invading the privacy of the Rhodesia Railways, Mashonaland Section, or R.R.M. as the railway trucks are inscribed. A cup of tea on the train was served at i s a.m., a pot of tea for two costing ninepence, the tea being served in

Aberdeen Grammar School Magazine

139

square, blue teapots that were not entirely unspillable. All the men on the railways except the bedding boys are white, Rhodesians or South Africans, and to one accustomed to the personnel of trains in India, they seemed too grand to be tipped. Thcy are not really so. The head waiter in the dining car looked like an old Irish soldier, and he never seemed to expect there should he any change out of a shilling or half-a-crown.

By now the country was beginning to look a little drier, but it was still very low-lying. After sixty miles of running we were still only 73 feet above sea-level. Trees began to appear here and there in clumps, never scattered about, and most of them were of the oily glossy-leaved variety. There were a few mealie fields, but they had been either reaped or allowed to go to seed, because very often they looked like unsuccessful " jowari."

The leaves were quite withered and the plants stood only seven or eight feet high. Some human beings now arrived on the scene, selling curios at the stations—here, carved wood vases, elephants, deer, and giraffes ; there, baskets and wire rings. But unlike the natives of India in similar circumstances, they did not pester one to buy. If you wanted anything, well and good : if you didn't, they weren't interested. In some of the fields were raised stands for scaring bird depredators away, exactly like the pehos " so common in rural Sind. But there were still no villages, and the stations were more like halts than regular stopping places. The chief produce was still lush grass, and cattle were a rare phenomenon. The tse-tse fly has quite a lot to answer for in sundry parts of Africa. A little later we came to crops of yellow vetch, and kraal-like huts began to be more frequent.

The carriages marked " Natives " were in the front of the train, and it was only where these carriages stopped that there was any crowd on the platform. Large numbers of black, curly-headed individuals had gathered to see their friends off, and they shouted at the train as it gathered way, so that the " elite " in the carriages of higher class had the benefit of their vociferations and more than a glimpse of even expanses of white teeth. These sightseers were dressed in the oddest muddle of garments and wore even more amazing headgear. The most popular items in the latter class were old felt hats that in their day had been objects of sartorial delight in better company, and cricket caps that may or may not have seen a cricket-field. But there was none of the nudity or semi-nudity that is found amongst the African natives in Mombasa or Dar-es-Salaam.

After lunch we passed through the Amatongas Forest,where there were some very fine trees—mahogany, and others not so imposing, amidst a great wealth of vegetation like creepers and ferns. The train was now puffing noisily uphill, and the line was straight for hardly more than a hundred yards at a time. The scenery reminded me of that of the Bhor Ghat during the

40

1

Aberdeen Grammar School Magatine

monsoon, with this difference only that there were no waterfalls and not so much rock as on the Western Ghats. By the time the train reached the top of the Forest we were 2,30o feet up, the steaminess of the plains was disappearing, and vistas of blue distant hills were opening out. We were now running across a plateau with some pleasant, red-tiled buildings dotted over it, constant mealie fields, and occasional fields of vetch and sunflower. One station had a pretty garden with chrysanthemums and zinnias in flower. The large brown-beige butterflies that were fluttering in the Forest had now given place to smaller yellow ones, and " lantana," the bane of the cultivator in the Karnatic, was common amongst the shrubs. This part of the country was much more thickly populated than any I had yet seen.

There were several farms, one with the name of " Farma Epirus," which had its owner's Portuguese name on a white wall under its brown corrugated-iron roof. A few cotton fields could be seen, but the country is not cultivated as India is, nor are there multitudes of people working in its irregular and untidy fields, lost in the acres of high grass. The sun was troublesome all afternoon.

If one closed the sun shutters, the carriage became too stuffy.

If one opened the windows, a very hot sun made things quite unpleasant, and the carriages had no fans. Most of the travellers wore thickish suits and had stiff collars and ties on. I took off my collar, tie, and jacket, removed my shoes, and was still too hot. But at sunset, when there were fine cloud effects in the sky, the air got rapidly cool. Dinner was at 6.3o p.m. and the dining-car had a mixed population of long-distance travellers.

THE ENTRY INTO SOUTHERN RHODESIA.

We were now nearing the frontier of Southern Rhodesia and had to fill up two customs forms, one for the Portuguese statistics, saying who we were, what race we belonged to, and where we were going; and the other for Southern Rhodesia, which demanded a description of our baggage. The Rhodesian immigration and customs officer was the same fat man whom I had observed having two helpings of each course at dinner, with his shirt opened at the neck for better execution. There was no trouble about customs or immigration, but I had to show my passport and declare my camera. We reached Umtali, the border town of Southern Rhodesia, zo3 miles from Beira, about 9.3o p.m. and I was amazed at the civilization of the place.

There were crowds of Europeans and many motor cars at the station, and a stroll through the electrically-lit streets showed a fine town with tarred roads and a big Railway Co-operative Store, where all sorts of goods were for sale cheap, from tennis kit and swimming suits to Eno's Fruit Salt, that had an impressive window-display all to itself. After half-an-hour's halt the train was off again, and the bed and bedding (two pillows, two blankets,

Aberdeen Grammar School Magazine

1 41

and two sheets—costing per night half-a-crown, and satisfactorily clean) had been laid out by the black boy. The night was rather stuffy, but I slept as well as I ever expect to sleep in a noisy, jolting, small-gauge train. In such wise did I come to Southern Rhodesia.

The country was drier and stonier when I looked out next morning. It reminded me of a mixture of the stony uplands of the Deccan and of Dharwar rolled into one. There was a good deal of grass about, but not much cultivation, except some tobacco. The Portuguese Attencao con a coluna da agua had been left behind and in its place there was the plain blunt warning, " Caution—Beware of Standpipe," just in case you might be looking out of the window when the thing hit you in the back of the neck. The people in the dining-car last night were a very ordinary set of travellers, business men, red-faced Rhodesians, maiden ladies, a woman or two with children—on the whole not a great selection of youth and beauty. That, indeed, was reserved for the station platforms at train time. I suppose if you have trains only three times a week, the arrival of the train is a kind of social event looked forward to with much interest, as there is a chance of seeing friends and sampling the delightful consciousness of being linked up momentarily with the great Anglo-Saxon civilization functioning outside the bounds of inland Africa.

After we left Umtali we became acutely conscious of being in an entirely different country, if only from the greater energy displayed everywhere, the crowds of youths in blazers, and maidens in bright frocks just not quite up-to-date, the alert keenness of movement, and the dear efficiency of business notices and directions where such things existed. The men in the railway offices, the post offices and such-like buildings are all of Anglo-Saxon stock, most of them looking very fit and some of them undeniably " tough nuts." Rhodesia is the land of the blazer and the school tie. Almost every one seems to wear some insignia of social snobbery, and all have cigarettes between their lips.

THE CITY OF SALISBURY.

The train arrived at Salisbury at 7 a.m., when the morning was cool and the air like champagne. Binks, who boarded the train with me at Beira and was going to Ndola in Northern Rhodesia, nearly on the borders of the Belgian Congo, thought a stroll through the capital of Southern Rhodesia in this brisk morning air would do us no harm and help us to stretch our legs.

Binks was right, and off we set to explore the Edinburgh of the Empire's latest and newest dominion. Following the neat little plan provided in the Bulawayo A.B.C. railway time-table, issued gratis, we found it easy to perambulate the town in an hour and a half, via Second Street and Cecil Square, where there

142

Aberdeen Grammar School Magazine

is a dumpy-looking man with Hebraic features seated in bronze on a chair in the middle of the grass plots. On examination he turns out to be Alfred Beit, and he is wearing what must be the biggest boots in Southern Rhodesia. Thence one proceeds

by Baker Avenue, Union Avenue, and Jameson Avenue, names with a historic ring about them, past the nonchalant statue of Rhodes that dominates the vista, and Selous Avenue, still another reminder of Rhodesia's history, to the Public Gardens, which are really fine. What strikes one most about Salisbury, apart from its excessively English suburban appearance of peace and plenty, is the fineness of the roads, which are of tar-asphalt, and the beauty of the flowering trees, amongst which jacarands, flamboyants (the gold mohurs of India), bougainvillias, and golden showers are the chief glories. The houses are beautiful little things with trim gardens. The red corrugated-iron roofs do not offend the eye, and a plain square type of architecture, often with Dutch fronts and gables, is very refreshing. Motor cars, amongst which the Baby Austin rules as acknowledged king, rush about everywhere, and boys and girls on bicycles are bowling along every street and roadway. The real pride of Salisbury, however, at this time of the year is the poinsettia trees, which are of a size and scarlet brilliance such as I have never seen approached anywhere in India. The Gardens blaze with gladiolus, iris, forget-me-not, petunia, larkspur, and stock, and have beautiful bowling-greens with velvety turf, and swimming-baths in gleaming white, built in the Dutch style. The shops seemed to me surprisingly good for a town in the far interior of Africa, and the variety of them impressed me. There were some very large general stores with many square feet of plate-glass windows and very modern window-dressing, many teashops—one of them with the happy name of F6licite—a well-stocked radio shop, and actually two places where paintings and etchings were displayed for the temptation of art-loving homemakers in this portion of the globe.

The day was Sunday, and Binks and I found ourselves butting in amongst the church-going population, which included (charming European touch) several " crocodiles " of boys and girls in school uniform, some of the " crocodiles " being led by nuns from a big convent. The church bells were playing a merry tune, but this did not seem to worry much quite a large section of the population which was clearly bent on secular pleasures, for numerous youths and maidens were packing themselves into motor cars and piling tennis racquets, thermos flasks, and all the hideous paraphernalia of picnics on odd spaces of the back seats. The bowling-greens were now bubbling with bowling life, and anxious bowlers were striking strange attitudes as they gazed with set faces at the gathering bias of the woods they had just launched across the sward. For the benefit of those who have never been to Rhodesia it must

Aberdeen Grammar School Magazine

143

be pointed out that a Rhodesian bowler differs little from his brother in other climes. The good name of the Empire flaunted itself in the Union Jack that proudly flew over the balistic gyrations on the turfed greens.

The swimming-baths called to us invitingly with their transparently, nay pellucidly, clear water, wherein numbers of the younger generation of Rhodesians were gleefully disporting themselves. The bath-keeper had told us that the water was warmed to 7o degrees, but Binks and I, accustomed to the genial heat of Indian seas, found it just a little chilly. A few lengths, however, in the white-tiled open-air bath and a dive or two off the boards brought a swift reaction and an exhilaration that made us want to shout like the young Rhodesians. The bathkeeper, knowing us for strangers, and with the keenness of the country to show us all its wonders, became very talkative over the beauty of the clear water and the fine swimmers that Salisbury had produced. The walls were hung with the photos of champions, and a young girl, whom he called Pat Wallace, was made to show us some exhibition dives from the twelve-foot board, plain headers and jack-knives, and I must say she dived beautifully. The bath-keeper then turned to us and said that we could search anywhere in the world and find it difficult to get better examples of these two dives. The children, especially the girls, looked very strong and healthy, with fine bright colour in their faces. We came away with a very high opinion of Salisbury as a place to live in and enjoy the comforts of modern civilization. The town stands 4,825 feet above sea-level, and at this time of the year, anyway, had invigorating air.

ON THE TRAIN AGAIN.

When Binks and I returned to the station for the next stage of our journey, we found the platforms the centre of a social gathering, and the train was rapidly filling up with blazers, linen collars, school ties, schoolboys and schoolgirls in vast quantity, with school bands on their hats. There was also a motley throng of well-dressed, red-faced travellers bound for the great metropolis of Bulawayo, which is 299 miles from Salisbury ; while Salisbury itself is 171 miles from the country's rocky border at Umtali. The dining-car was running two sets of meals. There was a whole compartment of schoolmasters taking boys back to Bulawayo. I learnt that there had been a big sports contest between Bulawayo and Salisbury, in which Salisbury had had on the whole the better of the argument.

Certainly, if all Southern Rhodesia has the keenness and efficiency of Salisbury, the country will make its name known, though at present the white population over izo,ooo square miles of territory is no more than 50,00o. In conversation with one of the schoolmasters I learnt that the sunflowers and another yellow crop of flowers that had puzzled me were grown as cattle food.

144

Aberdeen Grammar School Magazine

We ran through several flights of locusts during the afternoon, when the sun was just as annoying as it had been the previous day, and we saw more fields of tobacco and also cattle, like English cattle, grazing on the grass lands. The country became very like the Deccan country, being wide and open and grassy, and giving distant views of blue hills. At every station were more healthy, red-faced Rhodesians, more blazers and cigarettes, and many of the coloured open-necked shirts with zip fasteners that we had marvelled at in the windows of the big stores in Salisbury. At one small wayside station a tennis club was functioning at four in the afternoon, the men playing bareheaded in the blazing sun, and the players acting as their own ball-boys.

At Gatooma, the centre of gold-mining in Southern Rhodesia, the train stopped for half an hour, and again the station was the setting for a social gathering and a display of more blazers, cigarettes, and young men and women gadding about. A keenly-curious padre scrutinized me closely as a stranger in this throng, and his look plainly said, " I haven't seen you before.

I wonder if you would be any use for the Church Social Guild ? " It was clearly a case for beating it while the beating was good.

The natives appeared in all sorts of clothes, in which flashiness vied with old age. The swells had cricket caps, often with the badges fixed on with safety pins, and wore ancient felt hats ; and the girls, who wore little-girl fancy dresses, were wonderfully got up with blue cloths tied turban-like round their heads. In the dining-car the talk, amongst one group, was all about mining shares and the price of farms ; and amongst another group it was all about schools, education, and the merits and demerits of the educational policy of the Southern Rhodesian Government.

The criticism was mostly adverse, though I couldn't quite gather why. But I was right in the middle of a bright new country, very self-centred and sure of itself, and overcome with the determination to be really " it" in everything. At a place called Que Que, which the train reached long after dark, there was the now familiar social buzz at the station. The guide-book says the place has a white population of 591, and almost all of them seemed to be on the platform. The town, however, has other claims to distinction, as it is the centre of one of the chief gold-mining areas, and lies in a good farming and pastoral district. Surprising news to one coming from India, it boasts two hotels, and has a public school and a mine hospital.

BULAWAYO-" THE PLACE OF KILLING."

The train arrived at Bulawayo at 7 a.m. Arriving at or about that hour seems to be a mania with the Rhodesian Railways. I had a struggle to be ready, but the teachers were bright and bonny, and resplendent in school ties. My memories of Bulawayo are rather confused because I saw it twice, with a

Aberdeen Grammar School Magazine

1 45

visit to the Victoria Falls sandwiched in between the two occasions. The platform was a serried mass of black boys shouting out the names of hotels at the carriage windows when I arrived.

I spurned these for a very efficient white porter in brown livery with yellow piping, who took complete charge of me and forwarded me to his establishment, which proved to be a fine building on the main thoroughfare, named, in American fashion, somethingth street or avenue, and set amidst a number of rectangular street blocks. Not far away, of course, was the inevitable statue of Cecil Rhodes, who dominates this land even as thoroughly as Mussolini stamps modern Italy. He stands in bronze with his hands on his hips and looking like the flamboyant pioneer of Empire he was, determined and very sure of himself. Still, the whole of this great new country exists as a memorial of him, fully conscious of the debt it owes to his drive and realism. The sculptors of Rhodes always endeavour to portray this characteristic of the man by throwing him in to rather theatrical attitudes, by stretching out his hands, or making him gaze intently towards his beloved " North." At breakfast I had what appears to be the staple Rhodesian breakfast dish— kippers, now available at all sorts of places, thanks to electrification and cold storage—and then took a car, driven by a quiet chauffeur in a long white coat, and drove round the town for an hour and a half.

Bulawayo is the business town of Southern Rhodesia, while Salisbury is the administrative and scholastic capital. It is not so attractive as Salisbury but looks more alive, though it is built on a bare kind of plateau of no great beauty. It has been planned on a sort of American model that is not attractive, and it lacks the trees and greenery that set the chief note of charm in Salisbury's mire en scene. The chief streets are amazingly wide, following the direction of Rhodes that a team of bullocks pulling a Cape waggon should be able to turn round in them. Rhodes could not foresee the motor car, but he made no mistake about the wide roads. Bulawayo has no car-parking problems such as worry the authorities in Johannesburg, where no such foresight was employed in planning the layout of the streets. The effect of the wide streets is to give an air of spaciousness exactly befitting this land of enormous distances and sparse population, the country where not so long ago the Matabeles and the Mashonas conducted their not very edifying quarrels, in which impis swept from one end of the land to the other for driving cattle and killing men. The very name is eloquent. It means " The place of killing," and in Lobengula's time was a bad spot for Mashonas. The town itself is not striking. It is just emerging from the shanty type of capital to the modern city style and, not having the wealth of Johannesburg at its command, it has not got very far yet.

Of the muddle of things I saw, I can remember most vividly

1 46

Aberdeen Grammar School Magazine

—0 strange anomaly of the guidebook world 1—the Drill Hall, pointed out as the largest in Africa, and perhaps in the world, but still merely a drill hall and looking like nothing else, despite its boxing-ring, its physical-jerk bars along the walls, and the fact that only three weeks previously Prince George, now the Duke of Kent, has been entertained here at a lavish ball. Outside the Hall is a regimental badge of hideous size and gilding— the lion of Rhodesia holding an elephant tusk in the manner of a very inexpert juggler, a thing for laughter and not for admiration. Not far away stands one of the guns used in the 1896 rebellion of the Matabeles, an awkward little weapon of grotesque angularity mounted on the top of a pedestal in the roadway, no great adornment for a street. But the fact that it is there is typical. It is all part of the policy of building up the national tradition on which this keen new country sets such store.

