Schola Clara issue 7

SCHOLA CLARA

THE MAGAZINE FOR ALUMNI AND SUPPORTERS OF THE HIGH SCHOOL OF DUNDEE

An Interview with Mrs Hudson

Easy question to start, what were your highlights of the year?

Armistice is always a highlight and this year we were once again able to bring the whole School community together. The parade brings the traffic to a standstill and is such a visual and visceral reminder of our place in the centre of the city. It highlights in the most powerful way that it is our humanity that unites, rather than divides us. The chance to share this with our wider HSD Family (live on social media) really demonstrates that it is possible to retain our ‘HSD/ DHS DNA’ whilst also embracing new ways of doing things!

Other headline events were; The Pipe Band winning the World Championships (Novice Juvenile B), Commonwealth Games successes; Eilish McColgan (winning that Gold Medal) , Shona Campbell (demonstrating that Women’s Rugby is a seriously exciting sport!) and Cameron and Jamie Golden competing for Scotland and Great Britain in Men’s Hockey. My first Prize Giving as Rector in the magnificent Caird Hall was a real highlight made all the more special by Guest of Honour FP Graham Stuart (So Television) having a word for every pupil. That same day the Senior Musical performance of ‘We Will Rock You’ was a joyous reminder that if you are bold enough you can achieve something extraordinary and that the performing arts are transformational. More recently The Premier Quaich competition which FPs will remember as our answer to BBC Young Musician of the Year, demonstrated that the standard of music making is utterly exceptional at HSD. Although all competitors were winners (actually of their respective instrument classes) the overall quaich winner; percussionist, Cameron MacLean showcased the absolute joy and exhilaration that music can bring to both the performer and the audience

Every day as Rector brings a highlight. It is a cliché to say it but absolutely true. From the L1’s waving wildly as I walk past them in the playground to the conversations that I have with

pupils at the front gate. It is the hidden, individual successes, too numerous to mention where a young person has surpassed all expectations that bring the greatest satisfaction. Obviously teaching my F2 history class remains a joy, I still love teaching, it reminds me why I do what I do!

You spoke last year of a sense of history as you locked the gates at the start of lockdown, what are your thoughts and reflections on that period now? (There is a long, long pause followed by an intake of breath as memories are weighed, then a steadying short imperceptible sigh before the answer comes).

It makes me feel emotional and immensely proud. We were stepping into the unknown and were utterly out of our comfort zone. I worked to create as much certainty as I could for the community, for colleagues, our young people and their parents. The fear of what the pandemic would bring in terms of loss of our loved ones was real, indeed several members of our community were faced with this terrible reality. I was fortunate to have my amazing family for support and an extraordinary senior team (and two amazing Deputy Rectors!) In addition, were our brilliantly dedicated team of teachers who went way above and beyond and a support staff who were willing to do everything possible to adapt our facilities to ensure we were back in school together as soon as restrictions would allow.

Staying connected to our young people and each other was the absolute priority. It also took me to a place where I had to communicate in a very different, very open and honest way. I think the community will long remember my infamous video messages! Seriously though, this was something that I came to value very much and is now part and parcel of how I do the job.

It is difficult to really do justice to what we achieved I hope that the community really know how exceptional it was.

Sadly you had to write two obituaries for former staff, anything you wish to add?

Rosemary Stewart was very influential for me as a young teacher because she was a woman in a leadership role. I was a young teacher with lots of ideas and Rosemary demonstrated how to encourage and also how to say no in a supportive and kind way. I now understand just how important this balance is in nurturing and supporting future generations of teachers and leaders!

When John Nolan came to the school (to teach German) he was ‘technically retired’. I did the lesson observation which was an element of the selection process, and my only German came from singing German Lieder! At the end of the lesson, the extraordinary thing was that I understood all the elements of the lesson and had some useful vocab under my belt. John’s secret was how he infused his teaching with his personality, bringing his passion for language, sense of the dramatic and humour to all his lessons. An inspirational teacher, we were lucky to have him in the school, in the twilight years of what had been a stellar career. He wrote plays that were just extraordinary. These plays (and Herr Nolan) are imprinted into consciousness and minds of the pupils who experienced them

They were inspirational in different ways, but both had a significant impact on me professionally and personally. They are very much missed.

What’s

the biggest challenge facing the school?

There are lots of challenges but also opportunities. One of these is to really be able to take our place within the City of Dundee. It’s a challenge that demands boldness, putting aside divisive barriers and a leap of imagination to see things from new and different angles. The stars aren't aligned for any of us at the moment (the school, local authorities or government) with so much uncertainty ahead. With COVID there was an absolute unifying driver, so it meant that we didn't stand so much on ceremony; if it was the right thing to do, we did it. We need that spirit going forward and I am optimistic!

One tangible thing you would like to change next year?

To develop the front playground as a shared outdoor space for the whole community. I am committed to that and to work with colleagues, our pupils and their parents to continue to ensure that HSD is simply ‘the best’!

What is important to you?

Family. People. Positivity, Commitment and Kindness. These are the anchors for me. I have an amazing job, no matter the challenges (and they can be considerable sometimes) I am always excited to come to ‘work’ I still pinch myself that I have the privilege of leading this amazing school and the responsibility of that is hard wired into me! It matters to me that we always act with compassion towards one another. I try to model this. It also matters to me that we are a community that understands the profound learning that comes from ‘failure’ Again this is a cliché but such a powerful message for us all in a society that demands so much perfection. Ultimately if my family are well, then all is well. I have two amazing daughters (both naturally HSD FPs!), a very supportive husband and I am also very fortunate to still have a big extended family and we are very close. Both my parents live nearby and are very connected to my life. My mum often calls in the morning as I drive to School and sometimes that means I’ll sit in the car, parked-up, for half an hour before I begin my day.

I am very blessed, and I take care to always remember that and be grateful.

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School Heads and Deputies

More than ceremonial

At the beginning of the year I wasn’t sure what to expect as Depute Head of School and it has certainly been very busy and challenging. For example, I did not anticipate how intimidating giving an assembly could be, but overcoming these challenges with a great group of people next to me has made the experience enjoyable and rewarding. I want to actualise the changes pupils want to see, if we don’t listen to the pupils and try to improve the HSD experience then our positions are merely ceremonial; I want to ensure that everyone feels heard. I hope we achieve all our goals and our initiatives, like the Pupil Forum, live on after our graduation.

Learning more about the school’s rich history when touring with FP’s was great. It was fascinating to hear them paint a picture of HSD so different from today’s. The school holds so many memories for so many people and I’m thankful this role allows us to preserve and celebrate that.

A massive honour

I underestimated how proud I would feel to be a Head of School, it’s a massive honour and I feel very privileged to be in this position. I would like to inspire more of the pupil body to get involved with our co-curriculum. There is so much on offer and it has shaped me as a person, it’s easy to forget their importance, especially after lockdown.

One highlight of my time so far as Head of School? As a team of four we get along really well, making all the events enjoyable, but being able to play with the Pipe Band and then laying the wreath with Ollie at the Armistice Parade was really special. I look forward to delivering the Prizegiving speeches with Ollie, we have been working on jokes to weave in and hope to make it a memorable end to our terms in post. I have had so many great moments at HSD, but the rugby and hockey tour to Spain and winning the World Pipe Band Championships top the list. After finishing at HSD I hope to study physics, the goal is to one day work with a space agency.

Jan

Poignant and special

Being Head of School has lived up to expectations and I loved delivering the assemblies, a great opportunity to interact with the different year groups. I’d like to encourage participation in sports, they can improve both general and mental health as well as being a great opportunity to socialise. Placing the wreath at the Armistice Parade was poignant and special, something I will never get to do again. I’m looking forward to the Prizegiving speech, my mates have put a lot of pressure on, hopefully I don’t disappoint. This summer’s Spain hockey and rugby trip was fantastic, four days away with all my mates will be something I fondly look back on in 50 years, getting up at the front of the bus to sing karaoke, priceless. After school I plan to do a gap year and work abroad, I’d love to go to Australia or America to play hockey and experience a different culture. On return to Scotland I plan to go to Strathclyde to study pharmacy.

Ollie

Memories from the 2019 Greece trip I’ll cherish forever. Wearing our matching hoodies in Delphi, sightseeing in Athens, exploring Olympia after nightfall; to think a year later a global pandemic would halt international travel makes me very fortunate and grateful. The often-calamitous rush to edit The Columns and organising the Interact fundraising balls are experiences I’ll look back on fondly.

I’m planning on studying Economics, in terms of careers, I’m not quite certain yet, however, I know that wherever I go I will always feel a strong connection to the school.

Zara

Bridging the gap

Initially I was a little nervous about our fortnightly meetings with Mrs Hudson and Mrs Watson, however I was surprised at how relaxed they were and I felt both listened to and respected. I have thoroughly enjoyed meeting people, from the Lord Provost to alumni, providing many opportunities to engage with and establish connections within HSD and the wider Dundee community.

As Deputy Head of school, I want to strengthen our links with other schools in the city. Hosting more Dundee Schools events will help, and we are also working hard within HSD to bridge the gap between pupils and teachers by creating a pupil forum.

I will always cherish my memories from the Barcelona Hockey and Rugby Tour. We played one match (a win of course) and the trip was jam packed with fun. From karaoke on the bus to riding one of Europe’s fastest rollercoasters.

I am looking forward to end of year events such as the Leavers Ball and BBQ, sure to be a great way to end our time at HSD. After school I hope to study medicine and ultimately become a Cardiothoracic Surgeon.

Hannah

Hannah, Jan, Ollie, Zara

House Captains

Airlie Aystree

Lindores

Wallace

Parisa Hossain-Ibrahim, Eve MacCallum, Iona Kennedy (C), Maishah Mason (C)

David Cargil, Alix Saddler (C), Amy Paterson (C), Sally Connolly

Alistair Baptie, Kirsty Bett (C), Fraser Gray, Cameron MacLean (C)

Alistair Clark, Zamin Okhai (C), Andrew Loveday (C), Milly Houston

World Champions

Our Competition Pipe Band had a spectacular season during 2022, culminating in being crowned World Pipe Band Champions in their grade in Glasgow on 13 August.

The band was founded in 2017 shortly after the arrival of Pipe Major David Wilton and Drum Sergeant Steven Graham to the Music Department. It started competing in Royal Scottish Pipe Band Association (RSPBA) championships and competitions in 2018. As a new band, it was placed in the Novice Juvenile B grade, the entry grade for bands with all players under 19 save the Pipe Major. By the 2019 season we had reached eighth place in the World Pipe Band Championships and it became clear that the relatively young band would be able to build upon this.

After two years with no competition we started 2022 with a bang, gaining our first ever win: at the Gourock Highland Games in early May. This gave the pupils belief and they launched into a season of victories. The next week they returned to Gourock for the British Championships, and won. Four weeks later the Band competed at the Benarty Competition at Lochore Meadows, winning its own grade and placing second in the Novice Juvenile A grade (bands can also compete one grade higher than their own at smaller competitions). At the end of June, the band then won the European Pipe Band Championships, with the band’s drummers separately receiving the prize for Best Drum Corps.

After a well-earned rest in July, the band placed second at the Scottish Championships, and the pupils continued to work hard through the early part of August, with the aim to be crowned world champions. They not only succeeded, but also the Drum Corps were crowned the Champion of Champions for the season.

As a result of the pupils’ hard work and success under the sure hands of Mr Wilton, Mr Graham, and our Piping Instructor Mr James Semple, the Competition Pipe Band has now been promoted to the Novice Juvenile A grade for the 2023 season. This has allowed us to start a second competing band, the Development Pipe Band, which will be entered to compete in the Novice Juvenile B grade.

