Notes about Former Pupils

NOTES about FORMER PUPILS

Honours and Awards

Queen’s Birthday Honours

Companion of the Order of the British Empire

Graham Charles Murray Watt (1957-70) BMedBiol, MB,ChB, MD, FRSE was appointed a Companion of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2017 Birthday Honours for services to healthcare. Graham has held the Norie Miller Chair of General Practice at Glasgow University since 1994. Previously he worked for the Medical Research Council Epidemiology and Medical Care Unit at Glyncorrwg, South Wales, where he gained accreditation in community medicine (public health) and general practice. As well as his teaching role at the University, he is the co-ordinator of General Practitioners at the Deep End, where he listens, captures, expresses and adds to the views and experience of general practitioners working in the most deprived communities in Scotland.

The Editor has apologised to Graham for erroneously down-grading him to Membership of the Order in the last Magazine.

Royal Air Force Commendation

Colin Glynn Frederick Brockie (1955-60) BS, BD was named in the Queen’s Birthday Honours of 2017 as being awarded the Commendation of the Air Officer Commanding 22(Training) Group for his service as a Chaplain in the Air Training Corps. He retired as minister of Grange Church, Kilmarnock some years ago but continued to serve as Chaplain to Glasgow and West Scotland Wing of the Air Training Corps and to 327(Kilmarnock) Squadron

George Alexander Boyne (1967-73) MA, MLitt, PhD has been appointed as Principal of Aberdeen University. Currently pro-Vice-Chancellor of Cardiff University and head of the college of arts, humanities and social sciences there. He will take up his new post this summer.

Kyle James Coetzer (1996-02) continues to captain Scottish Cricketers, and led his side to its outstanding victory over England by six runs in a one day

international at the Grange in Edinburgh in June. The Scots had never previously beaten England and this victory demonstrated the remarkable progress made by the Scots since missing out on the 2019 World Cup. Kyle commented that his team had created history.

Jonathan Mahram Daube (1951-53) MA, EdB has published a biography of Harry Rae, a distinguished educationist who was in turn teacher, headmaster and professor. The book is Educator Most Extraordinary, The Life and Achievements of Harry Rée, 1914-91. One of the endorsements on the cover of the book says “Harry Rée was a humane, open-minded, generous-spirited and engaging educationalist. He thoroughly merits Jonathan Daube’s humane, open-minded, generous-spirited and engaging account of his influential life”.

Alan John Drummond (1979-85) M.Phil, having studied building surveying at Glasgow College of Building & Printing and then Facilities Management at Strathclyde University, emigrated to Vancouver in 1995. He had previously played hockey for the under-16 Scottish team and continued to play in Vancouver, with a few years’ break to play ice hockey. He returned to field hockey about eight years ago and also coaches the hockey team in which his daughter plays. Keeping up the family tradition, his daughter also plays in the under-16 British Columbia team. Alan has been selected to represent Canada in the international over-50s Field Hockey Tournament in Barcelona in July/August this year. As was noted in last year’s Magazine, Alan was at Rubislaw to play in the annual John Drummond Trophy matches marking the twentieth anniversary of the institution of the Trophy.

John Laing Duncan (1958-71) OBE, MB.ChB, ChM, FRCSE, FRPSG, FACS, FFSTE has been a general and vascular surgeon in Inverness since 1992. He is now the Director of Undergraduate Teaching for the University of Aberdeen MBChB Programme in Inverness and Vice-President of The Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh. In 2015 he received an OBE for services to healthcare in the north of Scotland.

After graduating from the University of Aberdeen, he trained in Aberdeen, Inverness and Sheffield and spent a year as a Research Fellow at Harvard University. As a senior registrar in Sheffield he was surgical controller for the Northern General Hospital during the Hillsborough tragedy and gave evidence at the Warrington inquest.

In 2002, John set up the Highland Aortic Aneurysm Screening Programme which was the first such programme in Scotland and led on to the development of the national programme which launched in 2012.

He became a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh in 1981 and after examining for some years was appointed Honorary Secretary,

becoming Honorary Treasurer in 2009. He is now Vice-President. He is a Fellow of the America College of Surgeons and the Faculty of Surgical Trainers.

Martin Ewan (1987-93) MA, LL.B, LL.M, MSc, is a partner in the Aberdeen office of Pinsent Mason, solicitors, where he specialises in advising oil companies on corporate matters and commercial issues. After qualifying in 1999 he spent seven years with Ledingham Chalmers and six years with McGrigors, both in Aberdeen before joining his present firm in 2012. He has just been elected as senior VicePresident of the Society of Advocates in Aberdeen.

Philip Christopher Hannaford (1973-76) MB,ChB, who is presently VicePrincipal (Digital Strategy) at Aberdeen University, has been elected to a Fellowship of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. He is an internationally recognised expert on the safety of contraception, especially the contraceptive pill. His other research interests include women’s health and primary care epidemiology. He trained as a general practitioner in Sheffield before moving to Manchester where he developed his interest in epidemiology and its use to answer important primary and public health issues. He returned to Aberdeen in 1997 on his appointment to the NHS Grampian Chair of Primary Care. He has been a member of various committees for organisations including the World Health Organisation, the Medical Research Council, Cancer Research UK and the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Authority.

David William Jack (1975-81), who has been in business as a quantity surveyor in Aberdeen for many years with the former Murray Montgomery Partnership is now a partner with the McLeod & Aitken cost-management consultancy in the city following a merger of the two firms. The enlarged business also has offices in Glasgow, Leeds and Oxford as well as in Melbourne and Sidney.