Much more interesting was the trip to Government House, along its mile-and-a-half avenue across rolling downs flanked by the fir trees, some rather sorry for themselves now, planted by the Crder of Rhodes. Government House itself is a poorish building with a thatched roof and long, thin, square chimneys.

But its Dutch style and situation are striking. The gardens were half parched when I saw them, as the rains had been much below average, and Matabele convicts from the jail were plying hoes and rakes amongst the shrubberies. Hardly anything but hibiscus was in flower, and the country all around looked thirsty.

In the distance, on the irregular rocky horizon, stands a flattopped hill famous in Matabele days. The gardens contain the Indaba tree, beneath which Rhodes met Lobengula in 1896, after the fighting of the rebellion, and settled the lasting peace that has made the country what it is to-day. Near by is the circular Kaffir kraal which Rhodes himself used, a paltry, unsatisfying place for anyone who cared for creature comforts.

But Rhodes was not the person to surround himself with luxury until a definite public position demanded it.

Meanwhile the chauffeur was becoming quite chatty. He was making a comfortable living as a motor mechanic in Bulawayo, but he had not lived many years in Rhodesia. As a boy he had been in the siege of Kimberley at the age of i3, and spoke jokingly of the attitude of the military authorities to Rhodes at that time. After giving me some advice about South African cigarettes, which are legion, he took me round to the other end of Bulawayo by Selborne Avenue, the finest road in the town, to the suburbs where the elite, as he called them, lived.

This was a pleasant little suburbia with much eclecticism in the matter of bungalows and a fondness for variations on the Dutch style. There were some good gardens, but the same air of dryness and drought pervaded this end of the town too. A big Maternity Home, doubtless erected by the help of the Beit

Aberdeen Grammar School Magazine

147

Trustees, the Wireless Station, and two large schools, the Prince's Park—more formal and more parched than the Salisbury Gardens—and the Swimming Baths were passed. The Baths are fine, large, white-tiled, open to the air, and provided with beautiful velvety lawns, where bathers loll about in swimming costumes. But I had no time to enter them and tell the keeper that the water in the Salisbury baths was the cleanest in the world, as the warden at Salisbury had asked me to do. After all, you cannot tell Glasgow that Edinburgh has better and cleaner water, can you ?

(To be continued.)

A Bursary for the School.

At the January meeting of the Aberdeen Education Committee a letter was submitted from Messrs. Whyte & Connon, advocates, Aberdeen, intimating that the late Mr. George Gordon Whyte, C.A., 4 Carden Terrace, Aberdeen, who died on 2 i st December last, had directed his trustees to pay to the Aberdeen Grammar School the sum of Doo to endow a fund, the revenue of which is to be disbursed in the form of a Mathematical Bursary. The following excerpt from Mr. Whyte's settlement accompanied the letter and gave the conditions under which the legacy was bequeathed :— " On the death of my wife, or on my own death, should she predecease me, I direct my Trustees to realise and divide and pay over the residue of my estate as follows :— . . . . . . . . . " (Two) I direct my Trustees to pay to the Aberdeen Grammar School the sum of Five hundred pounds sterling, which sum shall be invested in British Government Securities and shall be called ' The G. G. Whyte Endowment Fund,' it being created in memory of my late father, the Reverend Dr. Whyte of Methlick, a former pupil of the School, and the late Alexander Brand, Chartered Accountant in Aberdeen, Consul Agent of the United States of America; . . . the annual revenue from said Fund shall be disbursed in the form of a Mathematical Bursary to be paid in each year to the student most needy and deserving in merit in the year ; declaring that the holders of said Fund shall at no time have power to encroach on the capital thereof."

On the motion of the Convener, the Committee directed the Town Clerk to convey to Mr. Whyte's Trustees the thanks of the Committee for the gift, and their grateful acceptance of the legacy under the conditions laid down by the Testator, whose beneficent interest in the Grammar School the Committee deeply appreciated.

An obituary notice of Mr. Whyte appears on p. 117.

148

lberdeen Grammar School Magazine

SCHOOL SECTION. Random Notes.

The present term is perhaps the dullest of the three which form our School year. The novelty of being back at work after the summer vacation has worn off ; the Prefects have been appointed; and all the important 1st XV matches have been played. In this term, too, some of us meet one of life's snags in the shape of the Leaving Certificate. But though we have had kicks, some ha'pence have also come our way. A new grand piano has replaced the monstrosity which formerly hammered out its harsh notes in the Music Room ; the heating system is completely repaired ; and at least one lecturer has spoken in Hall. * * * The staff at the present moment would seem to be trying their best to prove the truth of Heraclitus' dogma, " everything is in a state of flux." The latest member to leave us is Mr. Milton, who has gone to take up a post in Glasgow. Mr. Milton associated himself with every branch of School life, and for that reason will be genuinely missed. Mr. Milton will, however, be best remembered for his undertaking of a School trip to Paris last Easter—a trip which was a great success, largely because of his zeal in its execution. We can assure Mr. Milton that he carries with him to Glasgow the School's best wishes for his success in his new sphere of influence. * * * Mr. Milton's successor has already been appointed in the person of Mr. N. S. Mackenzie. In welcoming him we hope that his association with School will be long and happy. * * * The Hall was filled to capacity when the Dramatic Society presented its plays on loth December. The plays produced were " Kings of Nomania," " Catherine Parr," " Brother Wolf," and "King of Barvender." A departure from established custom was made this year by the appearance of boys from the Lower School in two mimes and a playlet, in which they acquitted themselves well. We hope that this practice will not be allowed to fall into abeyance, for, in the words of " 1066 and All That," it is a Good Thing. * * * The Rugby season is now at an end, and we are in a position to congratulate the ist XV very heartily on their successes, the best achieved by a School team for very many years. Their praises have been sung from Inverness in the north to Edinburgh in the south and Glasgow in the west. We congratulate H.O.C. Cruickshank, J. V. Hay, and T. O. F. Kelly on the award of their Caps ; and E. Strachan on the award of his Colours.

School Rugby Football xst XV-Season 1934-35.

Bath Row—Mr. D. Macgregor (Games Master), W. S. Gibb, R. A. S. Watt, W. N. Wallace, R. A. Spark, A. W. Ogston, J. Dumo.

Second Row—H. J. Rae, D. A. Milne, W. J. G. Meldrum (Vice-Captain), J. R. S. Inns (Captain), J. R. W. Catto, T. J. T. Nicol, J. V. Hay, E. Strachan.

In Front—H. O. C. Cruickshank, T. O. F. Kelly.

Aberdeen Grammar School Magazine

149

A very successful Rugby Dance was held in Isaac Benzie's Rooms on 17th December, 1934. About forty couples were present. The arrangements were excellently carried out by Mr. Macgregor as M.C. and J. R. S. Innes as Secretary. * * * The " Debater's" syllabus is now completed for another year. The membership was the highest in the Society's history.

Some excellent speakers have addressed the Society, whilst attendance and speaking at debates have always been at a high level. This is due in no small measure to the energetic way in which the President and his satellites have worked on the Society's behalf, and they are worthy of a word of congratulation on their excellent accomplishment. * * * Classical VI, Classical V, Modern IVA, and Middle IIIc recently took part in a programme of Shakespeare's sonnets and songs and scenes from his plays, which was given under the auspices of the Shakespeare Society. They enjoyed their experience very much and rendered their pieces very well. * * * School were fortunate to have Mr. G. Duncan of the Scripture Union to lecture in Hall. Mr. Duncan also spent some time with classes in their Divinity periods and explained the aims of the movement he represents. * * * American films undoubtedly have a bad influence. Or why did a boy in Classical IV produce the following gem? Vultuque in virgin fixo . . . ait—" Having fixed his face upon the girl, he said."

A Winter Landscape.

A world of white extends beneath the sky, The rising sun comes o'er the mountain's crest ; The fields and plains in whitest raiment lie, The stars of night sink slowly in the west.

A robin perches on a garden wall, And with its song the restful stillness breaks, A raven from the wood gives answering call, And bird-life in the light of morn awakes.

'Neath many a bridge, past many a white-roof'd mill, The river dark and gloomy onward flows, Down to the sea from yonder snow-capped hill, Upon whose icy sides the sun now glows.

The wondrous charm of winter's icy hand Has left the countryside a mystic land.

RONALD B. KILLOH (VB).

150

Aberdeen Grammar School Magazine

School Rugby.

Having regard to the quality and extent of the fixtures undertaken it is justifiable to assess the record of the School XV for the season now ended as the best in post-War years. Three points represent the difference between immunity from defeat in school matches and two defeats.

Until 9th February the 1st XV had preserved an unbeaten record, having, among other successes, victories for the first time over Glasgow High School and Dollar Academy. On successive Saturdays, however, came two defeats, one from George Heriot's School at Goldenacre, rather against the run of play, by 5 points to 3, and a week later, under very stormy weather conditions, at Anniesland, from Glasgow Academy by 6 points to 5.

In each case the School were under the double handicap of having had to undertake a long journey and one which entailed a very early start. It is thus reasonable to suggest that had the games been played in Aberdeen, narrow defeats might have been narrow victories.

There is no doubt that the 1934-35 side has been the best all-round side since the War. For an Aberdeen Grammar School team to go to Goldenacre and be styled by competent critics as " the best school side seen at Goldenacre this season" is a remarkable tribute.

The edifice of the team was built on the sure foundation of a sound and hard-working pack. Only once was the pack inferior to the opposing eight, and that was in the mud of Anniesland when faced by an unusually massive set of Academy forwards.

A hooker of quite exceptional skill—one well-known Edinburgh referee classed him as " the slickest hooker, senior or junior, I've seen in Edinburgh this season "—was well backed up by seven other forwards, all of whom shoved their weight and watched the ball closely. In the loose the pack was very quick on the ball and in coming round in the loose scrummages.

At the line-outs the jumping for possession was good, but sound work in this respect was often spoiled by a lack of unanimity as to when the ball was to be heeled. Undoubtedly the success of the side must in the first place be attributed to the whole-hearted work of a capable pack.

Behind the scrum there was not a single weak link, though some naturally were less strong than others. In no game were the backs inferior to the opposition. At scrum-half the side was well served by a player of pluck and intelligence. As partner he had the best stand-off half since 1921.

The centres, resourceful and quick in attack, defended splendidly and gave two speedy and determined wing's chances

Aberdeen Grammar School Magazine

I51

which were turned to good account. And last, but by no means least, there was a big, powerful full-back, who conveyed confidence to the men in front.

Any review of the team would be incomplete without an indication of the real captain's part played by a real Captain.

No School Captain since the War has given more valuable service to his side as leader and player. His enthusiasm and willingness to make sacrifices in training were reflected in every member of the team.

Though they improved greatly as the season advanced, the znd, 3rd, and Junior XVs were not so strong as last season, chiefly on account of lack of big forwards, but we had a splendid Minor XV. Acknowledgment must again be made of the ungrudging assistance given by several members of the Staff, in particular Mr. I. M. Park and Mr. W. P. Stewart, who " coached and fathered " the Junior and Minor XVs. Without such valuable help it would be impossible to maintain the School games at the standard which has been achieved.

Any remarks regarding the future must be qualified by Leaving Certificate possibilities, but it seems likely that we shall again have a very good back division for our 1st XV next season, but that there will be a shortage of big forwards. In general, prospects are fairly good.

Who's Who in the ist XV. J. R. S. Innes (1933-34-55). 5 ft. II in. ; I I st. 8 lb.

Captain of the side. An eminently sound and at times brilliant centre-threequarter. Intelligent, tough, speedy, strong, and very keen to do everything possible to improve, he should become a great centre in senior rugby. An excellent Captain.

W. J. G. Meldrum (1933-34-35). 6 ft. 3 in. ; 13 st. 8 lb.

Leader of the pack and Vice-Captain. A big, powerful, hardworking second-row forward, endowed with exceptional physical qualities. Very speedy. Splendid at line-outs. Should develop into a really great player.

H. J. Rae (1933-34-35). 5 ft. to in. ; II st. 6 lb. An expert hooker, and more than that, a splendid all-round forward.

Works hard in the scrummages and yet finds opportunity to shine in the loose. Another very fine player in the making.

T. J. T. Nicol (1933-34-35)• 6 ft. 3 in.; tz st. i i lb. A big and speedy second-row forward. Works very hard and effectively. Troubled for a time with indifferent health but now developing splendidly. Very bright future.

J. R. W. Catto (1933-34-35). 5 ft. ii i in. ; to st. II lb. A very speedy and elusive wing-threequarter, who had the misfortune to come by a knee injury early in the season and was unable to play for three months. Swerves and hands-off well ; defends with determination. A young player of great promise.

55 2

Aberdeen Grammar School Magazine

D. A. Milne (1933-34-35). 5 ft. xi in. ; I I St. 2 lb. An intelligent back-row forward who adapts himself quickly to changing circumstances. Sound in every way but not yet fast enough. Needs a season of athletic training to realise his potentialities.

H. 0. C. Cruickshank (1934-35). 5 ft. 6 in. ; 9 st. 9 lb.

A very clever little stand-off half. Handles, passes, and kicks well. Defends tenaciously. Alert to seize any chance to go through. Handicapped by indifferent health but should develop into a great player.

J. V. Hay (1933-34-35). 5 ft. 14 in. ; io st. i lb. A clever centre three-quarter with an effective dummy which, however, he is inclined to overdo. Handles and kicks well, but lacks finishing speed.

T. 0. F. Kelly (1934-35). 5 ft. 9 in. ; xo st. 1z lb. A tough little scrum-half who absorbs hard knocks as if he enjoyed them. Sound in the essentials of his particular job. Lacking a little in pace when he breaks away.

J. 13111/10 (1934-35). 5 ft. nit in. ; iz st. 8 lb. A very effective front-row forward who has improved and is improving rapidly. Works hard in the scrummages and shows speed and cleverness in the open. An excellent place-kicker. Should develop into a very fine forward.

A. W. Ogaton (1934-35). 3 ft. ix in.; II st. Left wingthreequarter. Quite fast and has developed control in his running. Goes hard both in attack and defence. A good sound player.

R. A. Spark (1934-35). 6 ft. ; iz st. 5 lb. A big, powerful full-back. Fielding excellent, and fast on the ball. Powerful kick, but uncertain at times in direction. Sound tackler except in taking an opponent with a late change of direction. Saves with certainty. May become a very fine forward.

R. A. S. Watt (1934-35). 5 ft. I 1 in. ; to st. 5 lb. A very fit and game wing forward. Backs up splendidly both in attack and defence. Not a good kick. Should fill out into a very fine forward.

E. Strachan (1934-35). 3 ft. 7i in. ; xo st. 6 lb. A very fit and honest front-row forward. Not distinguished by any special quality other than the excellent one of a capacity for hard and effective work. Developing well.

W. S. Gibb (1934-35). 5 ft. 8} in. ; Io st. A very hardworking young forward who shoves more than his weight.

Never far from the ball. Developing well.

W. Wallace (1934-35). 5 ft. I x in. ; to st. io lb. Reserve wing threequarter. Speedy and clever and improving rapidly.

Is his own worst enemy, not having nearly enough belief in his own undoubted ability. A player of promise.

Aberdeen Grammar School Magazine

153

ist XV Matches.

26th January, 1933.—v. Strathallan, at Rubislaw. Team :—R. A. Spark ; J. R. W. Catto, J. R. S. Inns, J. V. Hay, A. W. Ogston ; H. O. C. Cruickshank and T. O. F. Kelly ; W. J. G. Meldrum, T. J. T. Nicol, H. J. Rae, D. A. Milne, R. A. S. Watt, J. Dumo, E. Strachan, and W. Gibb.

When Strathallan played their return game at Rubislaw the pitch was covered with snow, but at the hour fixed for the match the weather was perfect and play was regarded as possible. The visitors kicked off with wind advantage, and held an attacking position until Cruickshank broke away cleverly, only to be tackled near the Strathallan line, where School were awarded a penalty. Cruickshank with a well-taken kick put his side three points ahead. A few minutes later Innes dribbled the ball over to score, after Catto had run strongly on the wing. Dumo failed to improve upon the score. Just before half time Ogston rounded off a smart bout of passing with a try, which remained unconverted.

In the second half Strathallan set up a spell of pressure, but found the School defence secure. The Grammar forwards got together and soon play swung to the visitors' end, where Catto outstripped the defence to score a good try, which Cruickshank did not covert. School maintained the pressure and, from a scrum close to the line, Kelly dived over for a try, which was converted by Cruickshank. Further scores were added by Ogston and Cruickshank, both tries remaining unconverted. The final whistle blew with School still attacking. Result :—School, 23 points ; Strathallan, nil. and February.—v. Edinburgh Institution, at Rubislaw. Team :—R. A. Spark ; J. R. W. Catto, J. R. S. Innes, J. V. Hay, A. W. Ogston ; H. O. C. Cruickshank and T. O. F. Kelly ; W. J. G. Meldrum, T. J. T. Nicol, H. J. Rae, D. A. Milne, R. A. S. Watt, J. Durno, E. Strachan, and W. Gibb.