In tribute to the fallen, including all those from the High School community who have died in armed conflicts past and present, the School’s Combined Cadet Force and Pipe Band completed a parade in front of the school.

The event, which was watched by pupils, staff, parents, members of the public and guests, was led by CCF Contingent Commander Major Graham Rodger, with Rector Lise Hudson giving a reading from a poem by Sue Gilmurray: Teach Me the Way of Peace

A wreath was placed on the School’s War Memorial by Heads of School, Ollie Hall and Jan van der Kuyl, assisted by Junior Years pupils Daniel Stewart and Catherine Lauchlan.

In a moment in the proceedings that is always particularly poignant, Flowers o’ the Forest was played by Pupil Pipe Major Alastair Leonard, before a two-minute silence was observed.

To allow those who couldn’t be present to be part of the occasion, the parade was also streamed live on social media.

Rector Lise Hudson said, “Our annual Remembrance Parade is always a very moving occasion, allowing us to pause, remember and pay tribute to those who have lost their lives in all conflicts. Bringing people together to reflect on the sacrifices made in past and current conflicts, Remembrance provides a salutary reminder of the importance of working for peace.”

During Remembrance week poppies were sold to raise money for the Scottish Poppy Appeal, with a sale of doughnuts after the Parade raising further funds for the charity.

Armistice

We Will Rock You

For three thrilling nights in June, they absolutely did.

Warming up the audience was the High School Festival, offering a global menu (as well as local berries) and a host of entertaining games, there were prizes galore and money raised for a range of charities. Whilst on the stage musical acts showcased the incredible talent of our young people.

The main act itself, simply A Kind Of Magic

Our Global Community

As an institution we are so proud of all our people. The collective wealth of skills, experience and expertise, as reflected in the pages of this magazine, continues to amaze and astound. The shared connection of time spent at The High School of Dundee is lifelong, the school will continue to be here for you, and we hope that you will be a support to other members of the community.

So many of us have settled away from home. Some remain a short car journey back, others require myriad planes, trains and automobiles, but wherever you are it is unlikely that you are far from another member of the community.

In the months before the class of ’23 leave The Pillars we want to build the Ambassador Programme so that the community can offer a friendly face, or voice, no matter where in the world someone disembarks.

The only commitment we seek is that you be prepared to answer a call, or an email. We would hold your details and when approached by a member of the community who has landed in your part of the world, give them your phone number or email address. We are not asking that you act as tour guides, provide counselling services, or offer careers advice. Just that you would be prepared to talk.

Please complete this form to indicate interest and we will be in touch to discuss the matter further.

From Buenos Aires to Brisbane, Durban to Dundee our community of former staff, pupils, parents and supporters cover the globe.

is Comfortable With a Pen in Their Hand

Some folk want to have a hammer, or a knife!

Not Everyone

Jeremy Lee has film star quality. A leading man, he carries charisma modestly but has that disarming ability to make you feel important and interesting. Rich vocabulary and storytelling complement an easy manner that make his company as agreeable as his menu.

His stage is Quo Vadis, a restaurant in London’s Soho and whilst this may sound underwhelming when compared to a film set the reality is anything but, it is a sumptuous setting, stylish but not over-ripe.

Continuing the film metaphor is the critic Emily Green, “He serves up flavour the way Oliver Stone serves up violence,” a quote that Jeremy found both incredibly funny and flattering.

I met him at Quo Vadis on a busy Saturday in November, his kitchen a hub of action laced with the heady aroma of freshly cooked pies. But it was surprisingly quiet, everyone knowing their role and absolutely on cue, I watched as Jeremy had a question or comment for everyone, the histrionics of some of his predecessors merely empty echoes from a bygone era.

Jeremy was High School of Dundee class of 1981. Cooking was not the career path he intended to walk.

For some weird reason I never filled an UCCA form out. We went on what turned out to be the last family holiday, with us all, to France and when I came back that awful brown envelope was waiting. Bizarrely I had paaed my exams, three or 4, enough to get me into Commercial College where I could work on a portfolio to send to Duncan of Jordanstone and follow in Dad's footsteps, Grandad’s footsteps and my brother's footsteps. I went to Mum and said, “do I have to go on to 6th year?” She said, “well no darling, not really if you don't want to.” So, I slipped through the net beautifully, I left the High School without having a farewell because it was the middle of the summer holidays, and I just didn't go back. Ad hoc I got a summer job with the Old Mansion House in Auchterhouse, which had just opened, it was brilliant, this beautiful old house just outside Dundee. Sadly it is no more.

It was very unusual indeed (particularly in Scotland) for a white middle class, privately educated kid to go into that realm. I was a waiter first of all, I am such a rubbish waiter, instead of sacking me they actually put me in the kitchen, which gives you a vague idea of the level of respect for cooks at that time.

I started an apprenticeship, which is unheard of now. Tragic and completely ridiculous, you train to be everything else, why on earth shouldn't you train to be a cook? And then the years flew by. It was a very strange, monk-like existence in this kitchen. I had no teenage life but made up for it later when I came to London!

They said when I was going into my twenties, “what on earth are you doing? Pack your bags you’re going to London, we’ve got you a job at Boodles.” That was it, fate sealed.

Sealed indeed! After Boodles he went to Bidendum with Alister Little before heading up a small kitchen in an Islington restaurant. The next move was to the Blueprint Café where he really made his name, staying for 18 years before taking his place at Quo Vadis in 2012.

But despite the stellar names he has worked with and the training he received, there is little doubt his apprenticeship started a long time before he began his ascetic existence in Auchterhouse.

When I was growing up, I was often perched on a stool at the counter with half an eye on the kitchen as I fretted over homework or doodled on a sketch pad while Mum went about the business of cooking for her family, rolling pastry, stirring a pot, dipping fillets of haddock in breadcrumbs, grating a lemon or nutmeg.

Jaws is often described as a cinematic metaphor about masculinity but Steven Spielberg is clear, “it’s a film about a shark.” Jeremy Lee insists he has written a book about cooking and calling it “Cooking” is a heavy hint, but he gives the reader much more than recipes. He has written, in part at least, a love letter to his parents and the childhood they gave him.

Dedications in books are rarely followed up, just a throwaway form of tribute, his is more of a synopsis:

To Mum and Daddy, who put so much into the day-to-day pleasure of cooking, curiosity, shopping and eating

In the pages that follow we are treated to his culinary upbringing, family outings interwoven with visits to collect the finest ingredients; lobsters and crabs from the East Neuk of Fife, sea kale and asparagus from Essie Farm, porridge oats from Cupar, smokies from Arbroath and heather honey sourced from Mrs Braithwaite’s tea and coffee shop.

Each of the short chapters is prefaced with story and description, invariably rooted in his upbringing and the love that he experienced at home. Love becomes central to the book. It is the inspiration, the central ingredient, the seasoning. Without it he would not be where he is now and his work reflects it back out onto the world.

Love frames the words he has for everyone in Quo Vadis, gentle questions and ‘well dones’ are the order of the day because the alternative he will not countenance, if you are tired you are grumpy, if you're grumpy you’re bad tempered, if you’re bad tempered you'll snarl. Rocket science I don't think so, you don't need a gold star badge to work that one out.

We were interrupted by a colleague as he was answering the question “why a book?” A former waiter was asking for a signed copy which was thrust into Jeremy’s hands. His words were generous for a previously errant waiter whose employment was in and out more times than a fiddler’s elbow. But he was brilliant, so we kept taking him back. The page was finished off with myriad drawn hearts and x’s.

Ultimately the answer to ‘why a book’ lies in his view of television. Jeremy’s stage presence was always going to draw him into the world of food as entertainment, but it is not a world he fully embraces.

There were very few Scottish chefs with a profile, and apparently, I had a profile. Pat Lewellyn, the genius who had discovered the Two Fat Ladies and Jamie Oliver said “try him out for Scotland”. I’d dabbled with TV before, but not with any conviction because I always got slightly irked by this nonsense that you were being paraded out for entertainment whereas food should be an education, because then it is brilliant.

The book is out there, having a whale of a time and I’m back in the kitchen making pasta and rolling tart cases. Next is another 10 years at Quo Vadis, I hope. I’ve never been driven by the excitement of adventure, I quite like the lovely thing of cycling from Hackney to Soho every day. Writing is always a pleasure.

Favourite thing to cook?

Depends on the time of year. Cooks are curious and there’s really not much we don’t like except bad cooking. I think game in autumn, we’re just finished with grouse, and partridge is about to come on, I adore wild duck.

My questions exhausted he poses in the kitchen wearing a High School of Dundee apron. The ensemble move around him, delivering their lines perfectly on cue as the leading man smiles, gesticulates and chats away, always a with a story to tell.

This Man Saved Lives

But he is far too modest to say so

Covid was a nightmare, a time of fear, despair and desperation. A time when we leaned on each other and were forced to consider who the really important members of our society were, on Thursday nights we stood on our doorsteps to applaud the NHS and frontline staff who continued whilst the rest of us were forced to retreat home. The worst may be behind us, but there are still so many stories that need to be heard. Stories that show the best of us, where ordinary people achieved amazing things, working together to conquer challenges rarely seen in peacetime.

The word hero is overused, it should rarely have a place in a sporting report or a dispatch from Westminster Palace, it is cheapened by lazy writers who reach for superlatives when ‘average’ or ‘fine’ would do. Real heroes do not wear a football strip, or wear capes and wield superpowers, some wear hospital gowns and stethoscopes. Others still casual t-shirts and qwerty keyboards, and one of them is one of our own. Steven Roy (class of ’17) has a story worth telling. He helped write the software that conquered the biggest ever peacetime logistical challenge, the covid vaccination programme in England and Wales.

Steven came to The High School in August 2011, the recipient of a bursary. He has been kind enough to tell his own story and was kind enough to meet me for a coffee recently.

I grew up with not exactly a lot of money going around and mum working 12-hour shifts. So, education was something in the background and I was certainly not considering higher education, but then a teacher suggested that I might apply to Dundee High. I came for a visit and just fell in love with the place, for me that

auspicious moment of walking into Trinity Hall is unforgettable. I think the most telling difference about the school is the teachers, they didn't view it as just a job, it’s something they live and breathe. They would approach me with passion projects, Mr Smith came and talked about starting a digital app development club, something that I went on to use in my first-year internship at the Bank of England. I wouldn’t have considered a career in app development or cybersecurity or consultancy. And it all came about because of teachers who had said, ‘why don't you try this?’ And then they would spend their breaks and lunchtimes working through problems that are completely outside the curriculum. The teaching in the classroom is first rate, but it's the bits beyond that really, really take it to the next level. I spent my final two years, every single weekend away with Mrs. McGrath at debating competitions, and the opportunities that led to were incredible such as Kazakhstan for the European Debating Championships and Bali with Team Scotland. People willing to dedicate their time like that are usually one in a million, in the High School there are 10, 20, 30 of them.

Cryptography Club was something that we started. At first, we were spectacularly bad at it, but the teachers still spent an extra hour or two after school every week to go through problems that we were absolutely, unequivocally terrible that. But we got better and were learning things beyond the curriculum, in my degree (Computer Science) cryptography was a huge part.

Terrified to come

To get lapel badges for my blazer I joined Biology Club and we tried to train fish to play football! It was spending breaks doing fun elements of education, a well-rounded preparation for the real world. A High School of Dundee education is intense, not just something that takes place within the timetable. There's

lot of things to get your teeth into and the teachers will back you, there's really no limit if you're willing to try. The High School experience is a lot more like higher education, a lot more independent learning.

I was really terrified of coming at first because it seemed like a massive change from the culture I was used to, but that was not the case, no one ever really noticed that I was different, no one ever cared. It wasn’t something to worry about.