David Law (2002-08) who has been golfing since leaving School ten years ago, had his maiden Challenge Tour victory in the SSE Scottish Hydro Challenge at the Macdonald Spey Valley course in Aviemore in June. David, who is a member of Hazlehead Golf Club, was the winner of the Scottish Boys’ Championship at Royal Aberdeen and of the Scottish Amateur Championship at Troon in 2009. Two years later he turned professional and had a couple of wins on the EPD Tour (now known as the Pro Golf Tour). He beat some seasoned campaigners in the paid ranks to land two Tartan Tour titles, the Northern Open and the Paul Lawrie Invitational. David also writes on golf topics for the Press & Journal.

David William James McLennan (1972-78) BSc has retired to Deeside following a career with BP in various areas of operation lasting over thirty years. Prior to that he was for a short time a programmer with British Airways and was

involved in software development. Having joined BP in 1985 in Aberdeen he held posts in Columbia, Alaska and Venezuela before becoming IT operations manager for Latin America. He then spent several years in London before the chance to retire arose from company re-structuring.

Ian Edward Massie (1961-74) CA, FCSI qualified as a chartered accountant (still his proudest achievement) with Whinney Murray in Aberdeen and joined Paull & Williamsons as an investment manager in 1980. In 1985 he and his wife moved to Edinburgh where he joined Dunedin Fund Managers, continuing to be involved in investment trust management. In 1993 he had an acoustic neuroma removed and after four months’ recuperation he returned to work in investor relations at Dunedin. He stayed with its successor, Edinburgh Fund Managers, which was then acquired by Aberdeen Asset Managers and he was involved in investment trust investor relations with AAM until retiring in 2012.

At School Ian played cricket and hockey, and has been a member of Aberdeen-shire Cricket Club for nearly fifty years. Since his two children moved to London Ian and his wife Gill, who still live in Edinburgh, travel extensively watching sport throughout the world, while Ian continues to follow the Dons home and away.

Alastair Macarthur North (1937-50) OBE, PhD, FRSE is still active in academia as a visiting Professor at Mahidol University, Bangkok where he supervises a couple of postgraduate research students and also does a small amount of lecturing on Polymer Molecular Physics. He is an adviser to a firm which imports speciality chemicals from overseas and markets them to Thai clients. He comments that he has been away from Aberdeen for sixty years and from the UK for thirty-four.

Thomas James Grindley Paton (1952-60) MB,ChB has just stepped down from the Presidency of the Canadian Centre. After obtaining a degree in Medicine at Aberdeen University he spent three years as a medical officer in Botswana before going to Canada to study paediatrics in Ottawa. He then joined the Medical Faculty of Calgary University before taking up a post with Alberta Health, the Edmonton Board of Health and Glenrose Hospital which he held until 2002. He later returned to part-time practice which he shares with time spent travelling to homes in France and South Africa.

David James Pitt-Watson (1972-74) MA, MBA, who is an Executive Fellow at London Business School, is commercial director of the Focus Funds managed by Hermes Fund Managers. He founded Hermes Equity Ownership Service which aims to ensure that shares owned by pension funds are used to promote good management practice and sustainable investment. He has advised policy-makers,

particularly Labour leaders, on issues of industrial and financial policy, corporate governance and financial market regulation. He has been honorary treasurer of Oxfam since 2008 and was chairman of the United Nations environment programme’s finance initiative in the run-up to the Paris Climate summit.

John Robertson Primrose (1992-98), having studied international relations, has for the past fifteen years been involved in humanitarian aid work, operating in crisis-hit countries such as Ethiopia, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Southern Sudan. This work mainly involved in emergency assistance to places hit by earthquakes and disasters. He recently moved to Nigeria to take up a role with the UK Government’s Department for International Development as the deputy head of its Nigerian office. He is working to put structures in place to allow the poorest in Nigerian society to access education and work. North-east Nigeria is beset by war fuelled by religious extremism, including Boko Haram and Islamic State, a famine, high maternal death rates and malaria. Nigeria is the fourth largest source of human trafficking to the UK.

Hannah Renton (2009-15), who was a Depute Head Girl in 2014-15 and joint winner of the Phil Love Trophy in that year, continues her musical career. She is in the third year of her undergraduate degree at the Royal College of Music in London, studying under an internationally renowned violin teacher. She earned a place in the National Children’s Orchestra of Scotland at the age of 9 and became its leader at the age of 13. While at School she was involved as leader of the Grampian Youth Orchestra, the Aberdeen City Schools Symphony Orchestra and the City Schools String Ensemble.

Charles Francis Roe (1937-49) MB,ChB after a time as a Harvard research fellow undertook metabolic research and eventually had a career in vascular surgery in the United States. He later changed careers and became a full-time writer of fiction. He has fourteen novels and medical mysteries in print, several of which have been book club selections and two of them national best sellers. He is now living in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Henry George Roe (1940-52) emigrated to Rhodesia in 1957 and worked in the BMC plants in Umtali, Nigeria and Malawi. He remained in Rhodesia until just before independence when he came back to settle in Belgium. He worked in the Hôpital St Luc in Brussels for a number of years and then, until retirement, at Recticel, manufacturers of polyurethane foam. He is now occupied writing internet sites.

John Anderson Sleigh (1936-40) was recently honoured by the Russian Government for his part in the Merchant Navy’s Arctic convoys during World