This game was to have been played in the forenoon, but a snowstorm compelled it to be abandoned until the afternoon. School won the toss and set up immediate pressure. Cruickshank was the first to open the scoring, bursting through the defence to score an excellent try, which was not converted. A minute later the School stand-off half again cut through beautifully to score another splendid try, which was also unconverted. Catto, by outstripping the opposition, and Ogston by gathering a rash defensive kick, put School further in the lead. A spell of mid-field play ensued, until, from a scrum, Foote, the Institution right winger, came into possession and ran with the greatest determination to score a fine unconverted try.

After half-time play swung from end to end, but both defences held out.

McKay cleverly intercepted a pass and took play to the Grammar line, but our opponents were unable to find a flaw in our defence. The lighter Institution forwards were playing really well and the ball was heeled quickly and frequently travelled to the wing men, who ran with great determination.

Their efforts were rewarded by another splendid try, scored by Foote and converted by Thomson. There was no further scoring and no-side came, ending a fine sporting contest. Result :—School, 14 points ; Edinburgh Institution, 8 points.

9th February.—v. Heriot's, at Goldenacre. Team :—R. A. Spark; J. R. W. Catto, J. R. S. lanes, J. V. Hay, A. W. Ogston ; H. O. C. Cruickshank and T. O. F. Kelly ; W. J. G. Meldrum, T. J. T. Nicol, H. J. Rae, R. A. S. Watt, D. A. Mane, J. Dumo, E. Strachan, and W. Gibb.

School were set to face the wind and dazzling sun. From the kick off Heriot's sct up an attack but were unable to beat the defence. The School backs relieved pressure with accurate touch-kicking and, from a line-out in the Heriot's " twenty-five," Cruickshank broke through, but his final pass was missed. The persistent pressure was bound to tell and School were awarded a penalty, from which Cruickshank put his side in the lead by three points. Heriot's immediately attacked and, from a scrum near the centre, the ball travelled to J. B. Craig on the Heriot's right for the wing man

154

Aberdeen Grammar School Magazine

to run in and score a good try, which was beautifully goaled by R. W. Smith.

Even play ruled until the interval, and Heriot's were rather fortunate in being two points in the lead.

In the second half School went all out for victory. The opposing backs were sorely tried, but last minute flying tackles kept their line intact. School were absolutely denied scores. First Catto was beaten by the bounce of the ball when clear of the defence, then Watt was almost over at the corner, and then Dumo made a splendid but abortive attempt from a penalty. When the final whistle blew School were still attacking. They had worn down their opponents but could not shake off the relentless Heriot's defence and so gain the winning score. Result :—School, 5 points ; Heriot's, 5 points.

16th February.—v. Glasgow Academy, at New Anniesland. Team: R. A. Spark ; J. R. W. Catto, J. R. S. Innes, J. V. Hay, A. W. Ogston ; H. O. C. Cruickshank and T. O. F. Kelly ; W. J. G. Meldrum, T. J. T. Nicol, H. J. Rae, D. A. Milne, R. A. S. Watt, J. Durno, E. Strachan, and D. A. H. McNaught.

For this game School were without the services of W. Gibb, for whom D. A. H. McNaught deputised. When School kicked off with wind and slope advantage, rain was falling fast on a pitch already like a quagmire.

Play settled in the Academy half except for one breakaway on the left, which almost produced a score. School had adopted the correct tactics in kicking ahead and following up hard, and in this way harassed the Academy backs, and caused them many anxious moments. This never-ceasing pressure was bound to produce a score, and it was Hay who grounded the ball behind the Academy line. Ogston had picked up a loose ball, shaken off two halfhearted tackles and had run forcefully before passing to Hay, who had backed up cleverly, for the latter to score a good try, which Cruickshank goaled. School were continually on the offensive, and when half-time came were well inside the Academy half.

On the resumption only a relentless defence kept the School line from falling. A faulty defensive kick, however, let Stevenson away on the left for an unconverted try. This reverse spurred the light School forwards to even greater achievements, and by splendidly controlled dribbling they took the ball to the Academy line, but a score never came. Play was returned to the School half by an accurate touch kick. From a kick ahead a defender was caught in possession and the ball went loose. The ball travelled to A. M. Stevenson, who, although tackled, was able to ground the ball for an unconverted try. The final whistle came immediately thereafter. Result :— School, 5 points ; Glasgow Academy, 6 points. a3rd February.—v. Robert Gordon's College, at Seafield. Team :— R. A. Spark ; W. Wallace, J. V. Hay, J. R. W. Catto, A. W. Ogston ; J. R. S. Innes and T. O. F. Kelly ; W. J. G. Meldrum, T. J. T. Nicol, H. J. Rae, D. A. Milne, J. Dumo, R. A. S. Watt, E. Strachan, and D. A. H. McNaught.

For this game School had to field two substitutes. H. O. C. Cruickshank was badly missed at stand-off half, and W. Gibb was again also unable to take part. School won the toss and decided to play with wind advantage.

An early attack was frustrated by good marking by the Gordon's backs.

Their forwards, too, were supplying the backs with a generous share of the ball, but all their efforts came to nothing on account of the shallowness of their positions. The first score came midway through the first half, when Catto barged his way over for a try, which was riot converted. School continued to press, but the spoiling tactics of the College backs and the fact that School were missing their stand-off very badly, prevented any further scoring before half time.

At the interval there was a heavy fall of snow, and on the resumption the pitch was matted with a white coat. For some time School's defence was kept busy, but the opposition always beat themselves and chances of scoring were lost. Catto suddenly broke away and dribbled half the length of the pitch to score a try, which Durno converted. Midfield play ensued

Aberdeen Grammar School Magazine

155

until a good foward rush took play to the Grammar line. At the line-out Rattray dashed round the front of the forwards and scored a good try.

Booth made a splendid but abortive effort to add the major points. No-side then came almost at once. Result : School, 8 points ; Robert Gordon's College, 3 points.

znd XV Matches.

1st December, 1934.—v. and Gordon's College, at Seafield. School played with the wind the first half and attacked vigorously. Following spells of mid-field play, School increased pressure and Gordon's line was in continual danger, several runs almost resulting in scores. However, our opponents' defence was very sound. Apart from a fine run, Gordon's were kept on the defensive, and half-time came with no scoring on either side, School still attacking. In the second half Gordon's started attacking and in a short time had School hemmed in on their own line. Gordon's tried to break through, but School's defence prevailed, everyone playing with great determination. Next followed some more play in mid-field, and then School attacked, almost scoring in the corner. Full time came with no scoring. Gordon's were really lucky to get a draw, School playing the best game of the season so far. The forwards played very hard and the backs combined well.

8th December.—v. and Glenalmond, at Glenalmond. Winning the toss, School chose to play down, taking advantage of the slight wind. The pitch was very heavy, and the game rapidly lay with the forwards. School pressed vigorously, and, from a lucky kick ahead, Glenalmond scored unexpectedly. Just before half-time Glenalmond again scored owing to a misunderstanding between two of the School backs. Half-time :—School, nil ; Glenalmond, 6.

In the second half School forwards improved remarkably by wheeling and keeping the ball to themselves. A great struggle developed between the rival packs, which were very evenly matched. School had very hard luck not to score when the stand-off half just missed a drop-kick, the ball hitting the crossbar and then falling down the wrong side. Both Glenalmond tries were against the run of play, and School were really unlucky to be defeated. Final score :—School, nil ; Glenalmond, 6. and February, 1955.—v. Morgan Academy 1st XV, at Rubislaw. In this game School again won the toss and took advantage of both the sun and a strong wind. The Morgan side attacked quickly, but close marking by the School " threes" never let them look dangerous. The game developed into a very hard contest, School playing with grand determination.

School had a spell of attack, but could not break through. Hopes ran high when the left winger intercepted a pass, but upon kicking ahead, he was beaten for the touch-down. Before half time, from a loose scrum, a Morgan forward dived over our line. The kick was successful. Half-time:— School, nil ; Morgan, 5.

In the second half Morgan's superior weight began to tell despite very good defence on School's part. The latter's left-centre was injured, and during his absence, Morgan again scored, bringing out full points. Shortly after, there came on a terrific snow-storm which School received in the face.

Morgan again scored, and the snow was so bad that the game was finally abandoned. Final score :—School, nil ; Morgan Academy, 15.

16th February.—v. and Strathallan, at Forgandenny. On a pitch which was actually under water in places, Strathallan kicked off downhill against a fairly stiff breeze. The return kick found touch a small distance inside the Strathallan half, and play was very equal for a long time. Under heavy conditions, handling the ball was almost impossible, and forward rushes, tempered with occasional touch-kicking, was the order of the day. Both sides were very evenly matched until just before half time, when School set up pressure on their opponents' line. Finally, Wallace dived over for a

156

Aberdeen Grammar School Magazine

try : a very difficult kick at goal failed. Half-time came soon after to find School on the point of scoring again, and leading by ; points.

On the resumption the force of the wind increased and heavy rain was lashed in the faces of School, who were driven down to the corner, inside their twenty-five. Repeated line-outs followed, and every attempt to relieve the pressure failed. Play swung over to the other side of the field, but we were still fighting hard to keep Strathallan out. Finally, a bunch of their forwards went over to obtain a try, which was not converted. The rain and wind were still driving against School, who were again put on the defence for a time. Soon, however, it was Strathallan who were struggling to prevent a score. At full time School were scrumming on their opponents' line.

Result :—School, 5 points ; Strathallan, 3 points. znd March.—v. znd Gordon's College, at Rubislaw. School won the toss and chose to play with a stiff breeze. A fast pace was set, and play moved rapidly from end to end. Gordon's having the heavier pack, frequently made lively loose rushes. School backs were very dangerous and were unlucky not to score before half time. Half-time score :—School, nil ; Gordon's, nil.

In the opening stages of the second half School attacked, but could not pierce the Gordon's defence. A counter-attack by Gordon's brought play on the School line, but School's defence was proved to be equal to all demands. A great rush by the forwards caused the Gordon's defence to be in difficulties. As a result of this pressure, Russell scored an unconverted try. Gordon's fought hard to equalize, but the final whistle came with no further scoring. Full time score :—School, 3 points ; Gordon's, nil.

House Notes.

Byron House.

Hearty congratulations are offered to J. V. Hay and T. 0. F. Kelly on gaining their ist XV Caps ; and to A. H. K. Slater and D. A. McNaught on gaining their and XV Colours.

Since the Last Notes were written four House Rugby matches have been played. Keith have been beaten twice, the scores being 23-6 and 6-3. In the second game Hay scored a very fine try, which Dumo failed to convert.

Later Dumo scored an excellent penalty goal. Melvin and Dun have both been defeated by substantial margins. It is difficult to single out from these two matches any very outstanding member of the team, as the whole side played splendidly. The znd XV, captained by R. Buthlay, has also had a very good season.

The Rugby season has been very successful, and there is absolutely no reason why we should not be as successful in Cricket and Swimming.

D. A. MILNE, Howe Captain.

Dun House.

As only one House game was played last term there are four to be reported in this issue of the Magazine. The first of these is the Dun v. Melvin game.

A weakened Dun team was unfortunate to be beaten by six points to five, a penalty kick late in the game deciding the issue.

Dun's next game was against Keith, and here again we had to suffer defeat, the score being 30-o. Dun had, however, a weak team, and it is quite fair to say that with a full team 3o points would not have been the margin between the teams.

A week later success came Dun's way when they met Melvin House.

A hard game resulted in Dun's winning by 16 points to 5. For Dun, W. Wallace played very well, his kicking being excellent. Much credit for this match also goes to Cameron and Wishart, and also to the Dun pack, who played a great game against a heavier and more experienced eight.

The last game which Dun played was against Byron, when Dun had many

Aberdeen Grammar School Magazine

157

players off, and thus the team which played was not truly representative of the House. An overwhelming victory for Byron was the result.

J. R. W. Carro, House Captain.

Keith House.

Since the last House Notes appeared in the November Magazine, H. 0. C. Cruickshank has won his 1st XV Cap, and P. Munro and E. Mutch their znd XV Colours. We take this opportunity of congratulating both these members.

Looking back over the Rugby season, which is now almost at a close, Keith can regard her efforts as most satisfactory. Of the five games with the other Houses, only two have been lost, and these against Byron, by small margins.

As regards our and XV, this has been a most unsuccessful season for them. Owing to the almost countless injuries and incapacities of 1st XV players, a great demand has been made on the reserves, and most of the vital material was lacking in a fifteen which was in any case very young and inexperienced. As a result only one victory was recorded by the and XV, that against znd Dun. Jolty R. S. INNes, House Captain.

Melvin House.

Since the last issue of the Magazine we have played four inter-House Rugby matches, of which we have won one, and been beaten in the other three. Against Dun we won by one point, and were on the whole the side which combined better. In our return games with Byron and Dun, however, we were well beaten. Our first match with Keith was a bard-fought one, in which we were beaten by a second-half rally on the part of the Keith team.

The and XV has done very well, and contains a wealth of talented young players, who look as if they will turn into a capital 1st XV. As regards the sports activities of the summer term we seem to have quite a fair chance of acquitting ourselves well. We shall not do well, however, unless everyone in the House makes up his mind to take part in some branch of sport. The more boys that are playing cricket, or running, or swimming, the more chance we have of gaining points.

T. J. T. NrcoL, House Captain.

Scout Notes.

When the last number of the Magazine was printing we were wishing the 38th Troop success in their effort to raise funds, which took place just at that time, Their Café Chantant, Concert and Dance were held on 8th December, with the usual enthusiasm and success, supplying the funds needed for the next four years. 'The organisers wish to thank all those who helped them, and, in particular, the ladies who managed the stalls and teatables, the gentlemen who gave their services at the concert, and the Janitor.

The Opening Ceremony was performed by Councillor George Williamson, with Mr. Andrew Ducat, chairman of the Troop Parents' Committee, in the chair, the Rector being unable, owing to illness, to preside as usual.

The Troop whose turn is next to hold a Café Chantant is the list, who are already making preparations. All Aberdeen has heard of the great Bazaar which was held in the Music Hall on 1 3 th and 16th February, and everyone knows how completely it attained its object. The four School Troops all helped to make it do so, by managing side-shows, by lending models for the Model Camp, by helping at the Model Camp, and by supplying large numbers of the lady relatives who are the most indispensable of all the elements that go to make a Bazaar successful. The School Troops also provided some of the cast of the play " Of One Blood," which was performed in the MacRobert Hall on 8th and 9th February, and three-quarters of the cast of the cinemapicture, " Maryculter Calling."

Besides the usual festivities this Christmas, a re-union of old members

158

Aberdeen Grammar School Magazine

was held on 26th December in the Douglas Hotel by the 9th Troop to celebrate the twenty-fifth anniversary of the founding of the Troop. This dinner was attended by about sixty former members of the Troop, representing almost every stage of its existence.

This winter all the Troops are well filled, and the aggregate number of scouts is larger than for several years. No statistics exist, but the number of scouts in the School is probably larger this winter than ever before ; for it must be remembered that there are scouts in the School who are members of other than the four School Troops. The ist Troop has created a new patrol, the Otters. A satisfactory number of Proficiency Badges has been gained in all the Troops, and three First-class Badges have been gained in the 9th Troop. P.L. Basil Brocks of the 1st Troop is to be congratulated on winning the Royal Humane Society's Award of Merit. In the 1st Troop the Court of Honour is being trained with a view to the Camper's Badge in the Summer Term. First and Second Class work, as well as handicrafts, are being studied, and the 1st Troop have been particularly fortunate in securing the services of Captain Watt as their instructor in signalling and knotting. Captain Watt, who is chairman of their Parents' Committee, has recently applied his knowledge of nautical tackle to the shifting of the old kitchen at Clinterty Hut some twenty feet away from its former position. The Hut is receiving a thorough re-fitting and extension, which will make it more than double its former size. It will be a serviceable and convenient place for short camps, such as week-end ones, even for quite large parties. The xst Troop are willing to lend it to other Troops for this purpose whenever they arc not in it themselves. Another good friend of the 1st Troop is Mr. W. W. M. Ross, once their Secretary and now Assistant District Commissioner for Inverness-shire. He paid them a visit in February and they hope he will repeat it soon. He will be a valuable friend to them when they hold their Summer Camp in his district next year. He intends also to write the history of the 1st Troop. The Scoutmaster would welcome any information which would add to or improve the records available.

Particularly, if any of the original or pre-war members of the zst Troop should happen to glance at this paragraph, the Scoutmaster would be deeply indebted to any such old member who would write to him, giving information about how the Troop started and what it used to do in its early years, as this is an obscure subject, and almost all those who could tell of it from first-hand evidence are dispersed and scattered to the corners of the earth, while of those who remain, the testimony is vague, conflicting, and unconvincing.

The 38th Troop have lost their Scoutmaster. Mr. Harold A. Nelson has had to resign owing to that old complaint, over-pressure of work. It is not known to the general public what a serious tax scoutmastery is upon the time of those who devote themselves to it—and not only on the time but also on the energy, physical and mental. We are all the more deeply indebted to those who give themselves to this form of service. Mr. Nelson came to the ;8th Troop the year before last and began at once by his energy and personality to infuse new life into it. He made a keen and efficient Troop of it, and he conducted one of the most enterprising and pleasant Summer Camps that have ever been held. He remained to pilot the Troop through the difficult business of a Café Chantant. He has thus set the Troop on its feet for the immediate future and handed it over in excellent condition to his successor. In his place A.S.M. James Donald takes, or rather resumes, the command of the 38th Troop with the good wishes of all.

At the time of writing Easter is only some four weeks ahead, so that thoughts are turning to camping once again. It is to be hoped that the weather will be kindly inclined this year, and that all those who begin their outdoor life for another year by camping in the Easter Holidays, may enjoy the life of Bedouin, not that of Eskimoes.