Everyone around me was supportive, helping me to get what I wanted out of my education. The High School was exactly the right intermediary step before university. The High School’s great.

A serious risk of failure

I had just graduated from Durham University and started at Palantir Technologies as a new graduate. Covid was rampant and the need for personnel to work on the Covid projects was pressing, so I started work on Monday and by around 1pm I had been assigned to the vaccines project and began to pick up context on what was needed.

I was the software engineer responsible for building the software that facilitated vaccine ordering across England and Wales (head of a team of three) – together we constructed a pipeline allowed every individual vaccination site (2,980 total) to request vaccines, which at its peak was delivering 771,000 vaccines per day alongside all the associated products. It became a complicated question very quickly with a lot of moving parts. I was working as a Forward Deployed Engineer so the process was straight forward, I’d meet with the team leading the project at the NHS –we’d discuss what needed to be accomplished, how the process should work and get feedback on the ‘tools’ since they were in use as I was building them. It was a lot of writing code, and

we relied heavily on the NHS team, to test the dashboards and tools as normal testing processes just weren’t within the allowed timeframe. We had tight deadlines, and serious risk of failure, it was close a few times and there were certainly growing pains, but the output was a robust pipeline, allocating individual doses to every site across England and Wales and allowing those sites to report any doses that they had used/broken/spilled.

All in it took about three months. It was hard work, at the height of development I started at around 7am and would leave early hours the next day (or nap at the office while tests ran). I can’t complain about the actual office, it was well stocked, we had showers and Soho is a very quiet place during the week – nothing compared to the people working in hospitals or deployed on site at the time, I had it lucky.

Eternally grateful

I’m very proud of being a small part of the Covid response – I was by no means an integral part, healthcare workers and a huge variety of others were risking their lives and working far harder in far worse conditions but there was certainly a smile on my face when speaking to vaccination site owners who had used the platform and tools that I had helped to build.

A lot of Red Bull helped, a belief in the product that we were building and a desire to have an impact on the world at large –as well as support from family and friends during the particularly gruelling days.

I wouldn’t be where I am today without The High School of Dundee. Particular thanks to Irene McGrath and David Smith, both of whom gave unlimited time and patience, I am eternally grateful.

Paddy

Barclay DO NOT SPEAK TO THIS MAN

Paddy Barclay (class of 1965) extended a courtesy to Sir Alex Ferguson, letting him know that he was writing a biography. The result was the text above being sent to Jose Mourinho.

I was doing a book about Alex Ferguson, so I went over to Milan where Mourinho was the manager of Inter to talk about Alex Ferguson. He was delightful, couldn’t give me enough time and as he sits down I say, ‘a little present for you’, and hand over a copy of the Portuguese translation of the book I wrote about him. He sort of waves it way, ‘I’ve read it.’

I had a brother who became a private pilot. One day the driver who was going to take the VIP into London didn’t turn up. My brother was asked to drive, he gets the car and into the back jumps Jose Mourinho. Michael couldn’t contain himself and eventually said, “Mr Mourinho I don’t want to interrupt you, a relative of mine, Patrick Barclay, wrote a book about you.” Mourinho just sort of chucked and Michael said, “Well, I suppose it’s a load of crap.” Mourinho replied “no its not crap”. So, if the book ever gets a reprint…

I took that the book was ok. If he'd got a problem with it, he'd have told me (or Michael).

With Ferguson there was a problem, I'd known him since he was at Aberdeen and I thought I got on alright with him, he was generous with his time, we had a friendly relationship. I got offered the chance to write the book, the most money I ever got for a book, by a long way. I thought if I don't speak to him and I and ask one of his friends like Craig Brown or Andy Roxburgh for an interview, and they ring him as a courtesy I just imagine him feeling let down, that I'd gone behind his back. So I go and speak to him and he explodes, absolutely exploded. “I hate people writing books about me, but it's your choice”, and then he smirks at me and he says, “you do what you like”. He’s very influential in the game, so I wrote to him and said: I think you're being a bit unfair here. You’re supposed to be the champion of the working man, let me be a working man. Two months later I get a reply: ‘Thinking about it – I've no qualms’.

So I went out to Jose Mourinho. And Mourinho is talking and talking and talking, so many wonderful stories about Ferguson, who he loves. He said “Are you staying over in Milan?” I said, “No, I'll get on a plane back tonight.” He asks me which airport I was flying from and when I tell him says “Oh, that's a pity, because I live on the other side, otherwise I'd have dropped you off. But I’ll get the press officer to do it as it he lives near that airport.”

I'm sitting down and waiting for the press officer who comes in, glum faced and he’s holding BlackBerry. “Problem”, he says

Paddy in press box

and hands me the mobile phone. It's Jose Mourinho's and on it is a message from Alex Ferguson saying – ‘Do not speak to this man. He's trying to make money out of my reputation’. And I'm shocked because I got this letter saying ‘I have no qualms’. Mourinho comes back into the room shrugging and saying, “What can I do”. I ask him if I can use the interview, telling him I have got a letter. He tells me that he knows I am telling the truth, “but I don't want to upset Alex.” You can use some of it, but don’t make it look like it came from me. To this day, I think it was very poor behaviour. He's got a very extremist view of intellectual property, or he is mean. The only mistake I made was to try to do things by the book.

Paddy Barclay is one of a select few to have been Chief Football Writer at The Times, Guardian, Observer and Telegraph Additionally, he was a frequent guest and contributor on Sky Sports and the writer of four outstanding books on Ferguson, Mourinho, Busby and Chapman.

I was not particularly good academically. I still have friends that

6th Year, I had six ‘O’ Grades and Higher English. So I literally walked out of the school playground across the road and into a job having I passed a very rigorous whole day interview process. I got a job as an office boy in the Telegraph based in the subeditor’s room. The idea was that I would do menial tasks and learn a bit of sub-editing and then see what happened after that. But after about nine months the editor, a man called Robert Kennedy called me in,

“Have you considered insurance?”

“I don't think it is that dangerous a job Mr. Kennedy all I have to do is make the tea and pin the photographs outside the office.”

“No, no, no, I mean as a career we know that you're trying your best, but we just don't really think you're going to make it. So don't rush, take your time, look around and see if you can find something to suit you better.”

Instead I got a similar job on the Aberdeen Evening Express,

With Luiz Felipe Scolari

Scared of match reporting

I don't know how I did it, I honestly don't know. All I can remember really is for the first four years I was just winging it night after night, driving home with splitting headaches after matches. Gradually, over the years it got easier but it never got easy. I was scared of match reporting. Even after doing it for 40 years I was always nervous.

Retirement is wonderful. The only thing that spoils it is I have this recurrent nightmare, once it once a month. I'm back writing a feature or doing a match report, but I can't make it work. I wake up sweating because I've finally been found out.

But no, I never got found out!

Paddy wasn’t sent to The European Cup Final in 1985 and so missed the riot that resulted in the deaths of 39 Juventus fans and the pointless football game that followed. He has a guilty feeling of relief that someone else did the reporting that he feels he was untrained for. But he was there in 1989 at the FA Cup semi-final as 96 Liverpool fans died in the crush at the Leppings Lane end of Hillsborough Stadium.

That was a profoundly moving experience. I could talk for an hour about the experience of being on the pitch at Hillsborough after 96 people had died. The memory of that will never leave me. But I had time to observe because my piece didn't come out

until Monday. I was good at writing and analysis, but I couldn't do it quickly. The equivalent of a footballer with no pace.

As we watched Brazil v France and Argentina v England at the 1986 World Cup on our tiny TV’s, he was there. As we marvelled at Man Utd’s late, late, show to deny Bayern Munich in 1999 or Michael Thomas wrenching the league title from Liverpool in the last minute of the 1989 season, he was there.

His career allowed him the see the Berlin Wall, the Wailing Wall and Auschwitz in a single year. So for a man with crippling imposter syndrome he did alright.

Messi or Ronaldo?

Not an easy question. I would rather have a season ticket to watch Messi at Barcelona, than a season ticket to watch Ronaldo at Man United, Real Madrid and Juventus combined. However, as manager of Dundee, I would probably take Ronaldo because he would hurt the opposition more. Messi wouldn’t know what to do if he played in the Scottish Premier League because he's never seen anything like it.

Best player you have seen in the flesh?

The easiest question I've ever been asked in my life. Diego Maradona.

photograph by nicksarebi on flickr

Ever cover anything outside football?

I went to a sports editor once and asked if I could become an all-sportswriter. I really admired a sportswriter called Matthew Engle said, you know I'm never going to be Matthew Engle if I just do football. He just looked me in the eye “Buddy, you're no Matthew Engle”.

Best Scottish player?

Kenny Dalglish. But my personal favourite would be Gary McAllister.

Best manager?

It's hard to argue against Ferguson, isn't it? But greatest genius? It was a partnership, Brian Clough and Peter Taylor together. I would put them above Ferguson in terms of genius.

Best stadium?

A toss-up between the Camp Nou (Barcelona) and the Santiago Bernabeu (Real Madrid). I would say that the best fan experience in the world is new Tottenham Hotspur Stadium. It's difficult to argue against Liverpool or Celtic on European nights as well. I was at Parkhead when they beat Barcelona, sitting next to some Catalan journalists. They were pinching themselves.

The best fan performance I've ever seen was the Koreans in the World Cup semi-final of 2002 against Germany, incredible. Estimated to be 7 million fans in town that night the chanting went on all through the game.

With season tickets for both Fulham and Dundee he is still in love with the game. Nine World Cups, ten European Championships, two African Cup of Nations and countless top end matches. He was in the Azteca Stadium as Maradona punched the ball into the net, just before he scored the greatest goal in football history.

But his humility is most touching. So many years at the top of his game and still feeling like an imposter. He may not have been the Diego Maradona of the football writing world, but for sure he ranks as a Dalgleish or McAllister.

Eilish McColgan

Eilish McColgan has enjoyed an amazing year on the track but there is so much more she wants to share about an initiative close to her heart.

The story of her late flourishing as an athlete is certainly worth telling. Describing the punishing sessions as she strains every sinew time after time. Living out a suitcase for weeks on end as she trains and races in glamourous sounding destinations, though often seeing only airport, taxi, hotel, stadium, hotel, taxi and airport. Tiny adjustments made to wring the last possible benefit from already marginal gains. But above all telling the story of an athlete driven by single minded dedication and commitment.

The result is a career that Eilish (class of 2008) describes as ‘relatively successful’. If there was a gold medal for modesty…

She has represented Great Britain at the 2012, 2016 and 2020 Olympics and Scotland at the Commonwealth Games in 2014, 2018 and 2022. At the 2022 Commonwealth Games she won gold in the 10,000m and silver in the 5,000m. She is a four times European Championships medallist, winning medals outdoors at 5000m and 10,000m and indoors at 3000m. She holds the European record in the 10km road race and British records for the 5000m, 10km road race and half marathon. Throw in the European best for the 10-mile road race and you start to understand that she has a very different understanding of the word ‘relatively’.

But its speaks to her ability to remain grounded in a sport where self-aggrandising can help secure much needed sponsorship and attention, it also signposts her desire to give back to the sport.

Giving Back To Track is a non-profit that she has created along with her partner Michael Rimmer. It aims to ensure that no child

is priced out of athletics by providing support to those who need it most, covering training and competition costs and buying kit.

I was very lucky that my parents were able to support me growing up. I was given the opportunity to try loads of different sports and fell in love with athletics. Without their support I wouldn't be where I am today. But my mum has always been very vocal about how different her upbringing was and how as a family, my grandparents really struggled to make ends meet. She relied on the generosity of a coach at Dundee Hawkhill Harriers to enter her into races and to give her trainers etc. My mum has always spoken so fondly of Harry Bennett and what he did for her as a youngster. Sadly he passed away when my mum was a teenager but she still to this day will get emotional when she speaks about him. My partner Michael lost his mother at a young age and his dad did everything he could to channel Michael's energy into sport. Michael was lucky that some generous coaches at his club gave him second hand spikes so he could race and he competed in three Olympic Games and won a record number of British titles. We both wanted to give back to the sport we love so much.

