A Year of Anniversaries

The author explains in fascinating detail how the commissioning of the work to make the chairs was tackled and the connections between various enterprises in and around Calgary who were brought together to carry out the work. The final problems were created by the Great Flood of June 2013 which brought chaos and widespread damage to large parts of Calgary and to the nearby High River area where the chairs were manufactured. Robert completes the Tale with an account of the presentation of the chairs to the School and the excitement which the occasion created.

This is a carefully researched book with well cross-referenced sources and is well illustrated by photographs of the chairs themselves in detail and of them in their final location. This is an eminently readable book.

A Tale of Two Chairs is now available for purchase and a limited number may be obtained from Michie the Chemist at 391 Union Street, Aberdeen. Otherwise copies may be ordered by contacting the author at rscase@teleplusplanet.net

2018 - A Year of Anniversaries

(1) The Former Pupils’ Club

On 11 September 1918 the Club marked the occasion of its Silver Jubilee. No formal celebration of the event took place on account of the still continuing War, but the Executive noted the significance of the date, which coincided with the Silver Jubilee of the arrival of the Rector, Dr. Morland Simpson, who had taken up his duties on 14th August 1893 at the start of a new school session. It says much for his strength of character, dynamic personality and his enthusiasm for the School to which he had just been appointed that in less than a month of starting his duties he had called a meeting to propose the setting up of a club for former pupils of his school.

The reasoning behind the formation of the Club is best explained by quoting the report of a speech made by the new Rector at function held at around that time:

“All the great schools of England had their Clubs of ‘Old Boys’. Few, if any, of these schools had a record so ancient as the Grammar School of Aberdeen. None of them came within a century of being of equal age – Eton, Harrow, and even Winchester being, in comparison, schools of yesterday. It was a matter of regret that the School which was so much the pride of their city should have been so long without a Club such as that which had now been started to draw the members together from time to time for social purposes and for the pleasure of meeting old schoolfellows again. Many of the pupils who had gone forth into the world and distinguished themselves were proud to call themselves ‘Old Boys’ of the Aberdeen Grammar School. It seemed desirable that the opportunity should 38

be seized and a Club formed, not merely for athletic purposes, but in order to combine all interests – social, athletic and the like, and so tend to bind together the past and present pupils of the School.”

The Club was therefore founded at a meeting held at the School on 11th September 1893, and it is interesting to read the minute of that first meeting: “In the senior classroom of the Grammar School, Aberdeen, a conference of Old Boys with Mr. Morland Simpson, Rector of the School, was held on the evening of Monday 11th September, 1893. Mr. Simpson took the chair at 8p.m., and in a very interesting, suggestive and rousing address pointed out the advantages which might be gained from an Old Boys’ Club. A motion for the formation of an Old Boys’ Club was then proposed and seconded and unanimously carried. It was thereafter unanimously resolved that arrangements should be at once made for organising an Old Boys’ Football Club. With a view to the carrying out of these motions it was agreed that an Executive be appointed to arrange the general business of the Club – this body to consist of a President, a Vice-President, a Secretary, three members now attending the University, three members not at the University, and three senior present boys –and that a Committee be appointed to control the affairs of the Football Club. [There then follows a list of the first Office-bearers and Committee; Mr. Morland Simpson was elected as the first President.] On the motion of Mr Morland Simpson the names and addresses of those present at the meeting were noted, in order that a record of them might be kept. The meeting was then declared at an end.”

No time was lost in following up what had been started at that meeting, and on 18 October 1893 a General Meeting was held at which the name “Aberdeen Grammar School Former Pupils’ Club” was adopted and the first Rules and Constitution were approved.

The foregoing history means that this year marks the 125th Anniversary of the founding of the FP Club.

(2) The Great War

All three issues of the Magazine in 1918 shed light on the anticipation of the end of the Great War. There are, of course, listings of Former Pupils who had been killed in action and of those others who were missing. There were also lists of those who had been decorated in respect of their War service, including a significant number whose actions had earned them the Military Cross. In each issue, however, the end of the conflict was anticipated.

The new Playing Field at Rubislaw had opened in September 1916 and was in full use but even as the official opening took place the need for a pavilion was

recognised. Following discussions in the next year it was clear that there was much support for a proposal that such a building be erected as a memorial to those of the School who had fallen in the War. While the War continued the matter was not pressed, but it was made known that the subscription list was open and a steady response was made.

The Magazine of December 2018 contained notice of a public meeting to be held in the School Hall on 26th December at which definite proposals would be submitted. These proposals were (a) to erect at the School Recreation Ground a Pavilion containing adequate dressing-room and other accommodation to complete the equipment of the Ground for the conduct and practice of games and athletic sports, and to inscribe upon the walls of the Pavilion a complete Roll of the names of the fallen, and (b) to complete and publish the ‘Roll of Old Boys’ now in course of preparation, and to embody therein a record of war services of all Former Pupils.