The only promotions reported are in the ist Troop: Second Douglas Reith to be Patrol Leader, and Scouts George Hay and Charles Grant to be Seconds.

Aberdeen Grammar School Magazine

1 59

The Literary and Debating Society. loth January, 1935.—On this date Mr. Fraser McBean gave a Lantern Lecture entitled " Camping in Scotland." He took his audience for a tour round Scotland, and expressed his opinion that there was no better country for camping. He also revived many pleasant memories by his slides depicting scenes at Scout camps. After having spent a most enjoyable evening, the Society showed its appreciation by giving the speaker three hearty cheers.

17th January.—There was quite a good turn-out to hear a debate on the subject, " That the Cinema is detrimental to Youth." Mr. Spark, for the affirmative, showed how the modem schoolboy's speech and actions are adversely affected by the cinema. Mr. Lobban, in an excellent paper, explained how the cinema was an outlet for our animal instincts, and added that he saw little harm in such expressions as " sez you." The after speaking was patchy and not up to the standard of previous debates. On a vote being taken, the negative was found to have won by a considerable majority.

24th January.—This evening the Society was given a Lantern Lecture

by Dr. Anderson, on the subject, " Bees." First he outlined the anatomy of a bee, and then went on to show how bees are carriers by which flowers are fertilised. By statistics he indicated how the output of honey is affected by the weather. Dr. Anderson finished by saying that honey was one of the most nourishing of foods.

1st February.—There was a fair attendance to hear a debate between Mr. A. S. Finnic and Mr. A. C. R. Watt on the subject " That we pay too highly for Modem Comforts." Mr. Watt, for the affirmative, pointed out the great loss of life caused by the motor car. He also dealt with the subject from a literal point of view. Mr. Finnic said that we had a much better time now than formerly, and the price paid was comparatively small. The after speaking was excellent. The vote resulted in a large majority for Mr. Finnic.

14th February.—On this night the inter-debate with the High School was held on the subject, " That individual effort is more successful than cooperative effort." Miss Beaton, for the affirmative, showed in a most able manner how all individual effort is the basis of co-operative effort. Mr. Meldrum endeavoured to prove that nothing is possible without co-operative effort. Mr. Rankine and Miss Bisset supported their respective leaders with great competence. The after speaking was good and well maintained. The vote revealed a large majority for the negative.

21st February.—To-night the Society welcomed a favourite lecturer, Bishop Deane, who gave a talk on " Latest Impressions of America." The Bishop commenced by giving a general description of the American people, during which he spoke very highly of the personality and ability of President Roosevelt. He compared crime in America with the froth which floats on top of a river, and hides the dear water. He admitted, however, that crime in America had become a most serious problem. He concluded by saying a few words on Hollywood and on American football.

28th February.—Mr. Farquharson addressed the Society this evening on " Inspired Nonsense." He kept his audience in ripples of laughter by his skilful rendering of Edward Lear's limericks. He then discussed Lewis Carrol, arid quoted some amusing extracts from " Alice in Wonderland."

Two poems of Gilbert's also provided great amusement. Mr. Farquharson finished by discussing cartoons and sketches, and showed the Society an ingenious sketch of Heath Robinson's.

7th March.—On this date Mr. Stewart addressed the Society on the subject of " Films." He showed that films provide an outlet for animal emotions and encourage the exercise of the imagination. He then discussed the technicalities of the talking picture and showed how scenic effects are produced. Film stars are merely puppets in the hands of directors, and thus we should note the director and not the star when we make our choice of film.

i 6o

Aberdeen Grammar School Magazine

The Former Pupils' Club.

Founded 1893.

President : Colonel H. J. KINGHORN, C.B. Vice-President and Chairman of Executive : WILLIAM DOUGLAS SIMPSON, M.A., D.Litt.

Secretary and Treasurer : THEODORE WArr, M.A., The Rosemount Press, Aberdeen.

Secretaries of Centres : London Centre—W. ALLAN LAING, 78 Corringway, Ealing, W.5 (Interim Secretary).

[The Centre comprises, without additional subscription, all Members of the Club resident in London, and within a radius of 5o miles.]

Glasgow Centre—H. G. EDWARDS, 43 Marlborough Ave., W. I. [The Centre comprises, without additional subscription, all Members of the Club resident in the South-Western Counties of Scotland—west of a line drawn from Stirling to Carlisle.]

Edinburgh Centre.—J. L. DUNCAN, LL.B., Ph.D., 3r Dundas Street, Edinburgh.

[The Centre comprises, without additional subscription, all Members of the Club resident in Scotland south of the Tay and east of a line drawn from Perth to Stirling, and from Stirling to Carlisle.]

Secretaries of Sections : Cricket Section—J. S. MACLACHLAN, 39 Belgrave Terrace.

Hockey Section—A. J. PETERS, 63 Forest Avenue.

Rugby Section—D. P. COCHRAN, 15o Union Street.

Tennis Section—IAN C. MARSHALL, 63 Beaconsfield Place.

Rates of Subscription for Membership : Life Membership . . . . . . L5 Ordinary Membership— For those under at years of age at commence.

0 ment of Club year (1st January) . o For those of 21 years of age and upwards

5

0

2 5

6 o

Visitors' Register.

For a number of years a Visitors' Register has been kept at the School, under the charge of the Rector's clerk. The idea is that Former Pupils, and particularly members of the F.P. Club, who are paying a visit to Aberdeen and renewing their acquaintance with the School, should sign the Register.

The Secretary of the F.P. Club will be pleased if members from a distance visiting Aberdeen will, in addition to signing the Register at the School, pay him a call at The Rosemount Press. He is always delighted to be brought into personal touch with F.P.s.

i67

Aberdeen Grammar School Magazine

The Annual Meeting of the Club.

The Annual General Meeting of the Club was held in the Palace Hotel, Aberdeen, on Wednesday, 13th March, 1935.

Dr. W. Douglas Simpson, the Vice-President, presided.

After the Minute of the last Annual General Meeting had been read and approved, the Report by the Executive and the Accounts and Treasurer's Report for the year ended 31st December, 1934, were submitted, as follows :— REPORT FOR THE YEAR 1934• The Executive has pleasure in submitting the Report for the Club year which ended on 31st December, 1934.

The President.

At the Annual General Meeting of the Club, held on 14th March, 1934, Mr. George Watson, London, was elected President for the year 1934-35. In view of the very practical support that he gave to the School Boarding House Scheme, it was singularly fitting that his services should be recognized in this way. He presided very acceptably at the Annual Dinner of the Club in Aberdeen, and also spoke at the Annual Dinner of the London Centre.

Membership and Subscriptions.

The following is an analysis of the membership of the Club :— Aberdeenshire and Kincardineshire London Centre Glasgow Centre Edinburgh Centre Rest of Great Britain and Ireland Abroad

Life.

ExtraOrdinary— Senior Junior. Honorary. ordinary.

40 —

276 5

11 2

1

--

17

597 178 49 53

85 202

141 158

18 5

3 —

610 600

1,176 1,143

315 357

16 15

40 38

Increase or Decrease + 10

+ 33

— 42

+ 1

+2

Total at 31/12/34 Total at 31/12/33

205 92 9

_ -

10

Total.

1,129 277 59 80 247 365 2,157 2,153 +4 =

From these figures it will be seen that there have been increases of to Life, 33 Senior Ordinary, x Honorary, and a Extra-ordinary Members, and a decrease of 4z Junior Ordinary Members, so that the total membership shows a net increase of 4. It is exactly the same as it was two years ago. In view of

162

Aberdeen Grammar School Magazine

the fact that no special steps have been taken during the year to augment the membership, it is satisfactory that the total has been fully maintained. In 1934, 16 new Life Members, i 2 new Senior Ordinary Members, and 58 new Junior Ordinary Members —a combined total of 86—were enrolled. This total, however, did little more than compensate for the losses by death, by resignation, and by lapsing of membership.

One noticeable feature is the rather large decrease in the number of Junior Members. This is accounted for by the fact that 25 fewer were enrolled in 1934 than in 1933, and also by the fact that in 1934 an unusually large number were automatically transferred from Junior Membership to Senior Membership on attaining the age of 21. At present the " reservoir" of Junior Members which feeds the Senior Membership is not up to the normal level.

It is always of interest to record the enrolment of new members from the boys who have recently left the School.

There were 96 over fifteen years of age who ceased to be pupils either during or at the end of the session 1933-34, and of these, 53 have already joined the Club. These numbers compare with 43 out of 89 for the session 1932-33. In 1933, however, more young F.P.s joined in the second and third years after their leaving the School than was the case in 1934.

The number of members whose subscriptions for 1934 had not been received up to 31st January, 1935, was 62 (being 4.1 per cent. of the Ordinary Membership), comprising 5z who were due 5s. and io who were due zs. 6d., and the total amount of subscriptions for 1934 outstanding at that date was f14 5s.

The corresponding numbers for 1933 were 51 and 5 respectively, and the amount of their subscriptions, £13 7s. 6d.

Losses by Death.

The number of members who died during 1934 was abnormally large—indeed, it is the highest on record for any one year, viz., 31. Among those who passed away were the two oldest members of the Club—Rev. Principal John Hector, D.D., who was born in 1845, and Professor Alexander Falconer Murison, LL.D., who was born in 1847—and other octogenarians were Dr. Alexander Craigmile, Llanbedr, Conway, North Wales ; Rev. William Robinson Pirie, D.D., late of Nairn ; Mr. James Stewart, Laurencekirk ; and Mr. George Gordon Whyte, C.A., Aberdeen. Mention must also be made of Dr. Arthur Andrew Morrison, C.M.G., who spent more than fifty years in medical practice in Alexandria, Egypt; Mr. Robert Gordon Nicol, C.E., who was President of the F.P. Club in 1912-13 ; and Mr. G. W. S. Walker, advocate, Aberdeen, who was Secretary of the Club in its early days.

Aberdeen Grammar School Magazine

163

Honours to F.P.s.

The outstanding honour received by an F.P. during the year was the Peerage conferred on a past President of the Club— the Right Hon. Lord Alness, formerly Lord Justice-Clerk and President of the Second Division, Court of Session. As a member of the House of Lords he has joined Lord Meston, who was made a Peer in 1919. On the King's Birthday, also, Professor Robert Scott Troup, F.R.S., was made a Companion of the Order of St. Michael and St. George (C.M.G.), and Mr. Robert Niven Gilchrist a Companion of the Order of the Indian Empire (C.I.E.). In the New Year's Day Honours List, Colonel Henry J. Kinghorn was created a Companion of the Order of the Bath (C.B.).

The " Magazine."

No effort has been spared to make the Magazine as interesting as possible to its very wide circle of readers. In particular, the space devoted to " Notes about Old Boys " has been extended, there being upwards of sac) such Notes in the three issues of the year. In order that the record of the doings of F.P.s may be as complete as possible, it cannot be too well known that the Editor welcomes information from every possible source.

The Club and the School.

The Club continues to have direct representation on the Secondary Schools Management Committee of the Aberdeen Town Council. During the year Mr. James Patterson, advocate, succeeded Dr. W. Douglas Simpson, who resigned from the position of Club representative after a number of years' service.

There are five other members of the Club on the Management Committee.

The Club, as usual, presented to the School two Silver Medals, which were awarded at the close of the session 1933-34, as follows :-Silver Medal for English ... Alfred W. C. Lobban.

Silver Medal for German ... Alexander R. Taylor.

The All-Round Trophy and No Dawson Prize were awarded to Alexander R. Taylor.

The Executive, on behalf of the Club, has recently decided to present annually to the School a third Silver Medal, to be awarded to the best pupil in Spanish. Last year, for the first time, the Executive made a substantial contribution to the School Sports Prize Fund.

During the year the School received two benefactions associated with members of the Club. In memory of Mr. G. K. Fleming, who was Dux of the School in 1871, a handsome platform table for the Hall, with a set of three ceremonial chairs,

164

Aberdeen Grammar School MagaVne

was presented by his sisters ; and at the close of the year it was announced that the late Mr. G. G. Whyte, C.A., had bequeathed Lioo for the foundation of a bursary in mathematics.

Members of the Club will have learned with deep regret of the death in February of Miss Edith Davidson, who held the post of Preparatory Mistress for over i7 years. Another member of the School staff died during the year, Mr. T. W. Himsworth, M.A., who came as a teacher of French in 1927, and resigned in May of last year owing to ill-health.

Two members of the staff retired at the close of last session —Mr. Alexander Speirs, M.A., B.Sc., who had been in the Mathematics and Science Department from 1900 ; and Mr. John Mackenzie Forbes, M.A., who had been an assistant, chiefly in Classics, from 1913.

Members of the Club will give a warm welcome to five new members of the Staff—Mr. A. G. Baxter, Mr. William Christie, Mr. William Cunningham, Mr. N. S. Mackenzie, and Mr. J. I. W. Milne.

The School Boarding House.

More than one important development in connection with the Boarding House has taken place during the past year. The large extension mentioned in the last Annual Report was brought into use at the commencement of the present School session, and the House is now capable of accommodating about 5o boarders. On 16th November, 1934, on the invitation of the Directors of the Boarding House Company, a large number of parents of pupils, shareholders, members of the School staff, and others specially interested in the School, visited the Boarding House and inspected the recent alterations and improvements.

The occasion was honoured by the presence of the Lord Provost and of Mr. George Watson, President of the Club. Another notable feature of the year has been the acquisition for the use of the Boarders of tennis courts and a recreation ground at the rear of the House.

The Report submitted to the Sixth Annual General Meeting of the Boarding House Company stated that in view of the additional ordinary expenditure which had had to be incurred owing to the work on the alterations being in progress during the year, the Directors regarded the financial results of the year's working as being eminently satisfactory. After allowing for depreciation, a dividend of 5 per cent. was declared, and the Club received, after deduction of Income Tax, the sum of L61 is. 5d. in respect of its holding of 1,576 shares.

Club Gatherings.

The Annual Dinner held on i7th November, with the President in the Chair, was thoroughly enjoyed by the company,

Mr. GEORGE GORDON WHYTE.

Aberdeen Grammar School Magazine

565

which unfortunately was not quite so large as usual, owing to there being another similar function on the same evening.

The Annual Ball was held on Christmas Eve and was attended by a company of about 220. A welcome feature was the presence of a large number of members of the Club who had come home for Christmas.

It is very satisfactory that the Ball maintains its popularity as one of the outstanding Christmas festivities.

It will be seen from the accompanying abstract of the Club's Accounts that there were substantial credit balances from both the Dinner and the Ball.

Club Centres.

The three Centres of the Club, in London, Glasgow, and Edinburgh, have continued their activities on the usual lines.

Each has held a Formal Dinner and various less formal meetings.

The London Centre regrets the resignation of Mr. D. M. Wright as Honorary Secretary, which followed his promotion to an important position in Glasgow. The duties of Secretary were temporarily undertaken at short notice by Mr. W. Allan Laing.

It should be recorded that the informal Branch of the Club in Shanghai holds an Annual Dinner. At the last one, held in February, 1934, there was a record attendance of 14 out of a possible of 17. There are no more devoted members of the Club than the F.P.s in Shanghai.

Club Sections.

The activities of the various Athletic Sections have been regularly reported in the Magazine, and nothing need be added here. The efforts recently made to revive the Dramatic Section were only partially successful, and in the meantime its activities have again been suspended.

Finances.

The Revenue and Expenditure Account for the year to 3I st December, 1934, shows a surplus of £39 18s. 5i, as compared with a surplus of £tr 3s. 6d. for 1933. The increase in the surplus is due to a reduction in the net cost of the Magazine and to an increase in the credit balances from the Annual Dinner and the Annual Ball. The surplus was arrived at after writing off the sum of £16 9s. 6d., being the balance of the amount advanced from Club funds to the Dramatic Section. The total amount paid in Capitation Grant to the three Centres of the Club was £49 17s. 6d., as compared with £51 7s. 6d. in 5933. The capital of the Club now amounts to £2,736 as. 3i, which is £124 6s. aid. more than at the close of the previous year. The total assets of the Club at 31st December, 1934, amounted to £2,916 as. 5id., as compared with £2,783 zs. 3d. at 31st (Continued on p. 168.)

ABERDEEN GRAMMAR SCHOOL Abstract of Revenue and Expenditure Accoun REVENUE. I. CAPITAL ACCOUNT-

..

£84

7 9

Subscriptions received during year applicable to future years

102

7

Life Members' Subscriptions received during year II.

ORDINARY SUBSCRIPTIONS PAID IN ADVANCE--

III. APPLICABLE TO YEAR 1934— Ordinary Subscriptions received prior to 1st Jan. ..

1934 (transferred from Capital Account) ..

Ordinary Subscriptions received during 1934 Arrears recovered in 1934 Revenue from Investments Credit balances from Dinner and Ball

.. ..

£91 222 4

6

6 6 0

7 2 5

£317 15 0 102 15 Ft 21 4 10 441 15 9

£628 II

0

Balance Sheet a CAPITAL AND LIABILITIES. I. (

APITAL-

.. £2.611 16 1 Amount at credit at 31st December 1933 84 7 9 Life Members' Subscriptions received during 1934 39 18 5I ..

Account Surplus for 1934, as per Revenue £2,736

2

V,

0

0

155 12

t

4

3

E

6

0 1:

II. ENTERTAINMENTS SUSPENSE ACCOUNT—

15

Amount at credit as per last Balance Sheet III. ORDINARY SUBSCRIPTIONS PAID IN ADVANCE-

Balance of Subscriptions received prior to 31st December 1933, applicable to future years ..