I've had almost a decade in the sport and I know I'm coming towards the latter stages of my career, I think naturally you have a bit of a mind change as to what you want to get out of the sport. I've had a relatively successful career and feel in a comfortable position now where I can afford to give back to the next generation and I have the time to commit to it.

We have five scholarships at present. These include a bursary to Dundee Hawkhill Harriers, some financial aid and a full kit drop

(clothes and shoes) from my sponsor Asics. In addition, we have six travel grants to assist with getting to major competitions, which are often in England. I wanted to support young female athletes because I know first-hand how difficult it is to navigate through your teenage years. It’s tough dealing with puberty, school and moving into further education and that's why we lose a lot of talented young athletes.

The scholarship is something I'm passionate about and it was humbling to meet a few of the girls, they are incredible. They have enjoyed online webinars with professional athletes and discussed issues such as nutrition and menstrual cycles in a closed safe space where they can ask whatever they want.

What is the next for Giving Back to Track?

Dundee’s Active Schools programme identified an area in the city where kids weren’t engaging with sport, so we choose to open an after-school club there. The longer-term plan is to open more of these across the city and then across the country.

To do this, I'll need to find a headline sponsor or some businesses that could help towards the cost of coaching and facility hire. I'd also like to create a Spike Fund, they are very niche shoes, so a platform to donate to kids who don’t have access to them (and possibly also trainers) is something we are thinking of creating, but currently we are trying to resolve the logistics.

I want kids to enjoy athletics, to enjoy being active. I'm not interested in finding the next Usain Bolt. I know sport can change lives.

It is a gold medal aim from our very own, very modest, gold medal winning former pupil.

Donations to Giving Back to Track can be made at the website. www.givingbacktotrack.org

George Herringshaw

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Engineering for James Bond

Russell, class of ’12, left school to study at Oxford Brookes University. Remembered by his teachers as a very bright and modest young man he initially studied Mechanical Engineering before deciding that Software Development (much less maths apparently) was more to his liking, an outcome that he felt his old computing teaching, Mr Smith, would find amusing.

Russell previously worked as the Lead Field software engineer at Opus IVS, managing development for Porsche and VAG diagnostics. Today, Russell is a successful project engineer at Aston Martin. His job revolves around the development of technology in high-end cars for dealerships and workshops. His day-to-day is a mixed bag, sometimes sat at his desk writing software, at other times trouble shooting with engineers, but the highlight is getting to take the cars out, performing test drives and checking the viability and reliability of the computer software based on the data provided. Russell also liaises with the after sales team and the dealerships to make sure that when they're servicing customer cars they're getting what they require from the diagnostic tools.

Russell’s job as a software engineer demands that he write software, in addition to maintaining systems. The split is around 80% writing software and 20% helping the engineers resolve issues with diagnostics or ‘buggy’ software.

Unsurprisingly he loves fast cars: luxurious, and a great opportunity to flex on Instagram. But what goes into the technology behind these cars?

All cars have an ECU (Engine Control Unit) socket, we plug our tools into the car and that gives us access to all the data on the car. We can read out information like engine temperature, engine speed and myriad other data points.

Russell also manages functions that interact with the computers on the car to help calibrate ECUs, check for issues, and read faults. It is often glamourous work, giving him the opportunity to work on cars like the Valkyrie and the DBX 707.

His team sits within the electrical engineering department. They receive requests from other departments, such as the Powertrain team, and then must figure out solutions; how to write the code, to implement changes and ensure that the final product is user friendly. He leads a team of three who are all very self-managing and independent. Occasionally they dabble in cross-departmental work, such as liaising with the after sales team who support dealerships.

In a previous role Russell advanced rapidly into management, which upon moving to Aston Martin allowed him to jump into a Team Leader position very quickly. He says that luck plays a role in succeeding at a large company, although there is still an “every man for himself” ethos, which requires Russell to be thickskinned and hardworking.

Russell studied at Oxford Brookes University, where his love of cars drove him towards mechanical engineering. However a heavy maths workload required a change of gear as Russell came to the conclusion that the course simply wasn’t for him – he says Mr Mordente (former maths teacher at HSD) would agree. Deciding his strengths lay elsewhere, he had enjoyed the hands-on aspects of Computing & Graphic Communication, he changed degree to Software Engineering, a choice he feels his HSD computer studies teacher (Mr Smith) would “have a good chuckle at”. (Though when we asked Mr Smith he said that he is not at all surprised by Russell’s success or that he was able to thrive on the course he choose).

As recently as 15 years ago cars typically had three computers, but Aston Martin’s new SUV has 90 – all of which require specific code and increasing numbers of software engineers. As a result, those with the skills like Russell are much in demand. At present there are 24 million software developers globally and demand for professionals rose by 17% this year alone.

Russell’s advice for breaking into tech is to specialise – for Russell this was automotive software and he has acquired a very desirable skill set. Saturated fields like game development will be a struggle to survive in without becoming dedicated to a particular market/niche.

But with popularity comes downsides, whilst there is a lot of money and glamour in software the field is becoming increasingly competitive and requires a “the harder you work the further you’ll go” mentality. However, Russell points out that having great people skills plays a crucial part in standing out from the crowd.

For the coding geeks out there, throughout his education and career Russell has used a wide range of coding languages from power BASIC to more commonly known languages like c#, python and JavaScript – c# being Russell’s preferred language for development.

Russell loves being at Aston Martin, very much a Great British institution, though perks like being able to take a DBX home over the weekend help!

By Kaile Liu (Form 6)

Highland Moon

Distilling Moonshine in Dundee

Harris Brown has a fine Scotch from the year of his birth, the down payment on a future celebration that will happen when he turns fifty or makes a million. The former is in 2045 but he is hoping the latter intervenes.

His chosen path to an early celebration lies in distilling moonshine in Scotland. He is making something unique, a grain spirit that is neither whisky or gin, using honey before distillation to create the alcohol and the signature flavour profile. In a country with an uneasy relationship with alcohol his product wears its social conscience on its sleeve as it looks over its shoulder and pays homage to the past.

Infectious enthusiasm pours forth as he talks about the journey he is on, a story he must have told a hundred times but like all good entrepreneurs it feels new and fresh with this telling.

I wasn't one for academia, I was a bit more P.E. and sports. But what really caught my attention was business and economics, because obviously I've got a passion for doing my own thing.

When I left school, I wanted to prove people wrong. A lot of people probably thought I wouldn't have gone to university or got a degree. I'm quite competitive and if you say I can't do something, I promise you I'll try. I wanted to do a drinks business and in 2013 I'd started to look at doing gin as it was becoming the world’s number one seller. But then there was this thing in the back of my mind – ‘wait, go mature a little bit, go try and get into a course, find out a little bit more about how to set up a

business’. The angel on the shoulder was my mum – make sure you stick in with academia and go and learn some theoretical stuff. So I did. My mum wanted to be my first customer, she supported my education so I owe a big thanks to her.

A confluence of factors helped create his magic water. His honours dissertation focussed on the ability of social media to level the playing field between large and small businesses. His time spent making cocktails was a crash course in flavour management and innovation. Memories of history classes teaching prohibition in the US triggered further research and discovery, foreshadowing the contemporary COVID restrictions on alcohol sales.

History at School – 1920’s Prohibition era. You can’t go in public and buy alcohol in bars and restaurants. So that's why I branded it as moonshine. We put it in canning jars because back then bottle manufacturing slowed down as there was no need for bottles. But they had all these jars, and it was a way to hide the alcohol because if they got pulled over they would say that they were making jam or chutney. They're all food grade so you can reuse them to make jams, chutneys, pickles, anything. You don't need to throw them out.

Favourite flavour? Like asking someone to pick a favourite child an agonising wait ensues before he picks Original, then Rawberry, as his answer gathers pace I cut him off before he names all his children…

The cocktail list demonstrates his passion, varied and contemporary, befitting a cocktail mixologist. Smouldering a cinnamon stick and trapping the smoke under a glass before pouring in the drink sounds exotic and interesting (Apple Pie and Smoked Cinnamon Old Fashioned), but his favourite is an Espresso Martini.

I would love to one day have my own distillery and visitor centre in Dundee. A history tour through the stages of prohibition and moonshine before you come to the tasting room to try. But then it's also a destination as well. There will be some fun activities, a mechanical Highland Cow, instead of a bull! When people think of Scottish Moonshine they will think of Highland Moon, just as when you think of vodka, you think of Smirnoff.

Highlights so far include finishing runner up in the Craft Distiller of the Year category, 2022 The Menu Food & Drink Awards.

During lockdown a lot of people struggled with mental health issues, I struggled massively at university and wanted, for every single jar that I sell, to donate money to a mental health charity. There are two sides to this coin, I like to tell people about the story, but I don’t like to use it as a sales approach, because it’s not. The goal is to give to a mental health charity every quarter, the first was ‘Run Talk Run’ and I would like to create a foundation. A lot of people go to alcohol as a coping mechanism, a crutch as they say, I believe that alcohol companies should counter that and try to be the other crutch to support. Some companies might do that, but in the shadows, no one puts it in the forefront, I do. It’s on every one of the jars and I want it to be OK not to be OK. You have to build a brand, but responsibly.

Teachers are inspiration investors. Striving to excite, hopeful that their passion will take root in years to come. Harris Brown took seed in history class and years later is creating something real and tangible.

The bottle of single malt may be opened well before 2045, in the meantime I am off to look for a cinnamon stick and a match.

Friends of the High School of Dundee

One of the unintended consequences of the Covid pandemic is that it forced the Committee of the Friends into hibernation, since its fund-raising activities were stymied.

Circumstances have now allowed the dormant period to be put behind us and the Committee looks forward to re-engaging with supporters and others in a range of activities in the New Year. Plans are not yet finalised, but it is anticipated that events will include a Quiz Night, Musical Supper and Golf Tournament, as have been the Friends’ trademarks in recent years. Keep a look out in School media for further details.

The Friends are the current iteration of what began as the Subscribers, donors who were largely responsible for the funding of the original “Boys School”. Anyone, FP or not, who is sympathetic to the tremendous work done by the School and who has its interests at heart is very welcome to join the Friends, at no cost!

With a recent history of enjoyable and successful events, we look forward to your support in the year to come.

Ken Andrew Chairman

An Honour and a Privilege

Very few people ever see inside the White House, and only a small percentage are not US citizens.

James Blake (class of ’03) is one of an even smaller group, he got to meet the Vice-President.

I visited in 2006, less than five years after the 9/11 attacks and at a time when security advice was still being given before visits to Washington DC, there remained a real concern regarding the capacity of international terrorists to conduct attacks.

The visit was part of a program, run by Washington & Lee University to teach how various political interests; civil society, lobby groups, media and governance overlap to help ensure Washington DC works within the balance of powers set out by James Madison and his fellow writers of the constitution. The program taught a wide range of subjects, everything from the reason for the grid system design in Washington DC through to meeting with various policy experts, former Presidential bodyguards, members of the media, Senators and pressure groups.

The visit took place on a weekday with all the high-level security checks done ahead of time (we had to give passport details some months ahead). Then there were standard airport style security checks at the front gate to make sure no sharp objects, or weapons were brought in, and they kept my passport until departure. There is a beautiful lawn in front of the building, and as we walked on a pathway past it you could see on the roof armed guards, presumably acting as snipers.