The proposals were unanimously adopted and the formal appeal for donations was at once under way.

Building work was not commenced until a sufficiency of funds had been raised but it was completed by the summer of 1924. The plan to have the names of the fallen inscribed on the walls of the central hall was not implemented as the War Memorial in the School Hall, containing these names, had been unveiled. The new Pavilion was open for public inspection on School Sports Day, 21st June 1924.

(3) The National Health Service

This year marks the seventieth anniversary of the establishment of the National Health Service in Britain. Amidst the celebrations which have taken place to mark this significant date the names of various persons of note who played major roles in the events of 1948 have been identified.

It has often been alleged that when any major event or development occurs a former pupil of Aberdeen Grammar School will be found to have played a part. In the events of 1948 that former pupil was Sir William Wilson Jameson who had been a pupil of the School in 1892-1902. In 1903 he graduated in Arts at Aberdeen University, following this with a degree in Medicine in 1909 and a Doctorate in Medicine in 1912. After clinical training he turned his attention to public health and preventive medicine, obtaining his diploma in public health at London in 1914. He was commissioned in the RAMC as a hygiene specialist during the 1914-18 war. Post-war he studied law and was admitted a barrister of the Middle Temple in 1922. Three years later, when the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine was established, he was appointed to the Chair of Public Health and became Dean in 1931.

On the outbreak of war in 1939 Sir Ian was appointed chairman of the Medical Research Committee on problems of preventive medicine. It was as a result of his efforts in the early war years that the majority of the country’s children were immunised against diphtheria leading to a remarkable fall in the incidence and death rate from this disease. Worried about the prevention of malnutrition he devised a scheme to ensure that more vulnerable sections of the community received a proper quota of the diminished national food supply.

Sir Wilson had been Chief Medical Adviser to successive Ministers of Health, and had been heard to compare the Whitehall Health Department to a chaotic girls’ school. One of these Ministers, Walter Elliot, a Scot who had trained at the Rowett Institution, took the decision to appoint Sir Wilson as Chief Medical Officer. He at once revolutionised the Department, ending many oldfashioned practices and involving the public by way of regular press briefings. He became the first civil servant to broadcast when he promoted the case for diphtheria.

In 1945 Aneurin Bevan pledged to do the seemingly impossible by launching a National Health Service within three years. His permanent secretary and the Chief Medical Officer were poles apart from Bevan in their attitudes and their outlook but they managed to establish a bond of mutual trust which enabled the delivery of the NHS on schedule. Sir Wilson played a prominent part in the preparation of the Bill which became the National Health Service Act, and in the long and difficult negotiations which took place before the new service was inaugurated.

On his retiral in 1950 he was very modest about his achievements, notably describing himself as “an average boy from Aberdeen Grammar School and Aberdeen University and a pretty poor golfer”. He died in 1962.

A Backward Glance

The Magazine of June 1978 contained a tongue in cheek assessment of the principal officials of the F.P. Club on the pattern of the then familiar ‘Parkinson’s Law’ and it may be that it bears updating in these times forty years on – still with tongue firmly in cheek!

…. For All Their Hard Work

Over the years readers of the Magazine cannot fail to have been impressed by the expedition and efficiency with which the affairs of the Club and the Club Centre have been handled by their respective committees and officials. It will come as no surprise then, to learn that, in their deliberations, the Executive Committee and the Club Centre Management Committee have been guided by an established code of principles which, though one would seek for it in vain in the official records of the Club, regulates the conduct of committee members with the same

authority as, in their schooldays, the Shanghai Clock regulated their movements. Permission has at last been granted for the publication of the following extracts from the code, in order that all members of the Club may have a closer insight into the Club’s management system.

Michie’s Law

If anything can go wrong, it will.

Campbell’s Addendum

Michie was an optimist.

Michie’s Second Law

If there is a possibility of several things going wrong, the one that will cause the most damage will be the one to go wrong.

Campbell’s Commentary

The man who can smile when things go wrong has thought of someone he can blame it on.

The Vice-Chairman’s Truism

The trouble with most jobs is the resemblance to being in a sled dog team. No-one gets a change of scenery except the lead dog.

Hendry’s Law

The anatomy of any Club Committee includes four kinds of bones: 1 wish bones – go along with any idea but want others to do the work; 2 jaw bones – talk a lot but do nothing; 3 knuckle-bones – knock everything everyone else does; 4 back-bones – who do all the work.

Chairman’s Rules for Decision Avoidance

1. When it is not necessary to make a decision it is necessary not to make a decision. 2. If you can avoid a decision, do so without delay. 3. If you can get someone else to avoid a decision, don’t avoid it yourself. 4. If you can’t get one person to avoid the decision, appoint a committee.

Definition of a Club Committee

A collection of the unfit chosen from the unwilling by the incompetent to do the un-necessary.

Chairman’s Committee Rules for Club Officials (and Editors)

1. Hide. 2. If they find you, lie.