Subscriptions received in 1934 applicable to future ..

•.

•• years ..

•• IV.

£53

5

0

102

7

6

FUNDS OF CLUB SECTIONS IN SUSPENSE—

Motor Section

•

•.

•

V. SCHOOL SPORTS PRIZE FUND—

Balance in hand

..

• •

.

•

£2.916 18

ORMER PUPILS' CLUB. ,r year ended 31st December 1934.

EXPENDITURE. I. CAPITAL ACCOUNT—

Amount as per contra transferred

..

••

•.

•.

£84

7

9

.•

••

102

7

6

441 15

9

£628 II

0

•

£30

3

5

••

25 0

0

0

0

0

2,861 15

Of

£2,916 18

4

II. ORDINARY SUBSCRIPTIONS PAID IN ADVANCE—

Amount as per contra transferred to Balance Sheet 1934— .. .. .. ..

Working Expenses ..

Magazine—Cost for year, less revenue from adver.. .. .. .. tisements and sales London Centre—Grant for 1933-34 .. .. do.

Glasgow Centre— do. .. do.

Edinburgh Centre—do. .. .. ..

Miscellaneous Expenses ..

II. APPLICABLE. TO YEAR

£109

3

7

200 7 11 33 7 6 7 0 0 9 10 0 25 15 If 1385 7 9f 16 9 6 39 18 51

Advance to Dramatic Section written off Surplus for year ..

t 31st December 1934.

ASSETS. I. " MAGAZINE " II.

EXPENSES PAID IN ADVANCE

•.

•

•

•

LONDON CENTRE-

Amount paid to account of Capitation Grant for 1934-35 II. DRAMATIC SECTION—

Amount advanced to Dramatic Section as at ..

31st December, 1933 .. .

Less refunded in 1934 Less written off per Revenue and Expenditure ..

Account

£20 0 3 10

0 6

£16

9

6

16

9

6

IV. CASH IN HAND AND INVESTED FUNDS AT 31ST DI.CFMBER 1934 ..

ABERDEEN, 6111 March, 1935.—We have examined the foregoing evenue and Expenditure Account for the year ended 31st Decemtr 1934, and relative Balance Sheet as at 31st December 1934, impared the figures with the vouchers, and found the Accounts irrect. We are of opinion that the above Balance Sheet correctly ates the position of the Club as at 31st December 1934. We we had exhibited to us the various Securities supporting the Funds the close of the Accounts. The Securities are all entered in the alance Sheet at cost prices.

BOWER & SMITH, C.A., (Signed) Honorary Auditors.

168

Aberdeen Grammar School Magazine

December, 1933. It should be mentioned that the present market value of the Club's investments exceeds by a considerable amount the book value.

On the motion of the Chairman, seconded by Mr. G. G. Nicol, the foregoing Report and Accounts were unanimously adopted.

Office-bearers and members of the Executive for 1935-36 were appointed in accordance with the list which appears on page i8o.

Messrs. Bower & Smith, C.A., were re-appointed Honorary Auditors, and were thanked for their services during the past year.

The meeting ended with a vote of thanks to the VicePresident for presiding.

The Glasgow Centre.

The Annual Dinner.

The Fifth Annual Dinner of the Glasgow Centre of the Club was held in the Grosvenor Restuarant on Friday, ant December, 1934. The President of the Centre, Mr. Launcelot H. Ross, M.C., F.R.I.B.A., was in the Chair, and the chief guests were Mr. D. M. Andrew, Rector of the School, and Professor James C. Philip, O.B.E., D.Sc., F.R.S., of the Imperial College of Science, one of the Honorary Vice-Presidents of the Club.

The following members of the Centre were present :— W. M. Anderson, M.A., Troon ; Henry G. Edwards, Honorary Secretary of the Glasgow Centre ; Stanley Hurry ; George Lawrence ; James Ledingham ; R. J. Maitland ; Dr. Keith R. T. Matthew ; H. T. Nicol Sands ; G. A. Murray Saunders ; David E. Sharp, B.Sc. ; Patrick C. B. Simpson ; William E. F. Simpson, B.Sc. ; J. C. Spark ; Rev. Sydney C. Still, M.A. ; R. D. Strachan, M.A., Dairy ; J. Murray Tomory ; H. L. Watson, B.Sc. ; Dr. J. Thomson West ; and D. M. Wright. There were also present James L. Duncan, LL.B., Ph.D., Honorary Secretary of the Edinburgh Centre ; and Theodore Watt, M.A., the Secretary of the F.P. Club.

The Chairman, in introducing the Rev. John Maclagan, Merrylea Parish Church, Glasgow, who proposed " The School and the Club,' said that although their Centre was only in its fifth year, they had almost so per cent. of their members present, which he believed was a record, not only for any Centre but for the Club. (Applause.) It was very fitting that Mr. Maclagan should propose the toast, for he had been an assistant minister at Ferryhill Parish Church, and was then minister at Kintore. During the War he had been a gunner in an Aberdeen battery.

Mr. Maclagan said he knew a good deal about Aberdeen, and what he knew he liked. He began as a student missionary in the delectable neighbourhood of West North Street (laughter)—under the Rev. Dr. Gordon Murray. After he had been licensed, he spent eighteen months as assistant to the Rev. Dr. Wright at Ferryhill North. During that time he had met the President's father, who was a useful elder of the church. He then went to St. Giles' Cathedral, and thence to Kintore. There he learned to appreciate Aberdonians. During his induction at Kintore a wasp seemed to be attracted by his hair-cream, and he had to wave it away with his hand. He learned afterwards that many persons had taken this action for some of the " High Church tricks of St. Giles." (Laughter.) Unable to become a chaplain in the War, he had joined " Taggart's Own," an association of

Aberdeen Grammar School F.P. Club Boarding House Co., Ltd. GRAMMAR

SCHOOL

HOUSE,

8 QUEEN'S ROAD, ABERDEEN The Directors announce that considerable improvements and extensions made to the House during the past year are now in full use.

The House is fitted with the most modern appliances, and the new accommodation includes large common room, light and airy dormitories, and ample lavatories and bathrooms.

The Company have their own Hard Tennis Courts (3) and a large Playground adjacent to the House.

The House can now accommodate from 45 to 50 Boarders and there are still some vacancies Fees, €90 per annum exclusive of School Fees.

House Master Mr. J. S. M. EDDISON, M.A.

Matron— Miss C. M. R. MAVOR.

Assistant House Master— Mr. A. J. M. EDWARDS, M.A., B.Com. For Application Forms and further particulars apply Secretary, Mr. JAMES C. DUFFUS, Advocate, 7 Golden Square, Aberdeen

to

the

LEDINGHAM 'S

Scotch Shortbread and Oatcakes

470 UNION STREET Tel. No. 2544 (2 Lines)

60 ROSEMOUNT PLACE

ABERDEEN APPOINTED OFFICIAL OUTFITTER TO THE F. P. CLUB, LONDON CENTRE

/ ,4s 14. 40/

All kinds of Garments for MORNING and EVENING WEAR, LIVERIES, UNIFORMS, Etc., at REASONABLE PRICES ::

HENRY J. HARDY Tailor 18 CONDUIT STREET REGENT STREET

LONDON, W. 1 Tel.—Mayfair 1509

Aberdeen Grammar School Magazine

169

which he was proud, for it had drawn together the finest type of manhood of Aberdeen city and county. (Applause.)

In referring to the traditions of a school which was older than Eton or Winchester, Mr. Maclagan said that in those days the trend of modern education was to flatten everything out to a dull level. It seemed a treconform mendous pity to try to make a school such as the Grammar School pupils to to what was called " modern requirements." They did not want a be turned out to a pattern like spiked railings. What was wanted itwas was sense of breadth, and even if some did happen to get off the path,Scottish worth taking a certain element of risk to cultivate the sense of out individuality and personality. The system of the past had turned be marvellous men, and for that reason it was not a system which should it might be. thrown overboard for any other system, no matter how modernPhilip, of the He coupled with the toast the names of Professor James C. Imperial College of Science, South Kensington, and Mr. D. M. Andrew, Rector of the School.

Professor Philip, who is a brother of Mr. John Bentley Philip (formerly of the School staff), in reply, also spoke of the disadvantage of levelling education. From his own experience of men leaving the University to find for was jobs, he found that it was commonly said that what was looked while others 6o per cent. technical competence and 4o per cent. personality,doing its job would reverse the order. No educational institution was not necesunless it gave the opportunity to the men who had personality, sarily first-class ability, and who were fitted to be leaders in whatever positions they might find themselves later. to the The Rector referred to the prowess of the School Rugby XV. andside of attention that was being paid to dramatic expression and the musicaluniform a School life. Touching on the subject of the tendency to providemovement, stereotyped curriculum, Mr. Andrew said he also deprecated the thing he for it tended to leave no part for individuality and initiative. OneGrammar had noticed, however, as a difference between the boys of the vigour, School and the boys of the West of Scotland, was the physical adaptability and originality of the former, and it was these features that carried them to the front. (Applause.) " The Guests " was proposed by the Rev. Sydney C. Still, and replied to by Mr. Matthew Wyllie. social In addition to the Annual Dinner, the Centre has held two otherBridge functions during the winter. At the first of these, a Progressive evening, held on 3oth November, 1934, the numbers present were unusually large, and the evening was the most successful and enjoyable of its kind the Centre has yet held.

As the result of a suggestion made by some of the younger members at the Annual General Meeting of the Centre, the Committee arranged a dance in the New Locamo on xst February, 1935. The attendance was quite that very satisfactory, and an enjoyable evening resulted, but it was noticeableabsence of few of the younger members of the Centre were present. In the any evidence of enthusiasm amongst those members for whom suchthea function was designed, the Committee is not encouraged to repeat experiment.

F.P.s coming to the Glasgow area are invited to communicate with the Hon. Secretary of the Centre, Henry G. Edwards, 43 Marlborough Avenue, Glasgow, W.I.

The Edinburgh Centre.

The Annual Dinner.

The Fourth Annual Dinner of the Centre was held in the Balmoral Restaurant, Princes Street, on Friday, 15th February, 1935. The President of the Centre, the Honourable Lord Mackay, LL.D., was in the Chair, and

170

Aberdeen Grammar School Magatine

the chief guests were Mr. D. M. Andrew, Rector of the School, and Dr. Charles McLeod, formerly head of the Mathematics and Science Department of the School.

The following members of the Centre were present :— Rev. George Lawson, D.D., Vice-President of the Centre ; Arthur J. Adams ; E. Ros Birkett; George D. Bisset ; Wm. G. R. Bodie ; George C. Brander; J. R. Wardlaw Bumet, K.C. ; E. Wyllie Fenton ; Very Rev. James Harvey, D.D.; John A. Lillie, K.C.; Robert A. Lillie, Ph.D.; Ranald R. Macdonald, M.A.. B.Sc. ; James Monro, C.A. ; Rev. J. G. Sutherland, D.D. ; J. McDonald Walker, D.F.C. ; and James L. Duncan, LL.B., Ph.D., Honorary Secretary of the Centre. There were also present Launcelot H. Ross, M.C., F.R.I.B.A., representing the Glasgow Centre, and Theodore Watt, M.A., the Secretary of the F.P. Club.

Lord Mackay proposed " The Guests," a toast with which the names of Mr. D. M. Andrew and Dr. Charles McLeod were coupled. From what he knew, remarked Lord Mackay, he would say that the present head of the Grammar was by no means inferior in the standard he had set and in the way he had worked for the School to the other great men they knew. He recalled that he was in his last year at the Grammar when Dr. McLeod came to the School.

Replying, Mr. Andrew spoke first of the importance of athletics at the Grammar School. There had been a steady improvement, he said, in the standard of Rugby during the past fifteen years, and it was an improvement which dated from the time when games were properly organized. He had done nothing to stem the tide of progress in athletics. He was a wholehearted believer in the value of games, and particularly Rugby, in the training of boys. The Rector also spoke of the School Boarding House, and said the F.P. Club had never done a finer thing for the School than starting the Boarding House, which had been an unqualified success.

Dr. McLeod was in reminiscent mood, when replying. He said the memory of the first class he taught when he went to the School would ever be with him. In it, in addition to Lord Mackay, were Jimmy Moir—a great scientist in South Africa while he lived ; Professor Alexander Findlay, and Lord Provost Alexander. He had a great love for the Grammar School and its activities, which would remain with him all his days.

Mr. James Monro proposed " The School and the Club," and in doing so, spoke of the School as a Grammar boy who had been happy in his studies and his games. The Club, he said, was a valuable instrument in knitting the Old Boys together.

Mr. Theodore Watt, replying, 'dealt? mainly 'with the School benefactions. A full report of his speech appears on pp. 125-128.

Mr. J. L. Duncan proposed " The Chairman," and a delightfully informal evening concluded with the singing of "Auld Lang Syne."

F.P. Cricket Section.

The following members have been elected as officials for the coming season :—Captain, J. A. Innes ; Vice-Captain, J. A. Donald ; Hon. Secretary, J. S. MacLachlan, 39 Belgrave Terrace.

The ist X1 is entered again in Grade I of the Aberdeenshire Cricket Association, and the znd XI in the new Alliance Grade. Promotion and relegation are to take effect in the three Grades at the end of this season.

It is to be hoped that all cricket-playing F.P.s, especially those newly left School, will tally round and join this Section.

In addition to the two Saturday XIs there will be evening games every week during the season, and there will be plenty of scope for all who join.

Practice nights arc to be on Mondays and Thursdays, at Rubislaw, commencing on Monday, i5th April, at 6.45 p.m.

New members are asked to communicate with the Secretary before that

date.

1-r 172 , ,

ROYAL

EXCHANGE

ASSURANCE ALL

CLASSES

BUSINESS

OF

INSURANCE

TRANSACTED

Special Features FIRE.-HOUSEHOLDERS'

COMPREHENSIVE

POLICIES.

CONSEQUENTIAL LASS. LIFE.-LIBERAL TERMS FOR LIVES RESIDENT ABROAD. REBATES OF EXTRA PREMIUMS DURING PERIODS AT HOME. ACCIDENT.-ATTRACTIVE

PERSONAL ACCIDENT AND

SICKNESS POLICIES.

For Full Particulars Apply to

ABERDEEN OFFICE 150 UNION STREET Local Manager: Douglas P. Cochran

TOTAL FUNDS EXCEED

-

- £18,000,000

TOTAL CLAIMS PAID EXCEED - £89,000,000

Ladies and Gentlemen—

Here is a SERVICE that is well worth a TRIAL Whenever your clothes become faded or soiled to the least degree, send them to the finest dyeing and cleaning service in the North. They will be treated by the best and most up-todate processes, assuring you of excellent results.

The charges are really moderate, especi.tily in view of the care taken to keep your clothes in shape and the treatment they go through to make them like new again. If you have not already made use of this fine service, there is a surprise in store for you when you do. Ask for a price list, and send anything you have for dyeing and cleaning to Huntly, NOW—and always.

ABERDEEN BRANCH

434, UNION STREET CLOSES EARLY ON

HUNTLY

SATURDAY

Aberdeen Grammar School Magazine

171

F.P. Rugby Section.

As will be observed from the undernoted tables of results, this season, so far as the ist XV is concerned, has been somewhat mediocre. After Christmas, just when the team was getting into its stride, it lost the services, through injuries, of one or two of its more experienced members, thus weakening what was shaping to be one of the strongest sides fielded for several seasons. Although beaten by 1 1 points to nil by Watsonians upon their first visit to Aberdeen within recent years, the side displayed great form, particularly at forward. Watsonians have seldom been beaten this season, and are considered to be one of the strongest teams in Scotland.

In the St. Andrews University game at Rubislaw, the score was also 11-o in favour of the visitors, F.P.s being a shade unfortunate to be the losers by such a large margin. The best game of the season, however, was the last one, when F.P.s put up a great opposition to Cambridge Vandals. F.P.s were leading right up to within the last ten minutes, and it was only a desperate closing rally that robbed F.P.s of victory•.

In the first round of the Cup Tie they lost to a better team on the day's • play, namely, 'Varsity, who more readily adapted themselves to the bad weather conditions.

The znd XV have had a very good season, their best display, perhaps, being against Aberdeeen Wanderers. On this occasion they were beaten by to points to 5.

The 3rd XV's record shows a vast improvement on that of the previous season. This is mainly due to the enthusiastic manner in which several of the members have fostered the team.

The results of games for the season arc as follows :—Ist XV : won 9, lost to, drawn t ; znd XV : won 13, lost 4, drawn 2 ; 3rd XV : won 9, lost a, drawn z.

Further representations in Trials, etc., since those recorded in the November 1934 Magazine are :15th December.—Scotland v. The Rest Trial, at Melrose—a reserve, J. I. Morrice.

1 zth January.—Scotland v. The Rest Final Trial, at NIurrayfield— a reserve, J. I. Mortice.

25th December.—Aberdeen Select v. Exiles, at Rubislaw—R. W. Bain, G. W. Bowes, J. A. Innes, L. Middleton.

5th January.—Aberdeen Select v. G. W. Mackie's XV, at St. Machar— R. D. Bain, G. W. Bowes, E. K. Cruickshank, J. A. Innes, and J. I. Morrice (injured and unable to play).