For the meeting the only specific instruction we were given related to the recent shooting accident involving Mr Rumsfeld (Secretary of Defense), we could not ask any questions about it but were encouraged to ask about how our internships related to White House decision making. During the Presidency of George W Bush, the Vice-President was particularly prominent in terms of setting the administration agenda and influential regarding the legislature.

As requested my classmates all asked questions related to their internships – relating to specific bills or controversial issues such as; immigration, the pressure groups or how the media could

hold politicians to account. I asked about Iraq and the reasons behind the conflict. The thrust of his answer related to the fear of terrorists obtaining nuclear weapons and that the US populace needed to be protected. He subsequently thanked me for my question and told me it was very important that young people should show the critical thinking needed to ask why interventions were happening in one country but not the next.

Mr Cheney was the last to enter the room and the first to leave; and was accompanied by several aides, but he took the questions on his own. The atmosphere was very serious and sombre; it was quite intimidating, in part because there was so much I had read about the White House and Vice-President. Our group was usually a lively bunch but once inside everyone was slightly overwhelmed. One or two of the group admired him hugely and were giddy with excitement, gushing when asking questions but immediately silent and respectful after, I am not sure anybody dared to ask a follow-up. I remember feeling incredibly shy and very insignificant. I definitely felt under pressure and nervous when asking my question, but I am glad I did. His answer was firm and punchy but his second comment almost a tacit reassurance that you do need to ask tough questions.

My over-riding takeaway was that I had met a very powerful man who was both exceptionally bright and politically talented. Election to the White House requires monumental effort and sacrifice; of lifestyle, privacy and earning power. I have no doubt whatsoever that the administration of the time worked tirelessly to protect the US people.

We were briefly shown around some of the other rooms, and shook hands with the Vice-President, if the President was there we did not see him. The setting is stunning and I remember how bright the rooms were (powerful colours) and that they were packed with magnificent artwork and ornaments.

It was an absolute privilege to go into the White House and while I am sure the Mr Cheney remembers nothing about the meeting, I have a framed picture of it hanging at home!

Doctor, Pioneer and Public Servant

At The High School of Dundee we have a rich history, with many notable alumni. In this edition the youngest was born on the cusp of the new century in 1999 and the oldest is Dr David Greig, born in 1832. We are indebted and grateful to Roger Burns, class of 1964, who discovered Dr Greig’s connection to the school and laboured to put together this outstanding account of his life. A published volume of Dr Greig’s letters home also provided invaluable insight into his time serving during the Crimean War.

Dr Greig’s father had qualified as a surgeon and was a distinguished chemist, having his own pharmacy at 17 High Street. His mother sadly died at age 40 when David was nine years old. He attended school at the Tay Square Seminaries, then the Public Seminaries, the previous name of Dundee High School. He was inspired by his father, helping him to prepare medicines and at the age of 17 David assisted at the Dundee Royal Infirmary during the 1849 cholera epidemic. It is unclear exactly when he left school but in late 1849, he entered Edinburgh University to study medicine.

During his summer holidays, David with several other students “spent their mornings at Dundee Royal Infirmary and acted as dressers and clinical clerks. Of this experience he said – ‘the physicians and surgeons took an interest in us, showed us a great deal, and allowed us to do a great deal, so that afterwards when we went to any of the large medical schools, we found ourselves decidedly ahead in clinical work, and often astonished our teachers by our skill in bandaging, putting up a fracture, or by the assistance we could give at post-mortem examination.”

In 1850 at Edinburgh University David gained honours in his Anatomy class and the following year was awarded the Gold Medal in Senior Anatomy along with first prizes for both Practical Anatomy and Best Essay. On the 8 August 1853, David Greig graduated M.D. with honours and shortly after became Demonstrator of Anatomy and a lecturer at the University. But with casualties rising in the Crimean War, Dr Greig was selected to go to Crimea by his University Professors Simpson and Syme, funded by a donation from Lord Blantyre he departed for Constantinople in October 1854.

Within a week of arrival, he was looking after 180 patients in two wards (and half a corridor), with days typically including two amputations. In a letter home to his sister Anne, he writes:

“My great object in joining the army was, in the first place to get surgical practice, to see the world, to get the éclat of being at the war, and to get a year or two’s recreation before settling in practice”. He notes that the “Russian bullet is a good deal larger than the English one” and striking a femur does considerable damage, often requiring amputation.

In a subsequent letters he wrote:

“You ask about Miss Nightingale – when on board the Vectis I did not know who or what she was, but since then we all know her

very well. She is a very kind lady and what is more has £8,000 a year, which we all joke about here. The nurses are all under her charge, sometimes we get a visit from her in the wards and if a nurse is required for a patient, she sends one. At some parts of the hospital, they attend every day and dress the patients, but to do that at all the hospitals, would require 50 times the number. She keeps strict watch over them and they work very well, but I think just the same could be done by the orderlies which we have always in our wards (soldiers who act as nurses)”.

“I had a farce with Miss Nightingale today, she was visiting some of my patients who were very bad and was asking one poor fellow who had got his leg shot off and was complaining of thirst, if he would like rice water or barley water to drink? He thought for a little and then said, he would prefer brandy and water if it was all the same to her!”

“I suppose you have heard of the celebrated Major Alexander Ungelisopilo who was found stabbing the English lying after [the battle of] Inkerman. He had received a wound through the shoulder joint and died under my charge three days ago. I took his shoulder as a souvenir – a memento of the brute”.

“People always say ‘do let us publish some extracts [of the letters] and we will be careful what we publish’, now what could have been worse than publishing that the Russian Major had been cut up and his shoulder kept as a memento, it might have offended some of our Government as being a thing to irritate Russia. The best joke about the Russian Major is that I have not got his shoulder after all, for when I put it into a jar to macerate the rats took it out and devoured it”.

In January 1885, Dr Greig was relocated and now had some 77 Russian prisoners and about 500 English to tend. He mentions that many of the cases are frostbite and there are few operations. Dr Greig recounts: “A man of the 30th Regiment was brought down from the Crimea with his feet frostbit and was put under charge of one of the doctors here. I had nothing to do with him but one day the surgeon who has charge here took me to him and asked what should be done. I told him that he ought to amputate one of the feet at the ankle joint after Syme’s method. He said he would rather amputate below the knee as he was not acquainted with the operation, having been all his days at the Cape of Good Hope. I took him to the dead house and showed him how to do, he said, ‘My fine fellow, it is a beautiful operation but I can’t do it, you must do it’. We had a consultation of all the

staff and everyone spoke against it, but as I insisted on it I am glad to say I have saved a nice young fellow’s leg, besides getting a great deal of credit from all my companions, and the result is that all the bad cases are sent to me, which is very good”.

September 1885 – Dr Greig was asked if the “hospital was in tip top trim and how many empty beds we had for wounded men as we had a good chance of getting them filled tomorrow”. In his next letter home, Dr Grieg states that “Sebastopol is taken at last”, he relates how the retreating Russians set fire to the town and to their ammunition dumps. “After the Russians had left the Kedan there was a tremendous lot of wounded brought to us, both English and Russian, and within about two or three hours I think I saw 2,000 patients”.

By mid-May 1886, the 17th Regiment had departed for Canada but Dr Greig was required to remain, performing his pathological duties. In a letter to his father in June, speculating that he will be departing soon: “It appears that it is about time I was beginning to think seriously what I intend to do. I do not consider that the last two years have been altogether lost to me. I would not have missed seeing what I have seen for any sum of money and only regret that I was not with the Army from the very first. Oh, how splendid it would have been to have shared in the victories at Alma and Inkerman, but it could not be helped.”

Dr Greig was awarded the Crimea Medal and the Turkish Medal for his wartime service. He is listed as being in the 90th Regiment, with regimental number 3970.

After his service ended he returned to Dundee and a newspaper insert stated that “Dr David Greig, Surgeon, begs to intimate that he has commenced the PRACTICE of his PROFESSION at Burnhead House, Top of Seagate. Surgery – 17 High Street. Dundee, 13th November 1856”.

There was a public petition to shut the Howff, a well-known burial ground near the High School of Dundee, as it was considered injurious to public health and offensive to public decency and many witnesses were called to the Sheriff’s Inquiry. Dr Greig was called for his opinion, based on his experiences of graves at the Crimea and personal visits to the Howff, stating that in his opinion there were no ill effects on gravediggers performing their work.

Dr Greig was in 1858 appointed Physician to the Baldovan Asylum for Imbecile Children and remained involved for many years.

The Aberdeen Press and Journal of 22 February 1860, published the following report, as did several other publications:

“Acupressure” for Arresting Haemorrhage. —Professor Simpson, of Edinburgh, writes a letter to the Medical Times on the subject of acupressure, which is a new mode of stopping bleeding after amputation by the use of metallic pins or needles for closing up the arteries instead of binding their ends by means of ligatures.

Professor Simpson refers to the innocuousness of bullets, pins, needles, &c., which may lodge in the body for a long time, and quotes from letters his friend, Dr Greig, of Dundee (a rapidly

rising man in his profession), showing the ease and simplicity of the mode invented by Professor Simpson, recently tried by Dr Greig with great success, in each case the patient benefiting by the change of process. Dr Greig, who has been the first to test the Professor’s suggestion, says “nothing can be easier, and if a surgeon uses it once, I am sure he will do so again.”

He features on several occasions in the media expressing his expert opinion on a variety of incidents, one example being how struck he was by the high incidence of severe accidents among female mill workers arising from loose sleeves which were then fashionable, and Dr Greig recommended that workers have bare arms. He is noted as being the certifying surgeon under the Factory Acts.

In February 1980 he again ventured east. First visiting Constantinople, finding that the local customs have much changed, with cigarettes instead of Chibouk pipes, and ladies’ face coverings less common. He then visits Scutari, finding the cemetery beautifully transformed. He recalls he felt ill, and subsequently realised that it was the beginning of a fever.

The first news of Dr Greig’s ill health was given in the Dundee Courier 12 June 1890 when the Rev. Colin Campbell expressed dismay that Dr Greig, “one of the honoured elders of the Church of Scotland” and who had been the first to attend to his own recent illness, was himself seriously ill with typhoid fever. A short improvement in his condition was noted but serious relapse followed, and he died on the 27th June. A succession of newspapers including those of Edinburgh and Aberdeen

lamented his passing, as did the Dundee Advertiser of 28 June 1890:

As a citizen he was jealous of the honour and credit of his native town, deeply interested in every movement affecting is welfare, and full of information on the changes in its structure and the vicissitudes of families. As a man he was distinguished by his simplicity, guilelessness, and sincerity. Any affectation, hypocrisy, untruthfulness, or unreality he could not away with. His estimates of men and things were based on facts, and though it may be that other facts, if known and admitted, might have modified his estimate of a character, still he was always just and seldom ungenerous. With a punctuality and method of which he was reasonably proud, with a diligence that never flagged, and a self-forgetfulness so entire that it was almost unconscious, he has gone his rounds of duty day by day for more than thirty years, and now, to use a favourite phrase of his own, “he has fallen asleep and entered into his rest”.

The elder of his two sons, Dr David Middleton Greig, followed his father into the medical profession and had a distinguished career that included service in the Boer War.

Dr David Greig has been added to the roll of notable alumni and a plaque celebrating his life is on display in the school.

Roger Burns

Iain Chynoweth

Iain Chynoweth (class of ’87) agreed to share some memories of time at The Pillars and his career as a vet.

Where do you live now Iain?

Since 1995 I have lived in Calgary, Alberta Canada, a city of about 1.4 million people that lies at the confluence of the Bow and Elbow rivers and is about a one-hour drive east of the Rocky Mountains at the transition between the Rocky Mountain Foothills and the Canadian Prairies.