Colours for season 1934-35 have been awarded as follows :—Full: R. D. Bain, G. W. Bowes, E. K. Cruickshank, J. A. lnries, J. S. MacLachlan, L. Middleton, J. I. Morrice, A. N. Smith, I. L. Smith, J. B. Thomson, T. II. Russell.

E. W. M. Watt. Half : D. G. Dempster, G. A. Rowton, The following is an account by one of the and XV of their experiences on 15th December against Strathmore, at Laurencekirk :— PIONEERING IN LAURENCEKLRK. On 15th December, 1934, the members of the znd XV might have been seen to leave Aberdeen in various cars. Their faces wore serious expressions, for were they not pioneers of the great game of Rugby, bound for Laurencekirk, there to initiate the natives into the finer points of a code hitherto unknown? The weather was of the kind generally connected with the arduous task of pioneering, rain poured from a leaden sky and the further outlook was quite definitely unsettled.

We were to be the guests of Mr. John Mackie, Captain of the Strathmore Club, who, in his abundant enthusiasm for the game, had constructed a pitch on his own farm and who, although all matches in Aberdeen were off, had cheerfully instructed us to come along and hack it up.

This we duly did, lustily encouraged by a good representation of the

Aberdeen Grammar School Magazine

171

natives of Laurencekirk. The surroundings were completely novel and hence wholly delightful. The larger domestic animals, peaceful denizens of the countryside, were all around, whilst in their midst a titanic struggle went on. The pitch was laid out with great precision. There was even covered accommodation for the spectators (take heed, 0 Rubislawl) and an abundance of natural terracing. The spectators did not know much about the game, neither did they care. Their one desire was to see their idol, " Jock," score a try. They took some time to get used to the game, one even falling off the fence as the ball flew thirty feet over his head. Comments were frequent: they varied from exclamations of surprise as a scrum collapsed to one wholehearted exhortation to—Shoot I Mud was everywhere—thick and clayey it stuck to all the players impartially, to the never-ceasing delight of the onlookers.

The game ended in a draw of three points all, and we then retired to the farm house, where we bathed most satisfactorily in large wooden tubs, recalling the days of our childhood. Reclothed, we descended to what can only be called a sumptuous repast, after which our captain thanked Mr. Mackie, and in even greater degree Mrs. Mackie, for all they had done . to make the fixture not only a game, but a social event. As our local newspaper aptly said, " No finer example of love of the game for its own sake could be found."

Late that night, four cars might have been seen to re-enter Aberdeen.

Gone were the serious expressions from the faces of the occupants. They had decided that pioneering was " a good thing," and that the game at Laurencekirk should be made an annual fixture.

Results since issue of last " Magazine." tat XV. 1934.

Nov. 24. v. Aberdeenshire, at Rubislaw . .

Dec. t. v. Watsonians, at Rubislaw . . . .

8. v. Gordonians, at Rubislaw . . . .

22, v. Aberdeen Wanderers, at Rubislaw . .

• ,s „ 29. v. Gordonians, at Seafield . . . . .

5935.

Jan. 12. v. Aberdeen University, at King's • . .

Panmure, at Dundee . . . . . „ 26. v. Aberdeen University (Cup-Tie, 1st Round) at Rubislaw . .

• . . . .

Feb. 2. v. Dundee H.S.F.P., at Dundee . . .

• „ 16. v. Moray, at Elgin . . . . .

• „ 23. v. Allan Glen's School F.P., at Rubislaw . .

Mar. 2. v. Aberdeen Wanderers, at Rubislaw . . .

9. v. St. Andrews University, at Rubislaw . „ 23. v. Cambridge Vandals, at Rubislaw . .

• PI

"

19.

v.

P,

1 934.

Nov. 24.

Dec. 8. ,. 15. „ 22.

1 935.

Jan. 12. „ 19. z6.

Feb. 23.

Mar. 2.

9.

16.

Pf

"

2nd XV. v. ist School, at Rubislaw . . v. Moray, at Rubislaw . . v. Strathmore, at Laurencekirk . v. and Gordonians, at Seafield .

Won 20- 7 Lost o -tl Won 16- 3 Won 22- 0 Lost 11-14 Lost 6 -15 Lost 8 -15 Lost o - 6 Lost 3 -16 Won 2 x- o Won 13- 5 Won 19-11 Lost o -11 Lost 5 - 8

. . . .

. . . .

. Draw 3 - 3 . Lost 3 -13 . Draw 3 - 3 • Won 15- o

v. and Aberdeen University, at King's v. znd Panmure, at Rubislaw . . v. ist Gordon's College, at Rubislaw v. 1st Aberdeen Wanderers, at Hazlehead v. 1st School, at Rubislaw .

• v. and Gordonians, at Seafield . v. and Aberdeenshire, at Rubislaw .

. . . .

• • . . . .

•

.

.

.

Lost 3 - 6 Won 37- 3 Won 'a- o Lost 5 -to Won 19- 3 Won 6 - 3 Won 25- 5

PALACE HOTEL ABERDEEN The Premier Hotel in Aberdeen

The Palace Hotel is the recognised rendezvous in the City for Private Luncheons, Dinners, Weddings, Dances, etc., to which special attention is given.

WELL APPOINTED RESTAURANT LOUNGES AND GRILL ROOM (with popular Orchestra)

OPEN TO NON-RESIDENTS TELE►NONE ,

TELEGRAMS :

PALATIAL. ABERDEEN."

FOR TERMS APPL Y TO MANAGER

2920.

Always insist on—

FLOCKHARTS' AERATED WATERS Address—Craibstone Lane, Aberdeen.

Telephone 873.

ABERDEEN'S leading Firm for every description of High-Class Stationery EXTENSIVE STOCKS KEPT OF ALL RECOGNISED STANDARD MAKES OF FOUNTAIN PENS, INCLUDING PRESENTATION SETS

Unequalled Value and Service in all Departments STATIONERY,

BOOKS,

PERIODICALS

A. & R. MILNE 229

UNION STREET, ABERDEEN

_Aberdeen Grammar School Magaine 3rd XV. 1 934.

Nov. 24. v. znd Aberdeenshire, at St. Machar .

Dec. 8. v. and Gordon's College, at Seafield • 22. r. 3rd Aberdeenshire, at Rubislaw .

1935.

Jan. t z. r. znd School, at Rubislaw . .

19. r. znd Aberdeen Wanderers, at Rubislaw Feb. 23. v. Strathmore, at Rubislaw . .

Mar. 2. P. 3rd Aberdeen University, at King's .

• • •

•

•

173 • • •

Won 5 Won 33- o Won 8 - 5

. Won 36- o . Lost 8 -1 t . Won 1 5- 6 . Draw o - o D. P. C.

1st XV Matches.

24th November, 1934.—v. Aberdeenshire, at Rubislaw. F.P.s :— E. H. Still ; J. B. Thomson, J. A. Irmes, T. F. Robson, I. L. Smith ; G. W. Bowes and E. K. Cruickshank ; R. D. Bain, J. S. MacLachlan, L. Middleton, G. A. Rowton, A. Nicol Smith, E. W. M. Watt, J. G. Bisset, D. G. Dempster.

F.P.s kicked off against the slope and facing a bright sun. 'Shire pressed at the commencement, but after a fine run by F.P. backs, the play was taken up-field, the pressure being relieved by the 'Shire full back. A breakaway

by Robson and a well-timed pass enabled Innes to beat the defence for a good try at the corner. He kicked a great goal. After a scrummage in the 'Shire " 25," Innes picked up and dropped a clever goal. From a long pass

by Innes, which was missed by the winger, 'Shire's winger picked up to run hard before passing to his inside man, who went over for a good try. The kick at goal just failed. Before half-time, first Thomson and then Robson were nearly through, but the 'Shire defence prevailed. Half-time 9 points ; Aberdeenshire, 3 points.

From a 'Shire forward rush, their stand-off dropped a good goal. Following this, F.P.s improved greatly, their forwards now definitely coming on top and giving the backs a good supply of the ball. Thomson got possession and ran with fine determination to score at the corner. Watt failed with the difficult kick at goal. It was now all F.P.s' game, but over-eagerness spoiled several chances of scoring. From a scrum on the 'Shire line Cruickshank picked up and dived over for a well-earned try, which Innes converted with a lovely kick. Soon afterwards a good run by F.P. backs saw Thomson again go hard for the line. He just forced his way over at the corner. Inns failed narrowly with the kick at goal. Thomson was twice held up just at the corner. The 'Shire defence -held out to the end. Result :—F.P.s, 20 points (z placed goals, I dropped goal, 2 tries) ; Aberdeenshire, 7 points (t dropped goal, t try).

1st December.—v. Watsonians, at Rubislaw. F.P.s :—E. H. Still; J. B. Thomson, J. A. Innes, T. F. Robson, I. L. Smith ; G. W. Bowes and E. K. Cruickshank ; J. I. Morrice, L. Middleton, A. Nicol Smith, J. T. Riach, G. A. Rowton, R. D. Bain, J. G. Bisset, J. S. MacLachlan.

Innes kicked off uphill for F.P.s on a sodden ground. From a penalty for feet-up, F.P.s reached Watsonians' " 25 " with a fine three-quarter run.

They were, however, repelled and Smith was forced to go into touch in his own half to avoid a tackle. A great dribble by Morrice took F.P.s well upfield again, and from a penalty Cruickshank found touch in the opponents' " 25." From the line-out, however, Watsonians got possession and dribbled over F.P.s line, but Still got the touch down. Watsonians maintained their attack, but Rowton relieved with a fine dribble to midfield, where he lost possession, and a judicious Watsonian kick again had play in F.P.s " 25."

Fine play by F.P. forwards and a long kick ahead by Smith took F.P.s over midfield, but play was again returned to F.P.s' end, where the Watsonian stand-off half just failed to kick a penalty goal. Watsonians' forwards took play to the flag and they scored in a scramble from a line-out. The kick at goal failed. A spell of F.P. pressure followed and a dangerous run ended when Innes " knocked on ", and a penalty by Watsonians brought play

174

Aberdeen Grammar School Magazine

back to midfield. Innes broke away from there and kicked ahead, but a great piece of fielding by Watsonians' full back, and a long kick, took play back to the other end. Dashing work from the scrum by MacLachlan and Bisset had Watsonians' back in difficulty, and a magnificent kick by Bowes had play in the Watsonian line, but the visitors' forwards, in a long dribble, carried the ball the full length of the field, where, from a scrum, their backs got possession and their wing three-quarter romped over for a good try, which was converted with a fine kick. Innes was injured and had to go off and Nicol Smith came out of the pack to the wing, with Ian Smith in the centre. Immediately afterwards, Rowton was injured in a tackle and had also to retire. There was no further scoring before the interval. Halftime :—F.P.s, nil ; Watsonians, 8 points.

Rowton and limes, though still suffering from their injuries, resumed, Rules going to full back and Still out to the wing. Watsonians opened with a brilliant run up the right touch line, but Innes brought off a great tackle and Still, with a fine kick ahead, forced a Watsonian to " knock on " near his own line. From the scrum the ball came to F.P. backs, but a bad passout to Thomson allowed the full back to clear. F.P.s were going strong now but they could make little of the Watsonian pack, whose scrummaging tactics were a feature of the game. Another run by F.P. backs looked promising, but Smith's pass to Robson was intercepted. Watsonians' forwards again took play to F.P.s' " 25," and a great run by their backs finished with their stand-off half crossing midway out. The kick at goal just failed, the ball hitting the upright. F.P.s' backs now adopted their original formation, and Still had two fine clearances. Innes broke up another visitors' attack with a brilliant tackle, and got off the ground quickly to find touch in Watsonians' " 25." Slow heeling, however, impeded the chances of an F.P. score and the visitors' forwards in another grand dribble soon had play out of the danger zone. A brilliant tackle by Still saved another certain score in a fast attack by the visitors. Bowes dribbled well over midfield from his own " as," but the Watsonian full-back fielded well and sent F.P.s back with a long kick. Innes, now limping badly, went out to the wing and put F.P.s again on the attack with a fine kick well into the visitors' half. Another run by Watsonians' backs looked dangerous, but the passing movement broke down and Innes stepped in to find touch. Play continued on even lines until no-side. Result :—F.P.s, nil ; Watsonians, xi points (x placed goal, 2 tries).

8th December.—v. Gordonians, at Rubislaw. F.P.s :—E. H. Still ; J. B. Thomson, J. A. Innes, T. F. Robson, I. L. Smith ; G. W. Bowes and E. K. Cruickshank ; J. I. Morrice, L. Middleton, A. N. Smith, J. T. Riach, G. A. Rowton, R. D. Bain, J. G. Bisset, J. S. MacLachlan.

F.P.s kicked off uphill on a heavy ground, although the rain had ceased at mid-day. After a spell of midfield play, Still, in attempting to clear, had his kick charged down by a Gordonian forward, who dribbled over to score an unconverted try. This set-back wakened F.P.s up, and from a scrum Bowes cut through cleverly, but Smith " knocked on' when he had the line at his mercy. F.P.s, however, kept up the offensive, and good handling let Thomson away, but he was brought down by the Gordonian wing. Play remained in Gordonian territory, where Bowes and Imes were conspicuous in some clever interpassing, but the visitors' defence prevailed.

Robson was injured and changed places with Smith. From a penalty for offsides, Innes kicked a great goal from far out. Thomson got away again, but was well tackled by the Gordonian wing. So far the forwards were fairly even, but the heavy F.P. pack was beginning to show to advantage.

Bowes let Robson away, and owing to weak Gordonian tackling, he was able to part with the ball to Cruickshank, who burst through for a try at the posts. Innes converted. A temporary spell of pressure by Gordonians brought no reward, and Rowton led a rush over midfield to establish F.P.s in an attacking position. They were, however, driven back by Gordonians' serum half. F.P.s were soon back to the attack. Smith, who was again back to his original position, carried play to the visitors' line, but the ball

F.P. Club Rugby Football Section ist XV—Season 1934-35.

Back Ron - I. H. Pattison, J. B. Thomson, E. W. M. Watt, G. A. Rowton, J. I. Morrice, D. G. Dempster, J. A. Innes, D. P. Cochran (Hon. Secretary and Treasurer).

Second Ran —S. R. Smith, I. L. Smith, L. Middleton, E. K. Cruickshank (Vice-Captain), J. S. iMad.achlan (Captain), R. D. Bain, A. N. Smith, J. R. Lawrence, G. W. Bowes.

THE

Caledonian Hotel UNION TERRACE, ABERDEEN Telegrams : Aberdeen." " Repose,

Telephone Nos.: 2916-2917.

80 Bedrooms.

•

15 Bathrooms.

WHY DO VISITORS STAY AT THE CALEDONIAN HOTEL? BECAUSE It is a Comfortable, Modern Hotel, with Good Cooking and Reasonable Terms.

Electric Fires.

Hot and Cold Running Water in all Bedrooms.

Lift to all Floors.

Central Heating.

Private Suites of Rooms with Bathrooms.

Private Suites of Rooms for Weddings, Dinners, etc.

Lounges.

Restaurant.

Grill Room.

American Bar. UNDER ENTIRELY

NEW

PROPRIETORSHIP AND MANAGEMENT.

G. 'W. GIBSON, Manager.

ABERDEEN .

..,.....MIMIIIMIllmminim•••"ftenimmor

DRY CLEANERS

STEAM LAUNDRY

INVISIBLE MENDERS

All Work done on the Premises

Fully finished.

Not Patching.

--

You have here right in the heart of Aberdeen a Cleaning Service which is CHEAPER and BETTER than any out-of-town cleaners.

RE-WEAVING.

This is our Service-De-Luxe.

-0-

the " SERVU" Half-Price Laundry Service.

This is Real Value for Money.

Every thread matched to the original.

No need to throw out that garment Torn or Burnt.

Have

it

sent

to

us.

-0-

Look at the Service COLLECTED TO-DAY— DELIVERED TO-MORROW.

—®--

BAGWASH— Washed and sent home to you damp, ready to iron.

The repair will be INVISIBLE.

YES :

IF IT WILL CLEANWE CAN CLEAN IT

Aberdeen Steam Laundry Telephones — ABERDEEN 1531 — BALLATER 30

_4berdeen Grammar School Magazine

175

was well fielded and touch found by the opposing full back. A great forward rush by the visitors almost resulted in a score, but Cruickshank was there to avert the danger. Half-time :—F.P.s, 8 points ; Gordonians, 3 points.

Gordonians pressed in the beginning of the second half. Morrice was injured and went to full back. The Gordonian left wing got away, but Thomson tackled resolutely and the attack came to nothing. Gordonians had been getting more of the ball from the scrum, but with the return of Mortice to the pack, matters were again levelled up. The ball was getting difficult to handle, and forward play was now very much in evidence. Bowes got possession in his own half from a scrum, and raced through the defence to give to MacLachlan, who was backing up well. He got over but lost possession. Cruickshank, however, was close on his heels and finished off a clever movement by touching down. Innes converted. End-to-end play prevailed for a time, but both defences held out. In the closing stages F.P.s attacked persistently, and several clever movements by the backs failed narrowly. Innes just failed by inches to kick a penalty goal. From the drop-out, Nicol Smith got possession and, with a great dash up the centre, put F.P.s again in an attacking position. From some loose kicking, Middleton got away in a solo dribble, and from outside the " 25 " he went over for a try, which was not converted. Play remained at midfield until no-side.

Result :—F.P.s, i6 points (a placed goals, r penalty goal, r try) ; Gordonians, 3 points (r try).