Where did you go after leaving school?

After leaving the High School in 1987 I lived in Glasgow and studied Veterinary Medicine for five years at the University of Glasgow Veterinary School before graduating in 1992. From 1992 to 1995 I lived in Hong Kong and worked for the RSPCA.

What was your happiest school memory?

I have many good memories of my time at DHS and made many lifelong friends there. One of my happiest memories was the rugby tour that I was able to participate in that took us to Vancouver and Vancouver Island in autumn 1986. This may have inspired my decision to move to Canada almost 10 years later.

What clubs, sports etc did you get involved in?

I played rugby for the school and for the Midlands District and I also played basketball. In the summer track and field season I enjoyed shot put and javelin.

Best song from your school days and why?

This Is the Day by The The – a great song reflecting on nostalgia and opportunity. I went on a road trip to the Highlands with my brother and his friend Alan Macintosh when I was at school and this was in the tape deck. The song still makes me think of those magical days.

What inspired you to become a vet?

I always had a passion for science and veterinary medicine brought together my fascination with living creatures and the ability to make their lives better by treating their illnesses and relieving their pain. Veterinary Medicine involves complex problem solving and I still find this to be intriguing and satisfying, despite its many challenges.

You devote some time to teaching young people, any advice for anyone thinking of a career in veterinary medicine? What skills should they learn that will help them?

Part of my job involves teaching final year veterinary students and mentoring younger veterinarians and we do have high school students in our practices who want to learn more about a career in veterinary medicine. I would encourage anyone interested in a career in the veterinary profession to talk to their local practice and try to spend some time there to get a better understanding of what is involved with the job. There are many opportunities to do this with companion animal practices (dogs, cats and exotics), equine and farm animal practices and even specialty and 24-hour hospitals. This will help to get a good perspective on what happens in a veterinary practice and what

the career opportunities are. Talking to any current veterinary students can also be helpful if that is possible. Academic results are also important for admission, though this is definitely not the only parameter that a university program selection committee looks at. The selection process for a veterinary program will typically also involve an interview so gaining a comfort level with speaking to others on topics that you have just been introduced to is a useful skill. Participating in debate and public speaking is a good way to practice this. A degree in Veterinary Medicine can lead to many diverse career opportunities, work in private practices as a General Practitioner, as a specialist, opportunities in academia, working for a pharmaceutical company, working in Government or many other business areas.

Any embarrassing moments?

I once attended to an Elk that had been hit by a car on my way back from skiing in the mountains. The Elk was lying flat on the highway, completely unconscious and I proclaimed it to be deceased and directed the other drivers that we should drag it off the highway so that it would not cause an accident. As we grabbed the legs of the Elk and started to pull, it promptly stood up, blinked a couple of times and ran off down the road, jumping over the fence next to the highway and across a field, while I retreated back to my vehicle, a bit embarrassed but happy that the Elk was alive.

If you weren’t a vet what would you want to be and why?

I honestly can’t think of anything else that I would do – I love this profession and am humbled every day by the animals that allow us to examine and treat them and by their ability to heal and respond to treatments that they are prescribed. The owners that we work with are amazing too and we could not do what we do without them.

What’s great about Calgary?

Calgary is a diverse and growing city that has doubled in size in the time that I have lived here. We get the extremes of the seasons with hot dry summers and cold even drier winters. There are many sports and activities to participate in within and around Calgary from road and mountain biking, climbing and mountaineering, skiing and snowboarding, fishing and other water sports, to name just a few. The people in Calgary are very friendly and helpful and our city has been ranked as one of the best places to live in the world based on multiple quality-of-life assessments.

Would you like to become our Calgary Alumni Ambassador as a contact for anyone relocating there?

Yes – I would be very happy to do this (see page 10 about Alumni Ambassador).

The Old Boys’ Club

Last year saw a lot of renewed action and socialising for the Old Boys’ Club and great to see so much interest in the club from recent leavers.

The sporting awards saw golfing trophies go to Rory Galloway and David Bowen. The club also have trophies for curling and fishing as well as the Cateran Cup endurance trophy; if there are any old boys looking to take part in next year’s sporting events, please let me know.

The club were delighted to make a £2,000 donation to contribute towards the new floodlights at Mayfield and we hope this will help with the development of rugby and sporting activity at the school. The club is keen to assist with future school donations so if any of the old boys are keen to get involved in fund raising do not hesitate to get involved.

The London dinner at the start of November saw a good turnout with 30 guests attending a dinner at the RAF Club in Piccadilly.

The annual Dundee Dinner at the Invercarse Hotel saw 130 guests in attendance with big turnouts from the class of 2020 and 2022. It was great to see so many recent leavers attend with family members and the club is hopeful that next year will see a good show from the class of 2023. The morning after the Dundee dinner saw many of the Old Boys return to Mayfield to support the Boys Rugby 1st XV in their plate game against Heriots; it was a great opportunity for former pupils to return to the school and cheer on the home team.

Dominic Wedderburn (President Dundee High School Old Boys’ Club)

Top Table Guests L to R: Andy Walker, Hon. Secretary; Andrew Jack, Principal Guest; Dom Wedderburn, VP; Struan Baptie, President; Colin Dargie, Dinner Secretary; Lise Hudson, Rector; David Bowen, Hon. Treasurer

The Old Girls’ Club

The Old Girls’ Club continue to actively engage in all aspects of the school community.

Our thriving Thrift Shop is settling into its new premises located beneath the pillars. This central location has provided increased space, visibility and easy access. Most recently the shop has started to record its carbon offset by weighing the items sold. The school community has seen the benefit of providing a sustainable approach and reducing items that are sent to landfill.

The items sold, along with other fundraising activities, help raise valuable funds that go back to the school. This year we are supporting a wide range of initiatives including:

• the purchase of equipment to encourage entrepreneurial activity across the community

• supporting co-curricular clubs

• currently looking at funding break out areas for pupils to encourage time to reflect, relax and reset

The committee members love nothing more than getting to see the pupils excel and this summer many of us enjoyed the opportunity to sell refreshments and strawberries at the summer extravaganza, We Will Rock You. The nights passed so quickly with the fabulous entertainment and family atmosphere. We can’t wait to get involved in the next whole community event, watch this space!

The committee of volunteers is actively seeking new members to take the club into the next phase. We are in discussions with the school to help support, physically and financially, a range of events in the forthcoming year. We would love to hear from Old Girls who could volunteer at these events and/or join the committee. We meet four times per year at Mayfield. If you are full of great ideas, like to support pupils in achieving success and have a creative team spirit we would love to hear from you.

Ashley Petrie (President – High School of Dundee Old Girls’ Club)

Sending Spartans to Hong Kong

The Agoge was a special school dedicated to turning Spartan boys into fearsome fighters. At age 12 and given nothing but a spear and blanket they were sent into the wilderness for a month to fend for themselves. Most did not make it, returning cold, hungry and broken after a week. Those who survived were welcomed back as men.

Today the human tendency to test and challenge remains undimmed and many desire to test their children, to push them to their limits, to see what happens. Often referred to as ‘tough love.’

Yusuf Okhai is compelling company. A tsunami of selfdeprecating humour and infectious laughter that puts others at ease but does not hide a ferocious ‘always on’ intellect. For most short magazine pieces an interview of 60 mins is enough, longer creates unnecessary editing issues and leaves most of the copy on the cutting room floor. But occasionally you forget where you are and just enjoy listening, with Yusuf two and a half hours passed in a flash.

I never had a plan. I had a job at Ernst and Young and then there was an offer from dad to go into the family business and start up a new factory. He said ‘run a factory’ he meant ‘come and build a factory’ which wasn’t the same thing at all. So, I went to the office and they didn’t even tell me what was going on. I asked him [dad] what I was meant to be doing and he kicked me out of the office and said ‘nothing’. So, I helped in the general office and after a few weeks he said ‘come I’ll show you where the factory is going to be’. It was an empty warehouse with holes in it. I was given a bunch of Brillo pads and pointed in the direction of the ‘new’ scrap, an ice pole machine, once cleaned it was going in the factory. That first factory was horrible but probably a good grounding, tough love – teaching people through fire.

I was there for six years, working as a grease monkey. [A selfdeprecating laugh at the memory]. It changed from an ice pole factory to a bottle factory but a fire meant our customers found other suppliers, so we had to fill the bottles we had with juice, except we were nearly bankrupt. I was given a bunch of ‘unrepairable’ machines from a scrap yard and told to fix them. But I am not any type of engineer, so I am given a couple of aircraft engineers! Factory engineers are rare, aircraft ones less so. It was horrible, aircraft engineering is very, very regulated, everything needs a tick box. I didn’t know about days off for greasing and what not – I just switch it on and smashed out the goods. The guys didn’t understand the machines either, so I became an engineer for 20 hours a day until it finally had to be shut down because it was not making any money.

After that I got an offer to work in our packing plant – ‘No I don’t think so, I’m going to become a software developer.’ I had written some software for the production lines in the factory and

I thought I was a fully qualified software developer! I wrote a programme that let you press one button and send your contacts to a Word doc or a fax machine application. And then I added a quotation system for packing contracts, initially for dad’s firm and then I sold it to four American firms. But before I went on a sales trip to the USA I was told ‘we can’t let you sell this, it has too much of a competitive advantage’ because it used to take up to six weeks to work out a quote and this programme could do it in 20 seconds. I took all the good factory stuff out and sold the contact manager element, putting it on the cover disks of computer magazines. But I decided it was not selling well enough and after three months I shut it down, leaving me with a pile of blank CD’s.

Now I had to sell the disks. I went to see a potential buyer, George in the Forum Centre, but I was so nervous. When I was speaking to him I was playing with my hand under the desk. He bought a thousand, not a lot of profit but I just needed to be rid of them. On the way back to my car I felt a burning in my hand, I had dug through the skin on the palm of my hand, that’s how nervous I was!

I forgot all about it until two weeks later, George calls and asks if I had any more? Sure! But I didn’t! I called Virgin Media who then tell me that they are not making anymore. I ask about the cost of having them made for me under license, £1m! And you didn’t even get to meet Richard Branson! My dad calls and asks about the deal, I tell him about Virgin, he tells me he saw it coming and has bought me tickets to go to Hong Kong to sort something out, I got my sister to come with me to help and off we went.

Ticket to Hong Kong = spear and wilderness.

After eventually getting through immigration, stopped because I did not look British and then further challenged because I did not look Indian either, we call dad from the airport.

‘You were smart enough to book a hotel, right?’ ‘Yeah’, ‘Call me from the hotel, don’t call me from the airport.’

So, we get to the hotel. ‘Right what are we supposed to do dad?’, ‘That’s your problem.’ And he hangs up.

My sister says, ‘He is joking, call him back.’ So, I called him back ‘I told you once, that’s your problem’ and hangs up again!

We didn’t know what to do. I’ve never done anything like this, I’ve always been looked after. So, we went to see the sights of Hong Kong and were planning to do the same thing each day until we came home, to punish him for not telling us what to do. The next day I was coming out of breakfast, this story sounds so naïve now, and I saw the magic words hanging on the wall – Business Centre – wow. I didn't realise these things existed everywhere. We want to do business, let's go to the business centre! [More laughter]. They had two computers, a tired old lady and an enormous 100 volume copy of the Hong Kong Yellow Pages. Back in my room I phone for appointments and find a supplier in Hong Kong, but dad said no, then onto Taiwan where we got an arrangement he said yes to. I think he had decided before we left who he was going to buy from but was just putting us through the motions. We started the CD business, which was the beginning of my trading on my own.

Everybody wanted to be a distributor, all the retailers, so I had multiple brands. The problem happened when Philips sued the whole market for not paying the licence fee. It was a thirty-cent licence back when the price of a disk was $17, they'd never adjusted it and the disks had come down to $0.30. When they started chasing everyone we went unbranded, but there's no money in it because everyone says unbranded is ‘B-grade crap’ and I didn't want to sell any crap. So I bought the best stuff and sold it to the people who were buying the junk, which I realise is not smart business, I just didn't want to sell trash. But the business was effectively dead in terms of revenues.

So we switched to inks, which went very well and in three years we were the biggest in Europe. Then Epson sued us, said we were breaking their patents. We ended up settling for £0 five years later, but I had no business left. In the end I was only selling the ink so I could pay the lawyers!

I am very good at blowing them up

There was a Chinese company who used to supply me CDs, and a parcel appears on my desk just when I am desperate. It’s a tiny perfume atomiser, ‘can you help us to sell it?’ But it’s light and horrible, and they want to sell for £10, I didn’t understand it at all. Also, I didn’t have any money but then I thought, they used to give me credit when I bought CD’s, they trust me. Its light and can be airfreighted so I don’t need any cash to keep stock. Then one of the guys comes in from the warehouse ‘are you going to sell these, can I buy the sample?’ he told me it was for nights out, before a slow dance ‘a little spray.’ I figured I wanted to get into it but the best place would be for air travel. In the next three years we sold 11million in a partnership.

And then the partners tried to tell me what to do…and I don’t like being told what to do.

I offered to buy them out, they said no. I asked them to buy my portion, they said no. I took my share certificate out of my satchel, which I carried as proof that I was involved in a business based in China and I burned it. I made a list of the best swear words and used half (thought I’d preserve half for later) and along with my financial director walked out and never went back.

I come back to the UK. I have a huge warehouse which does all the distribution of this product, 45 people. I told them what was going on, I told them that they needed to find jobs. The last one to find a job took a full year and I kept them on until they found jobs.

Just like Tarzan

Everything up to then had been like Tarzan, just grab whatever comes along and I’ll swing until there's no rope left. This was actually the first time I'd had a blank sheet of paper, ink

cartridges had fallen into my hands, CDs were a necessity of the software and now I had no clue what I wanted to do. But I understood a little bit about products and moving them around, and it felt safe to go and do that. So, I went to the Canton Fair, it is ginormous, and I am looking at everything from Christmas trees to tractors and I end up with 30 different samples which I give out to the family ‘if you don’t like something, just put it back on the sample table’. After a month none of the water bottles came back. When I ask for them back, they won’t give them back, and the guys at work are using them as well.

What follows is a Ted Talk tour through the processes of distribution, marketing and design. But at no point does it feel like a lecture, it is insightful and interesting, leaving me inspired to find a factory with holes in it and a bunch of scrap outside to turn into gold. Common sense is an overused phrase, Yusuf’s thoughts are not common at all, but they do trigger an ‘ah of course’ reaction. Choose bottle colours because they work in the house? No, choose bottle colours that match next year’s high street fashions. Are bottles the end game? No, they are a gateway product as almost every high street store sells water bottles so I have an ‘in’.

So, what is next?

Products wise, I have no interest. I want to let my own kids cut their teeth, maybe they can find a place that's comfortable for them. I don't want anything. I quite like Dundee, my car is already fine, my house is already fine. I can't think of what else I'd want to buy. My plan, if I get to my target sales price [for the business], would be to set up a non-profit venture capital fund with 80% of the money. The 80% would be more than enough

to set up something to allow us to invest in smaller Scottish enterprises.

What makes you happy?

I don't believe in happy, happy is a choice.

A man has never had a TV before. One day someone comes along and delivers a 15-inch black and white cathode ray television. How does he feel? Another man has got an eightyinch plasma screen, take that away and give him a 15 inch black and white TV. How does he feel? Happy is a choice.

I don’t want to get lots of money, I’m not going to chase it. If you win something that doesn’t benefit you, you still lose and I think chasing money is one of those games where even if you win, you lose. I’m not talking chasing survival or chasing comfort or wellbeing. I don’t want to be chasing gluttony, more and more for no purpose.

Yusuf survived his wilderness. Not just Hong Kong, but myriad ‘tough love’ experiences involving aeroplane engineers, brillo pads, pre-pitch nerves and software writing. He is an infectious ball of energy, hilariously blunt and down to earth.

Restless and driven high achievers often appear to struggle with goal setting, there is always another mountain to summit and so happiness (indeed it is often a choice) is postponed until tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow. But regardless of Yusuf’s definition of happy, he sure looks happy.

The Man Who Rediscovered an Original Van Gogh

Before I met Ken Wilkie (class of 1960) in December we had exchanged emails. Enough so I could do a little background, gather some basics and start to think about where it would be interesting to take the interview, standard interview prep. We meet on a video call and after pleasantries Ken asks what I would like to focus on and we agree that I will ask questions to frame the conversation. We start with school days, is he still in touch, memories of teachers and what happened after he left?

I knew some of the answers already, it is no longer amazing what you can find out about a person before you meet them. But it is amazing how the mind processes new information, a pattern recognition machine with a bias towards order it treats information like a jigsaw, linking the pieces to form a coherent narrative. So it was oddly discombobulating, for a second time, when Ken reminded me that he was class of 1960. Nothing in his presentation, his recall or even his hairline fitted. But it is more than appearance, it is energy, vibrancy and passion. None of us aging at the normal rate should feel at all slighted by this description, Ken looks well for a man who is 80, indeed I have friends who are 50 and he looks well compared to them! For the avoidance of doubt I am reluctant to look into a mirror for several days after we chat.

The first discombobulation had been when he sent a photo of himself, his son and daughter on top of a Munro. The sky is blue and all three are beaming, the joy of the day shining brightly. I was going to write it off as taken some 20 years ago, but he had dated it as May 2022.

Ken enjoyed his time at The High, forming lifelong friendships he describes his time as ‘form setting, when I think back on it.’ He then talks about his time in L1b, aged 6, remembering his teacher Ruby Faulkner complementing him about a poem he had written and a story about a holiday in St. Andrews:

I remember the feeling of encouragement that it gave me as a wee boy and it went on like that, all the teachers were characters, Harry Potter couldn’t compete. Some were mildly eccentric but all of them were very strong academics.

It was the spark that lit the fuse, Ken went on to become an award-winning journalist and novelist, though his first steps took him further than over the road.

I didn't go to D.C. Thomson’s. I applied for a new course in media studies at Saint Martin’s College of Art, run jointly with London University and the London College for the Distributive Trades. It was an all-in-one education programme and I got a grant from the local Dundee education authority to participate. We studied copyrighting, photography, English, design, psychology, early television, all kinds of media subjects and at the end of the two-year course I had to decide what to do. I was very interested in photography, or do I go into advertising, copywriting or literature? Because I like writing stories and psychology, I decided to go for journalism and went to the School of Journalism in London. After a two-year course I went to work for a local newspaper, the Enfield Weekly Herald, and then I joined The Glasgow Herald. Between jobs, I cycled with my girlfriend through France to Italy.

I started at the Glasgow Herald as a sub-editor and then as a feature writer. They sent me to Africa and then to the Netherlands – ‘it has a reputation of being one of the most tolerant countries in Europe, get into that a bit.’ I arrived at a time when there were a lot of social revolutions going on. So, I talked to extreme Calvinists, I talked to liberal students, I talked to mayors, and I also gave my own impressions of travelling around the country.

The life of Rembrandt came into it and my impressions of the landscape the dominant sky, the Ruisdael Sky, as a traveller you see things with different eyes.

I liked the country and while I was there, I looked up an English language magazine called the Holland Herald, which was the in-flight magazine of KLM. I went to visit the office there, had a drink and they ended up doing a wee story about me doing a story about Holland. A year later, I got a call from the editor of the Holland Herald, ‘I read your story about Kenya, it was fantastic, would you be interested to come over and work for the Holland Herald as the lead feature writer?’ So, I decided, yeah, go for it, I didn't have many possessions – little enough to fit into

I have a little kite. It flies so very high, It goes over my house Up into the sky.

KENNETH WILKIE, L.I.b.

my Renault 4 – and off I went on the ferry. That was the summer of 1969, when Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin were making larger steps.

My first assignment was a cover story on the tercentenary of Rembrandt’s death and then I was sent off to Brazil, Suriname, Philippines, Japan and Australia. At the same time, I was doing profiles of Dutch artists like Rembrandt and M.C. Escher. In 1973 the opening of the Van Gogh Museum was coming up and I was asked to do a story about Van Gogh. I said, I’ll do it my way –give me three weeks and I’ll visit all the 18 different places in Europe that he lived to try to find out new things about him.

So, I started in Amsterdam where I met his still living nephew, who was 87. He introduced himself. “Van Gogh,” I replied “Wilkie” and with that handshake I realised that this was a man held in Vincent van Gogh’s arms, a living link in the story. From there I met a 96-year-old man living in a watermill who as a ten-year-old boy collected bird's nests for Van Gogh to draw, he described how he drew them and what kind of person he was.

Then to London, a lot of people didn't realise that he spent his early years, when he was 19 to 20, in London, working in an art gallery in Covent Garden, during which time he wrote to his mother saying that he'd fallen in love with his landlady's daughter. But she rejected him, he resigned from the gallery and within a very short period got deeply involved in religion, becoming an assistant minister in a church in Isleworth.

I wanted to know more about this relationship. I found a postman in London, who was also an amateur painter and had used his time during the postal strikes of the 1970’s to do research and found an address in Brixton that Van Gogh had been registered to. So, we went to the house together and the owner was kind enough to let us in. There’s now a blue plaque at the address. But I didn’t want to stop there…

The landlady’s daughter had rejected Van Gogh and married another man, Samuel Plowman. I found Samuel Plowman. They had a son, Frank, and I found his death certificate which was signed by his daughter, Kathleen Maynard and I looked up all the Maynard’s in the area: found all-in wrestlers and lots of crazy Maynard’s, before one person said, ‘I have a cousin, she’s who you are looking for, she lives in Devon.’

So I drove down, cup of tea, cucumber sandwiches, charming couple and then out comes a box, amazing because this is a wooden box with old glass negatives separated by greaseproof paper. I held one up to the light and there was Eugenie, the landlady's daughter, Kathleen's grandmother, standing at a table holding a letter. There are other photos; with children, in the garden, with an old tent on the beach and all from the 18701890's. We looked at the photos, nothing particularly interesting or relevant. Then as Mrs Maynard said, ‘I'll just put the box back up into the attic’, I noticed that in the bottom of the box there was a wee drawing, some tea/coffee stains on it, of a row of houses.

And then it happens. I see the name on the gate is ‘Loyer’.

‘that's your grandmother's house, I photographed it a few days ago. That's 87 Hackford Road, when Vincent was in London, he hadn't started painting, but he was doing drawings that he sent home to his sister and mother. I'm not an expert, but I wouldn't be surprised if Vincent van Gogh made this drawing. I've seen some of them at that stage and I can recognise a certain amount. I wouldn't be surprised if he'd made that drawing for your grandmother who he fell in love with.’

And she said, ‘ooh, better have another cup of tea!’

‘Mrs. Maynard, I'm at the beginning of a journey. I'm going to the mental hospital at Saint-Rémy, I'm going to Brussels, I'm

87 Hackford Road photo: Private collection

Eugénie with letter photo: Maynard family

going to Paris, I'm going to Belgium’s coal mining area. But I'm very willing to take that drawing back to Amsterdam and see what the experts of the Van Gogh Museum say.