22nd December.—v. Aberdeen Wanderers, at Rubislaw. F.P.s :— E. H. Still : J. B. Thomson, J. A. Innes, C. W. France, I. L. Smith ; G. W. Bowes and E. K. Cruickshank ; J. T. Riach, L. Middleton, G. A. Rowton, E. W. M. Watt, J. G. Bisset, D. T. H. Russell, J. R. Lawrence, R. D. Bain.

Wanderers kicked off with the wind advantage. Good handling by the F.P. backs put the side on the attack, and Smith was nearly over at the corner.

From a scrum at midfield, Bowes broke away splendidly to set the backs off in fine fashion, and after some quick interpassing Smith ran over for a grand try. Innes failed to convert. The F.P. backs were playing delightful rugby, and the forwards were heeling well. Another good run by F.P. backs, with France making the opening, led to Innes scoring a splendid try, which he failed to convert. Wanderers began to take a grip of the game, but the F.P. defence prevailed. From a loose scrum, Innes picked up smartly at midfield and broke away with Bowes in support. From Innes's welltimed pass, Bowes raced over to score a good try, which Watt failed to convert. Play remained at midfield for a spell, until Rowton picked up smartly near the centre and ran well before passing out to Bowes, who put Thomson in possession for the winger to show great pace in racing over to score a glorious try. Innes failed to convert. Half-time :—F.P.s, 12 points; Wanderers, nil.

F.P.s attacked on the resumption and Cruickshank broke through in fine style, but the movement broke down. A minute later, Innes just failed to drop a goal. Wanderers' forwards were giving a good account of themselves. F.P.s continued to attack steadily, but the defence was holding out well. Due to a splendid backing up, Bain scored a well-earned try.

Innes converted with a fine kick from far out. Thomson seized a chance to break through at midfield and showed fine pace and control in beating the defence, to score at the posts. Innes converted. Result :—F.P.s, 22 points (2 goals, 4 tries) ; Wanderers, nil.

26th January, 1935.—v. Aberdeen University, at Rubislaw. F.P.s :— A. R. Taylor ; J. B. Thomson, J. A. Innes, T. F. Robson, I. L. Smith ; C. W. France and E. K. Cruickshank ; J. I. Morrice, L. Middleton, G. A. Rowton, E. W. M. Watt, J G. Bisset, R. D. Bain, D. G. Dempster, J. S. MacLachlan.

F.P.s kicked off against the slope. Midfield play marked the early stages of the game until from a penalty for offside, Innes found touch well inside the Varsity " 25." Varsity, however, soon relieved the pressure and

176

Aberdeen Grammar School Magazine

took play to F.P.s' line. F.P.s, however, came back again, and from a rush led by Bain, a Varsity player was forced to touch down. Another spell of midfield play followed, the sides being evenly matched. A fine run by F.P. backs saw Thomson beat his man in fine style. His kick ahead, however, was fielded, and the attack beaten off. A spell of Varsity pressure was relieved by a penalty, which Innes took full advantage of to gain ground.

Another passing movement by the Varsity backs nearly brought a try, but the F.P. defence prevailed. A rush by the F.P. pack took play into the Varsity " 25." A long series of loose mauls near the centre of the field followed, play being almost entirely confined to the forwards. Thomson broke away again and ran well before passing in, but the Varsity defence held out. Half-time :—F.P.s, nil ; Aberdeen University, nil.

Soon after resumption, the Varsity right wing broke away, and after a fine inter-passing movement, scored at the corner. The kick at goal was unsuccessful. F.P. forwards were not coming up to expectations, the Varsity pack being much livelier and taking advantage of every opportunity presented to them. Soon afterwards, a Varsity three-quarter got away, and when brought down on the F.P. line, was supported by a forward, who dashed over to score a try, which was unconverted. F.P.s improved from this period, their forwards showing more dash in the open, but the Varsity defence prevailed to the end. Result :—F.P.s, nil ; Aberdeen University, 6 points (2 tries).

23rd February.—v. Allan Glen's School F.P.s at Rubislaw. F.P.s :— J. I. Morrice ; J. B. Thomson, J. A. limes, I. L. Smith, S. R. Smith ; C. W. France and E. K. Cruickshank ; A. Nicol Smith, I. H. Pattison, J. R. Lawrence, E. W. M. Watt, G. A. Rowton, J. S. MacLachlan, D. G. Dempster, L. Middleton.

F.P.s kicked off against the wind and in face of a bright sun. A smart passing run put them on the attack, but good defence by Glen's returned play to midfield, where Innes got possession and kicked a long ball to touch.

From the line-out, F.P.s had another good run, but the visitors were marking strongly. F.P. forwards were heeling well and giving their backs a good supply of the ball. From a clever passing movement by the Glen's backs, an inside three-quarter cut through in fine style to score between the posts.

The kick was successful. F.P.s countered strongly, and only good defence on the part of the opponents kept their line intact. France just failed to drop a goal. Play at this stage was very fast and open, and from a very difficult angle limes kicked a penalty goal. Glen's came away after this, and it was all that F.P.s could do to keep them out. A great run by Cruickshank, however, relieved the pressure and carried play to the visitors' line.

Half-time came, however, without further scoring. Half-time :—F.P.s, 3 points ; Allan Glen's School F.P.s, 5 points.

Midfield play followed for some time after the commencement. The Glen's forwards were, however, at this stage getting the better of the scrummages. A rush by the F.P. pack took play to the visitors' " 25," where Cruickshank broke away, and after some clever interpassing, S. R. Smith was almost over, but the defence prevailed. Play was now moving from end to end, but the defence of both sides was superior to the attack. From a long pass by MacLachlan, F.P. backs were set in motion and Innes was nearly through. The final pass was, however, intercepted and the danger averted. F.P.s now came away very strongly, and their backs were frequently on the move, Glen's being kept on the defence. Good passing

by F.P. backs saw S. R. Smith run well to catch the Glen's full back in possession. Watt, following up, dribbled over the line and Middleton. touched down. Innes converted. F.P.s were now playing with great dash, and a further score came to them through S. R. Smith, who passed in beautifully to Middleton, who took the ball in good style and raced through to score a good try. Innes converted. Glen's counter-attacked from the kick-off, and their left wing three-quarter should have been in, but he dropped his pass. The F.P. pack, led well by Middleton, however,

SMART a PERMANENTLY WEATHERPROOF

-;~,

Certainly these coats are well-cut, stylish, and comfortable. What is more they are rubberless proofed, and can be guaranteed to withstand a great deal of wet. They will keep both their smart appearance and their weatherproof quality, for the fabrics are woven from highest grade yarn, which makes a close, strong fabric. No "filling" is needed, consequently the cloth retains its "feel" and proofing long after "filled" fabrics are limp and porous.

BARWATER WEATHERCOATS Various styles and choice of linings in attractive range of shades

In SINGLE-BREASTED STYLE (as sketch) with COMBINE CHECK LINING.

35/-

42/-

507-

Style as above, with SELF LINING or with HALFXINING of PILE FABRIC

55/S.B. BELTED STYLE, made from Pure EGYPTIAN COTTON, and Lined with COMBINE CHECK

EXTRAORDINARY VALUE

.

.

35/- 42/-

-

SUPER EGYPTIAN COTTON RAINCOATS, lined CHECK on / 43‘, / TAFFETA ; through pockets. All Sizes

.......

i I

BARWATER WEATHERCOATS can be had in Aberdeen only from

ohnFalconer & Co. Lea JJ Union !Street; Aberdeen.

Direct Entrance to Men's Dept, by Arcade or Adelphi Court

e%es.a.e.....-..-:::::::::::::::::.-:••.".: • • ..• %%% Simpsons' .•.:

.•% %• Emporium ..•.• •

Sports

.•.:• .•.•• •• • :■ a

N: • •••

%

•

a' •: % s mi: • • "' •:

% .. ..: %a .:I' % a

SPORTS OUTFITTERS AND

•N

GOLF

m" 4 a 4 a smil %

,

28

CLUB

MAKERS

BRIDGE STREET ABERDEEN n 'Phone 1094

ma

0

% 8.

N s • el:

. .: 4' .1 .. % % % • N:

%

Closed at 8 p.m.

Wednesday, 1 p.m.

%

Saturday, 9 p.m.

• NS Nom

E.

•• • iii a • • s a • Els e si me • il a a si aim im SE•m• •

is IN e ass s is Use • ou • • • a • sow • • N isi • is• •

Aberdeen Grammar School Magaine

1

77

relieved the pressure. There was no further scoring. Result :—F.P.s, 15 points (z placed goals, s penalty goal) ; Allan Glen's School F.P.s, 5 points (I placed goal).

9th March.—p. St. Andrews University, at Rubislaw. F.P.s :—I. H. Pattison ; J. B. Thomson, T. F. Robson, S. R. Smith, I. L. Smith ; C. W. France and E. K. Cruickshank ; J. I. Mortice, R. D. Bain, D. G. Dempster, E. W. M. Watt, G. A. Rowton, A. N. Smith, J. R. Lawrence, L. Middleton.

St. Andrews kicked off with wind advantage. Good play in the loose by their forwards put F.P.s in an attacking position, and when Thomson found touch at the flag a try seemed imminent ; the pressure was relieved, however. A long spell of mid-field play followed, chiefly with the forwards.

St. Andrews backs had a good run, and the left wing three-quarter just managed to touch down close to the flag. The kick failed. From the kickoff F.P. backs got away, the ball coming right along the line to Thomson, who made a determined dash for the line, but he was bundled into touch at the flag. Soon afterwards I. L. Smith just failed to get a try, when he nil ; St. Andrews University, followed up a rebound. Half-time : 5 points.

Upon the resumption a long spell of end-to-end play ensued, with neither line being crossed. From a penalty St. Andrews kicked a goal from an easy position. St. Andrews continued to attack, and from a scrum close to F.P.s goal line, a St. Andrews forward went over for a try, which was not converted. Result :—F.P.s, nil; St. Andrews University, II points (x placed goal, i penalty goal, s try).

25rd March.—v. Cambridge Vandals, at Rubislaw. F.P.s :—I. H. Pattison ; J. B. Thomson, J. A. Innes, I. L. Smith, S. R. Smith ; C. W. France and E. K. Cruickshank ; J. I. Mortice, R. D. Bain, D. G. Dempster, E. W. M. Watt, G. A. Rowton, A. N. Smith, J. R. Lawrence, L. Middleton.

F.P.s kicked off against the sun but with the wind advantage and set tip immediate pressure, play being taken to the Vandals' line, when Lawrence dived over for a try at the corner. Innes kicked a great goal. A fast pace had been set, F.P.s in particular showing splendid dash. Innes kicked ahead and the Vandals' full-back was just able to touch down with Thomson rushing in. A great rush by the Vandals' pack had F.P.s' line in danger, but Innes relieved with a tine tackle and I. L. Smith picked up and found touch with a grand kick. From a tight scrum Cruickshank picked up and broke clean through ; but, lacking support, he kicked ahead, and the Vandals' defence touched down. A minute later Cruickshank broke away again, but the defence prevailed. F.P.s continued to press, but were met by a determined defence. S. R. Smith came across to make a magnificent tackle and thus save a certain try. A minute later Thomson tackled well, when F.P.s' line looked like being crossed. From a penalty Vandals just failed to kick a goal. A spell of mid-field play followed, and just on half-time Vandals failed with another penalty kick from long range. Half-time :—F.P.s, 5 points ; Cambridge Vandals, nil.

Upon resumption Vandals were first to press, but F.P.s' pack relieved by taking play right downfield, Vandals' having to touch down to save their line. Play returned to mid-field, and Cruickshank broke away beautifully on the blind side, and from his cross kick Rowton was up in support but just failed to score. Splendid passing by F.P. backs saw S. R. Smith nearly in, but he was heavily tackled and injured, and had to go off for a spell. A. N. Smith came out of the pack to fill the vacancy. S. R. Smith was not long in resuming, and from a clever interception by I. L. Smith a try nearly resulted from good work by the two. F.P.s attacked steadily, and first Innes and then Cruickshank were nearly through. F.P.s were definitely on top, but holding on too long lost a sure score. Cruickshank broke clean away, but was tackled a few yards from the line. Vandals were now getting desperate, and after some good work their right wing threequarter ran right through F.P.s' defence to score a great try, from which full points were brought out. F.P.s counter-attacked, and Innes missed

178

Aberdeen Grammar School Mageqine

with a long range kick at goal. In a splendid run by the backs Innes was nearly in. Vandals forced their way into F.P. territory, and from a scrum on their line a forward came into possession and scored at the corner. The kick failed. Result :—F.P.s, 5 points (t placed goal) ; Cambridge Vandals, S points (r placed goal, I try).

F.P. Hockey Section.

While it cannot be said that the Section has had a disappointing season, the high standard set at the commencement has unfortunately not been maintained, the form of the rst XI showing unaccountable fluctuations from week to week.

In all three games against Gordonians the team has risen to the occasion and played well together, winning both games at Rubislaw and, much to the opposition's surprise, drawing at Seafield. Between these games, however, F.P.s were rather unfortunate in receiving a bad beating from a fast Ruthrieston F.P. team, who, in the closing stages of a fairly level game, put the issue beyond doubt with three brilliant goals. This " falling off" towards the end of the game was unfortunately again noticeable in the following week, when what appeared to be a certain win over Richmond was reduced to a draw by two quick goals in the last ten minutes of the game.

There then followed some weeks of comparative success, with a win over Graduates, a draw with Gordon's College, and a win over Gordon Highlanders to the tune of 13-0. Only drawing with Gordon's College may not seem very satisfactory, but owing to illness and the fact that several F.P.s were playing in the District Trials, the tst XI was exceptionally weak, A month later we defeated Gordon's College decisively by 7 goals to 1.

During February several matches had unfortunately to be cancelled on account of weather conditions making the pitches unplayable, and this factor may have had something to do with an unexpected but very decisive defeat by 'Varsity by 6 goals to nil. The students had been playing several South games during the preceding weeks whereas, F.P.s had not been playing at all. In this game F.P.s were really beaten by the speed of their opponents, who were exceptionally quick on the ball.

The and XI has had only a fair season, being severely handicapped through illness and the consequent lack of players. To date they have won 4 ; lost, 8 ; and drawn 1.

The Section was represented in the Trials by the following :— The North v. The Highlands, at Elgin, on 5th January—D. M. Wood, J. L. Bruce, and A. J. Peters.

The North and Highlands v. the Midlands, at Aberdeen, on 19th January —A. J. Peters.

The North, Highlands, and Midlands v. The West and South-West, at St. Andrews, on and February—A. J. Peters.

The following awards were granted for season 1934-35 :—New Colours --J. H. G. Ross, E. K. Morrison, A. R. Robertson. Dates—J. L. Bruce, A. J. Peters.

tat XI Results. v. Cartha .

. . v. Aberdeen . v. Elgin . . . . . v. 'Varsity v. Gordon Highlanders v. St. Ronald . . v. Gordonians .

V. Gordonians . . v. Ruthrieston .

Draw a-a Won 5-o Won 5-1 Lost 4-6 Won 3-1 Won a-o Won 1-o Draw a-a Lost 3-6

V. Gordonians .

Won a-o v. Richmond . . Draw 2-2 v. Graduates .

Won 3-1 . v. Gordon's College .

Draw o-o v. Gordon Highlanders Won 13-0 v. Aberdeen . .

Lost 1-2 v. Gordon's College .

Won 7-1 v. 'Varsity • • Lost o-6 v. Central . , Won 5-t

TWO SPECIAL STYLES IN - BRAEMAR

KNITWEAR

The striped garment illustrated can be had in the following colours—Grey, Maroon, Green, Light Blue. Blue Marl, and Navy with coloured stripe, at

18'6 The garment on the left is obtainable at the same price, in Fawn, Natural, and Blue-Grey shades.

" The Man's Shop

Esslemont & Macintosh Ltd.

Aberdeen Grammar School Magazine

1 79

List of New Members of the Club.

LIFE MEMBERS. Gill, Alister Munro (1916-30), Students' Union, Marischal College, Aberdeen.

Gray, Alexander (192o-28), 61 Mile-End Avenue, Aberdeen.

Thomson, Alexander (2923-27), Dalmaik, Drumoak, Aberdeenshire.

Williamson, Alexander George Gunn (1914-26), 15 Forest Road, Aberdeen.

ORDINARY MEMBERS. Anderson, John (1921-34), 121 Hamilton Place, Aberdeen.

Bennie, Athol Emslie (1922-22), 13 Forest Road, Aberdeen.

Bright, Edgar Bulmer (1922-31), Dinsdale, Dyce.

Bruce, William Gillespie Gilbert (2929-34), 69 Gaim Terrace, Aberdeen.

Cameron, Alfred Gordon (2925-34), c/o Mrs. Barron, 268 Mid Stocket Road, Aberdeen.

Cameron, Scott (1922-34), 15 Richmondhill Road, Aberdeen.

Campbell, Duncan Ian (1925-34), 108 Irvine Place, Aberdeen.

Craib, David Andrew (293o-34), 23 Devonshire Road, Aberdeen.

Crawford, Douglas Frank Noel (2925-34), 7 Richmondhill Road, Aberdeen.

Cruickshank, William Cheyne (292234), 8 Devonshire Road, Aberdeen.

Currie, Andrew (2927-34), The Manse of Newhills, Bucksbum.

Dawson, William Ian (1923-34), 56 Whitehall Road, Aberdeen.

Drummond, Ian Mackenzie (192934), 292 Forest Avenue, Aberdeen.

Duff, Stewart (1925-34), 99 Whitehall Place, Aberdeen.

Forbes, Frederick Alastair (1921-34), Inchgrove, 42 Belgrave Terrace, Aberdeen.

Gibb, William Taylor (2923-34), 71 Stanley Street, Aberdeen.

Irvin, John Hannell (1925-34), Cranford, Duthie Terrace, Aberdeen.

Keith, Ronald Ritchie (1925-34), Fife Arms Hotel, Macduff.

Lobban, Douglas Y. (1922-34), 1 Granville Place, Aberdeen.

McAllan, James Lewis (2931-34), Schoolhouse, Monymusk, Aberdeenshire.

Mackay, Stewart (2 924-34), 8 Ashgrove Road West, Aberdeen.

Maitland, Harry (2932-34), Haddo, Murtle, Aberdeenshire.

Martin, John William (2924-34), South Ythsie, Tarves, Aberdeenshire.

Matheson, Charles Wallace (2925-34), The Manse, Kinellar.

Milne, Arthur Grant (2923-24), 262 Queen's Road, Aberdeen.

Mitchell, Philip Rene (1916-22) , 70 High Street, Old Aberdeen.

Moir, George Lumsden (1922-34), 18 Carden Place, Aberdeen.

Moir, James Gkgg (1928-34), 73 Argyll Place, Aberdeen.

Nicholson, James Alastair (192 7-34), 45 Beaconsfield Place, Aberdeen.

Reid, Harry Campbell (292 5-34), 36 Morningfield Road, Aberdeen.

Reid, James (2924-34), 94 Leslie Terrace, Aberdeen.

Ritson, Charles David (2928-34), Waverley Hotel, Peterhead.

Robertson, George Alexander (292234, c/o Messrs. Romanes and Munro, C.A., 5o Frederick Street, Edinburgh.

Seggie, Ian Alexander (192r34), 423 Great Western Road, berdeen.

Sellar, James Collie (1924-34), 21 Edgehill Terrace, Aberdeen.

Shand, Harry Edward Ross (2925-34), 78 Annfield Terrace, Aberdeen.

Shennan, Edward Theodore (2 9243o and 2933-34), 25 Fonthill Terrace, Aberdeen.

Steele, Archibald Aitken (1921-24), ,z Ashvale Place, Aberdeen.

Stewart, Douglas Gordon (1924-33), c/o Messrs. Bower & Smith, C.A., 245 Union Street, Aberdeen.

Sutherland, Rev. James Gordon (2872-75), D.D., 99 St. Alban's Road, Edinburgh 9.

Walker, George Forbes (1923-34), 21 Affieck Street, Aberdeen.

Watt, Alan Lorimer (1929-34), Mardon Hall, University College of the South-West, Exeter, Devonshire.

Williamson, James Campbell (192434), 25 Forest Avenue, Aberdeen.

18o

Aberdeen Grammar School Magazine F.P. Club Office-Bearers, 1935- 36.

Honorary President—

DAVID MIDDLETON ANDREW, M.A. (Rector since 1924).

Honorary Vice-Presidents— Sir JOHN BAKER, M.D. (1875-79).

Professor WILLIAM BULLOCH, M.D., LL.D., F.R.S. (1877-8o).

Sir GEORGE CARMICHAEL, K.C.S.I., LL.D. (1876-81).

Sir JOHN COLLIE, C.M.G., M.D., C.M. (1873-76).

Sir GEORGE STUART FORBES, K.C.S.I., M.A. (186o-64).

Sir ROBERT WILLIAM LYALL GRANT, M.A., LL.B. (1884- 91 ).

The Hon. Lord MACKAY (ALEXANDER MORRICE MACKAY), M.A., LL.D. (1882-91).

The Right Hon. Lord MESTON, K.C.S.I., LL.D. (1876-8o).

DOUGLAS GORDON MILLER, M.A. (Rector, 1921-24).

Sir PETER CHALMERS MITCHELL, C.B.E., M.A., D.Sc., LL.D., F.R.S. (1879-8o).

The Right Hon. Lord ALNESS, P.C., M.A., LL.D. (1884-85).

Professor JAMES CHARLES PHILIP, O.B.E., M.A., D.Sc., F.R.S. (1886-89).

Lieut.-Col. Sir DAVID PRAIN, C.M.G., C.I.E., M.A., M.B., LL.D., F.R.S. (1872-73).

Professor ROBERT SCOTT TROUP, C.M.G., C.I.E., M.A., D.Sc., F.R.S. (1888-91).

President—HENRY JACKSON KINGHORN, C.B. (1876-8o).

Vice-President—WILLIAM DOUGLAS SIMPSON, M.A., D.Litt.

(1901-13).

Secretary and Treasurer— THEODORE WAIT, M.A. (1889-1901), The Rosemount Press, Aberdeen.

Committee— D. P. COCHRAN. WM. G. CRAIGEN, M.A., LL.B. MAURICE CRAMS, M.A., LL.B. JAMES C. DUFFUS, M.A., LL.B. RANALD ESSLEMONT.

ALEXANDER GRAY, M.A., LL.B. J. P. JEFFREY, C.A. JAMES LEITH. ALAN Mcamm, M.A., C.A.

G. G. Nicoc, D.S.O.

J AS. PATTERSON, M.A., LL.B. J. L. RIDDELL. J. F. WALKER, M.A. J. B. WArr, M.A., C.A. R. B. WILLIAMSON, M.A., LL.B.

Hon. Auditors—Messrs. BOWER & SMITH, C.A.

"`Che House where Quality counts - -

' _

'

' '

_ ~'49jNiumw..1 n,; .

'

!.'

)1

.

-,..,... ~ ..

~ E''

Che Best Place to Lunch in Aberdeen—

VVatt & Grant's Restaurant SPECIMEN MENU. Iced Pineapple.

Iced Grape Fruit.

Iced Tomato Juice.

-Cream of Chicken.

Thick Ox Tail. tried Lemon Sole.

Halibut and Banana Purée.

Haddock a la Duchesse.

Dressed Cutlet and Peas.

Beef Olives.

Sauté of Kidney and Mushrooms.

.ancashire Hot Pot.

Liver and Braised Onions.

Roast Stuffed Chicken.

Roast Sirloin and Yorkshire Pudding.

Roast Veal and Forcemeat Garnish.

Cold Sirloin and Horseradish Sauce.

Pressed Beef and 13eetroot. tilverside and Chutney.

Galantine of Chicken.

Hain and Tongue.

Cheese and Celery Savoury. Asparagus au Gratin.

Nut Roast.

Egg Cutlets.

Potato Salad.

Fresh Salad.

Orange or Grape Fruit and Lettuce Salad.

Celery and Apple Salad.

Carrots and Cream Sauce.

Braised Celery.

Mashed Turnips.

Cabbage.

Brussels Sprouts.

Cauliflower and Cream Sauce.

-

Steam Ginger Pudding.

Cranberry and Apple Tart.

Baked Rice and Raisin Pudding. Farola Soufflé.

Wine Trifle. Banana Split. Pink Parasole.

Chocolate Parfait.

Crushed Pineapple and Cream Ice. Pear Melba. Vanila Cream Ice. Nebo Melba.

SPECIAL TABLE D'HOTE LUNCHEON AT Including Soup, Fish or Entree or Joint, Sweet or Cheese and Coffee.- 2/, -

Watt & Grant Ltd., Union St., Aberdeen

Miniature Painting and

showyard Erector to the Highland and Agricultural Society of Scotland, and Contractor to the Royal Society.

Northern Agricultural

Enlargements in Oil or Water Colour Skilfully

JOHN REID & CO.

reproduced

from any photograph

HOUSE CARPENTERS AND JOINERS

55 Blenheim Place and 14 Fountainhall Road ABERDEEN

James J. Farquhar

igr/c4

Photographer 416 UNION STREET

Carpentry and Joinery Work of every description done

ABERDEEN Successor to

FRED. HARDIE

ESTIMATES

'Phone 851

ON APPLICATION

Telephone No. 1997

John Hutchison SUIT-CASE MAKER and LEATHER MERCHANT Invites you to call and inspect his extensive selection of

Hand-Sewn Suit and Attach4 Cases Fancy Leather Goods QUALITY " There is hardly anything in the world that some man cannot make a little worse and sell a little cheaper, and the people who consider price ONLY are this man's lawful prey."

JOHN RUSKIN Repairs and Special Orders receive prompt attention at—

THE LEATHER SHOP 11 BACK WYND, TELEPHONE 1994

ABERDEEN

The House of Collie -.., ________ .--------, VI . ;4 ri —7,.., 3.i ' Z'-..

•r11 ,M. 7.............z.:„....

A , !Ir

•i

1,

r

19

—

M

! I '

II

.. -

1...• ---

- !

-r --

!. I. 'VI i

1

.--. _.._ .

-7 — ,—.

-.

""

.

Fil-71 A i 1. ' I

-1

.:. 1 'ii !'1 i,, I 1 1 , Lt ...'14 di Itif r-4.. t____----L-----

--

• •

FOR

Wines and Spirits Ready-to-Serve Foods Fresh Fruits

— Provisions Groceries Bakery Confectionery Vegetables, Etc.

Branch Shops at

CULTS, BALLATER, and BRAEMAR Telephones: Cults 28; Runnier 14; Braemar 12

Andrew Collie & Co. FAMILY GROCERS AND WINE MERCHANTS

269-271 UNION ST., ABERDEEN Telephones: CENTRAL 4800 (3 Lines)

W. LUMSDEN & SON 58 UNION STREET, ABERDEEN.

GROCERIES, PROVISIONS, ::

::

WINES and SPIRITS, ALL

OF

HIGHEST

QUALITY.

HAVANA CIGARS in Great Variety.

Telegrams: "TRAVELLED, ABERDEEN."

'PHONE 260.

ROBERTS (ABDN.) LTD. Cabinetmakers, Upholsterers, Carpet Warehousemen

RECOGNISED AS EASILY FIRST IN

FURNITURE VALUE Our enormously increasing business testifies to the popularity of our good class and dependable productions.

We employ a large staff of highly-skilled craftsmen, and You will their number is being steadily augmented. find our prices surprisingly low.

AS AN INVITATION, PLEASE ACCEPT THIS ANNOUNCEMENT TO INSPECT OUR LARGE STOCK OF FURNI'l'URF AND FURNISHINGS.

NOTE ADDRESS:

419

Union

Street,

ABERDEEN

IRONMONGERY A LARGE AND VARIED STOCK ALWAYS ON HAND

SHEETMETAL WORK A SPECIALITY

H. LEITH & SON 26 and 28 NETHERKIRKGATE ABERDEEN

Phone 2 59

ELLON STALL NEW MARKET, ABERDEEN Famed for Aberdeenshire

Butter, Eggs, Cheese, Poultry.

Honey—Clover and Heather (ht combs or extracted)

EGG GRADING MACHINE WORKING DAILY

Also Jams, Jellies, and Marmalade

J. B. MII.NE, Propr.

Tel. 746

(ALL OUR OWN MAKE)

SCHOOL OUTFITS

ESTABLISHED 1844

BROGUES, HOUSE SHOES, GYM. SHOES FOOTBALL

BOOTS,

CRICKET

SHOES

JAMES LORIMER & SON BOOTMAKERS

162 UNION STREET Telephone No. 724

ABERDEEN TOWN COUNCIL - EDUCATION COMMITTEE.

ABERDEEN Rector

GRAMMAR

SCHOOL

(FOUNDED PREVIOUS TO 1[256.)

DAVID MIDDLETON ANDREW, M.A.

GRAMMAR SCHOOL provides for Boys a complete course of THE Study, both Elementary and Secondary, Classical and Modern.

The School, which is organized in three Departments—Lower, Middle, and Upper Schools—contains excellent laboratories handsomely furnished and equipped, including a Chemical Laboratory, Science Theatre with Physical Laboratory attached, Natural Science Laboratory, Art Room, Gymnasium, Workshop, Botanical Garden, Library, Reading Room, and Museum.

Pupils in the Lower School are prepared for the Control Examination of the Education Committee, while the Senior Classes are examined for the Day School Certificate (Higher) and the Leaving Certificate of the Scottish Education Department, passes in the latter examination being recognized as exempting from further examination in the corresponding subjects of the Preliminary Examination for graduation in Arts, Science, Law, and Medicine at the Scottish Universities.

The situation of the School in the West end of the City is open and healthy. The Class-rooms are large, and the Grounds for Recreation include separate Playgrounds for Juniors and Seniors, Tennis Courts, and a field for Cricket and Football. There is also a Boarding House run in conjunction with the School.

ABERDEEN Head Mistress

HIGH

SCHOOL FOR GIRLS.

(ALBYN PL A CE.) - Miss BEATRICE. M. ROSE, M.A. (Aberd., Oxon.)

-

THE HIGH SCHOOL provides a liberal education for Girls from 5 to 18 years of age, and aims at fitting them for home life and for professions open to women.

The School buildings occupy an excellent and spacious site in the West end of the City. The furnishings and equipment of the School comprise, in addition to numerous Class-rooms fitted up with many modern conveniences for teaching purposes, an Assembly Hall, Gymnasium, Art Rooms, a Lantern Room, a School Library of z,ooo volumes, spacious Cookery and Laundry Rooms, and a suite of Laboratories of the most approved description for the teaching of Physics, Chemistry, and Biology.

The School is organized in three Departments—Infants, Primary, and Secondary.

The Classes in the Infants and Primary divisions are graded in accordance with the requirements of the Scottish Code. The pupils arc prepared for the Control Examination of the Education Committee. Pupils in the Secondary Department are prepared for the Day School Certificate (Higher) and the Leaving Certificate of the Scottish Education Department. The subjects of study include—Scripture, English with History and Geography, Mathematics, Classics, Modem Languages, Experimental and Domestic Science, Art, Class Singing, and Physical Exercises.

Pupils whose parents desire it are taught Theory and Practice of Music (Pianoforte, Violin, and Organ) in preparation for the Examinations of Trinity College of Music, London, and of the Associated Board of the Royal Academy and Royal College of Music. Advanced pupils are prepared for the Licentiate of the Royal Academy.

Information as to Fees, Scholarships, Courses of Study, etc., at the Grammar School and High School for Girls is given in the School Prospectus, which may be had free on application to the Director of Education, Education Offices, zz Union Terrace, or to the Rector or Head Mistress respectively.

Royal (Dick) Veterinary College EDINBURGH. (Affiliated to the University of Edinburgh.)

Principal: 0. CHARNOCK BRADLEY, M.D., D.Sc., M.R.C.V.S. After attendance on Complete Courses of Instruction in this College, Students may proceed to the Examinations for the Diploma of Membership of the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons (M.R.C.V.S.) : for the Diploma in Veterinary State Medicine (D.V.S.M.): and for the Diploma in Tropical Veterinary Medicine (D.T.v.m.), granted by the University of Edinburgh.

Students of the College may also present themselves for the Degree of Bachelor of Science (B.Sc.) in Veterinary Science conferred by the University of Edinburgh.

The College being recognized as a Central Institution under the Education (Scotland) Act, P9a8, Students arc eligible for Bursaries granted by Education Committees in Scotland.

A Copy of the College Calendar, containing particulars of Scholarships, Fellowships, etc., may be obtained on application to A. C. DOULL, C.A., A.S.A.A.,

Secretary and Treasurer.

Tennis

Golf — Cricket

Large Selection of " CANNON " and " DON BRADMAN "

CRICKET BATS REGULATION

SCHOOL SWIMMING COSTUMES

CAMPBELL'S RUBBER CO. LTD. 'Phone 157

18 BRIDGE STREET

'Grams

Rubber."

THE NORTH OF SCOTLAND COLLEGE OF AGRICULTURE ABERDEEN. WINTER SESSION - OCTORER TO MARCH. SUMMER SESSION - APRIL TO JUNE. Courses for B.Sc. (Agr.) Ordinary and Honours Degrees; College Diploma in Agriculture; National Diploma in Agriculture; Special Farmer's Course; Diplomas in Dairying and Poultry-keeping; Planter's Certificate Course; Certificate Course in Horticulture, etc.

Residential Course in Rural Domestic Economy for Girls at Cralbstona.

Calendar giving full particulars of Courses of Instruction, Syllabus of Experimental Work, and particulars of advisory Work undertaken by the College : and Prospectus of Craibstone School of Rural ➢omestic Economy, may be had on application to

THE SECRETARY, 41i UNION STREET, ABERDEEN.

SAVINGS

ABERDEEN

(Certified under Act of Parliament.)

ESTABLISHED 1815

FUNDS EXCEED- -E. 1.0,500,000.

— - — Number of Open Accounts 105,500 Amount Due Depositors - £10,030,000 Number of New Accounts Opened Last Year 10,000

-

THIRT V-TWO BRANCHES and THREE HUNDRED PENNY BANKS and THRIFT AGENCIES HEAD OFFICE : 19 UNION TERRACE. ABERDEEN.

JAMES R. FIDDES, A ctuary.

TO A NEW 1-E KM .

G -'

As Illustrated

A Boy's Shoe of

GREAT COMFORT, SERVICE and WORTH The peculiar merits of this particular shoe are—a roomy toe, a broad tread, with a snug waist and narrow heel-seat that steady the ankle and fit close about and under the arch. Made in Black Box-calf and Brown Willow-calf. Prices according to size, from 9/- to 14/6.

JOHN

A. DUNN

46 UNION STREET

•

ABERDEEN

PRINTED AT TNT! A RERDP.EN UNIVERSITY PRESS.