She agreed and so it was taken, ultimately, to the professor of art history in Amsterdam University, Dr Hans Jaffe and after two weeks he authenticated it. Immediately I called Kathleen – I’ve got great news for you…

She was invited over to the opening of the Van Gogh Museum in March 1973, put up in a hotel and shown around Holland and Amsterdam. She asked, ‘Ken what I am going to do with it?’ I told her:

To be blunt, if you're really short of money, you can sell it, take it to Christies, Sotheby's or whatever. It’s maybe not of great aesthetic value, but there’s a great story attached to it, so it does have certain value. If you're not desperate for money, which I don't think you are, you can keep it in the family, put it in a safe, in the bank, whatever. Or you could lend it to the Van Gogh Museum. That way it's still your property and you review the loan every one/two years with an option to take it back to the family. But it could be on loan, kept in a museum and occasionally exhibited with other drawings at an appropriate time.

So, it was given to the Van Gogh Museum on loan. It was exhibited in different places, the Barbican in London, together with other drawings but the rest of the time it was just in a vault somewhere in Amsterdam. But Mrs. Maynard passed away and her daughter decided to take it back into the family in Devon. And they're just keeping it that way. Kathleen was in her late seventies back in 1972 and now her daughter is too, so that drawing will be passed on to the children eventually.

The discoveries led to Ken’s first book The Van Gogh Assignment, followed later by The Van Gogh File. I admit to Ken that I have

a troubled relationship with art, but this story has me, Starry Night is a personal favourite piece, alongside the sculptures of Bernini, Antonio Gaudi’s Sagrada Familia in Barcelona and the contemporary work of Steven Brown (the Highland Coo guy). But I struggle with the idea of having something so fragile that it needs to be kept in a dark vault (or the rarefied and purified atmosphere of an art gallery) and so owning it means nothing more than knowing that it is yours, a stored cheque of uncertain value.

Back in the 1980s, I was spending the day with the founder of Abstract Expressionism in New York, Willem de Kooning. At the end of the day, he gave the photographer and me a drawing. One of his drawings. It was very expensive and like an idiot I put it in the frame and hung up in my house in Hilversum. It was a big house and it was broken into. But the de Kooning, nobody touched it. It was just a black and white drawing and whoever broke into the house was only interested in granny’s silver and left it hanging there. If you inherit anything don't put it on the wall, because people can find your address these days through the Internet.

As the call starts to wrap up he mentions that his great grandmother was the sister of golfer Tom Morris, that he once had the pleasure of interviewing Buzz Aldrin. There is also a story or two to tell about his time at the school. Conversations I hope to have with him in the months and years to come.

Ken is fascinating, as those with lives rich in experience often are. Production of a TV mini-series charting some of his adventures is in the early stages of development. Casting will be tricky, requiring a leading man of undistinguishable age! But I can’t wait to see it.

Ken Wilkie (Class of 1960)

Vincent at 19 photo: Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam

Ken in 1989 outside 87 Hackford Road photo: David Steen

Dr Vincent Van Gogh photo: Ken Wilkie

Building the Impossible

Rob Madden (class of 2009) has built a company that defies expectations. In the fierce digital world, he has dared to be different.

Valued at £150bn in 2020 the video game industry is now larger than both the film and music industries combined, and the budget for new games often runs into tens of millions of pounds. Formerly derided as ‘geeky’ and ‘uncool’, geeky is most definitely now cool.

It is an industry filled with fledgling studios, with lifespans shorter than players on a 1980’s arcade version of Space Invaders and where the attrition rate is as scary as the working practices. Impending deadlines, known as ‘crunch time’, often mean 20-hour days and sleeping in the studio for weeks on end to get a project over the line. It is male-dominated and the titles reflect that, heavily themed towards male sensibilities, shooting everything in sight (often with a bazooka) and driving far too fast seem to be unsurprisingly popular.

Dux in Computer Studies (the W.E. Crichton prize) Rob went on to gain a Master’s Degree in Games Development from Abertay’s celebrated computer games department. Relatively speaking, so far, so normal.

But Rob and his co-creators decided to do things differently and the result is a workforce that is 40% female and nothing more than a 35-hour working week is expected.

I met Rob at the Hyper Lumina Games studio in Dundee’s Greenmarket. With expectations shaped by reading too much Douglas Copland I was disappointed that no one was riding around on a scooter, engaging in a Nerf war or munching bowls

of sugary American breakfast cereals at lunchtime. It looked like a well-appointed modern office with little to indicate (other than a big sign on the wall) that it was a games studio. On closer inspection the computers and their screens were high end and there was the odd energy drink on display, but it was a long way from the expected ‘lads palace’.

The very first game I remember playing was Laylat Wars on the Nintendo 64. That was the first game and console I ever owned. I think that was definitely a lightbulb moment because I'd never really played anything like that before and I still play it every now and again.

I've always loved games and wanted to do something in the industry. And then I watched a documentary about the making of the game Halo, which I had played a lot of. When a guy’s name and title came up on screen ‘vehicle designer’, this was a revelatory moment – so that guy goes into work and builds the vehicles for the game? I realized people sit down and build this stuff. I never really thought about it before, games just existed. I guess they fell from the sky. I realised there’s a career there, I can go and be one of these people. Abertay was, and still is, the best place to study games-specific courses and it just happened to be over the road from the school. So, I was like, cool, guess that works.

Influenced by cool films and with a leaning towards sci-fi and horror, touchstones include Dune (2021, not the 1984 abomination) and Arrival, with a definite nod towards director

Denis Villeneuve. Stranger Things also gets a mention as does Hereditary and Midsommar by Ari Aster.

I love film, particularly in horror genre. But there's a lot of modern ones where it's just about how to make people jump. Relic was a good film which was ultimately all about dementia.

I love media that has something to say, that's what our games are all about as well. Pine Hearts (to be released in 2023) is essentially all about loss. It's about overcoming grief. But it's communicated in this way that’s colourful and bright. It’s a little adventure/puzzle game and on the surface, you might not think too much of it. But the more you play it, you start to feel theme and undertone, there's an actual subtext, it’s a lot more meaningful and we put a lot of thought into that.

Midsommar, a horror story set in a Scandinavian midsummer festival, is an illuminating choice. The plot centres on a deteriorating relationship, with the inspiration coming being a breakup that writer/director Aster himself experienced. Rob has also drawn from personal experience.

I lost my dad to cancer just a couple of years ago, very sudden, just six weeks, he was diagnosed and then gone. It was a pivotal moment in my life. I want to make games with a greater sense of purpose where they can tell a story, something meaningful. So, Pine Hearts is about a little boy called Tyke [who] goes back to the caravan park where he used to spend summer holidays with his dad and relives memories. He learns from those memories and overcomes challenges so there's a through line of learning to cope with loss in a positive way. It’s all about having people that are important to you, although they're gone, they pass things on to you through experience of memories, I felt that was an important thing to do. Every game that we make should in some way communicate something more, there needs to be something that underlies and underpins.

But I wouldn't want to get to a point where games are so hung up on trying to be art that they stop being enjoyable, that’s not what I want to see. There are definitely people who are leagues ahead. Naughty Dog are the biggest pushers of that, the Last Of Us games are not even just games anymore. The storytelling is just so far beyond what a lot of others can do because they have about one thousand people working for them, the best people.

The wholesome games market is more concerned with how people feel rather than what the gameplay mechanics are. That's a really big step, games often get hung up on mechanics. You don't say I'm going to watch a first-person film or a dolly camera film. You say I'm going to see a romance film or I'm going to see a comedy or a horror. Games will take that step, where it becomes an art form because it's more concerned with emotion than mechanics.

It's a constant battle of creativity versus business sense and that's why Stewart (our CEO) and I work so well together because he's very business focused, not money driven, conscious of how we can make our spend more efficient. We started in 2014 and didn't release our own first game until 2018, we spent four years doing work for hire, establishing ourselves as a business. How do we run successfully? How do we employ staff? How do we create good working practices? How do we skill people up? We have three or four big clients that each have two, three, four years of work, so we have that established pipeline of work for hire. We know our revenue for the next while, that provides a huge amount of security for us to then be creative and try new things and build games. And they don't have to be stand out hits, they can do [just] okay and it won't be a problem, we’ll break even or make a little profit. But we still have a profitable work for hire business over here as well. A lot of local studios don't do that. They come out of university ‘we just want to build our own game’ and they do that for a year, then ‘we have no money’ and they just close and they’ve never done anything.

Working for hire, making games for publishers, is like ghost writing an autobiography where you don’t get the credit and are tied to non-disclosure agreements. But there was one game he could talk about.

Venture Valley’s been developed with an American charity called the Singleton Foundation for Financial Literacy, who focus on improving financial literacy in the US. They wanted this game built that teaches people how to run businesses and be sensible with their finances, they're not games focused at all, but they wanted to use games to teach. So, we worked with them to build a game. Often mission statements are meaningless, the result of an away day where people only remember the evening activities involving sumo suits, copious sake and karaoke. Gathering intellectual dust they serve no more purpose than to adorn reception area walls. Hyper Luminal have put theirs on the website. It stands boldly to hold them to account, and so far they seem to be doing more than just ok.

Hyper Luminal is an indie games studio based in Dundee, Scotland.

Everything we make is inspired by our ambition to build high quality games that create lasting memories and fill our team with pride.

Pandemic Recovery and NDAs

Fine dining and farmers fields

I would say that 20% of my bookings are business that are looking for a venue for corporate off-site meetings and retreats. They are looking for the specifics in the location, bedroom configuration, meeting spaces, outside space for activities, good Wi-Fi, and strong mobile phone signal. Increasingly they are also placing an importance of sustainability. The other 80% are bookings that cover weekends away, holidays, birthdays, weddings, and golfing groups, so they are looking not only at the property itself, but what the wider location offers. Fine dining can be arranged through award winning chefs and a butler/host service will ensure that you feel like Royalty, but those looking for less pampering can learn survival skills during their own private mini adventure.

I am always busy and never switch off fully, part of the challenge of being my own I suppose. I try to make sure every client gets the experience that they want, always going the extra mile. Weddings are a joy to be part of, knowing that I have played a part in making their special day that little bit more special. Sometimes that means doing unusual things to make them happy. One of the properties has a stunning garden and woodlands, it really can make for such a special setting. Though one couple decided that they would rather get married in an adjacent farmer’s field, surrounded by sheep…so having obtained permission from the rather bemused local farmer I was able to make it happen for them, underfoot conditions and all!

Can’t get you out of my head

Susan Reid, class of ’88, has created a unique business specialising in high end rentals of castles, estates, country homes and accompanying luxury services. We last spoke to her in 2018, so it was good to touch base again and chat about pandemic recovery and non-disclosure agreements.

Susan says that her academic achievements were nothing spectacular, but she excelled at practical subjects and is grateful for the support she received which gave her the confidence to leave the High School after F5 to study for an HNC in Hotel Catering & Institutional Management at Queen Margaret College Edinburgh.

Airbnb considers both its owners and renters to be customers and provides a service to both. Susan also sees her owners and renters as customers, but there the similarities end. The properties that she oversees are a long way from cheap city breaks fare and the ability to peer between the lines of the listing is not required.

Christmas and New Year bookings at the properties are stunning, quiet, beautiful and with just a little luck, the perfect dusting of snow. One such booking was for an Australian singer who decided to enjoy the cold of our winter rather than the warmth of the Antipodean festivities. A non-disclosure agreement was signed as normal, but this was compromised when she went sweetie shopping in the local village where the owner of the shop was lucky lucky lucky enough to take a picture that was so good he felt that he couldn’t get her out of his head and decided to post it on social media. From there it straight into tabloid newspapers.

Non-disclosure agreements (NDA’s) are de rigour Susan Reid’s world. Historically used to prevent staff sharing secrets learned from previous employers, or talk to the press they are now frequently employed by celebrities eager to protect their privacy, celebrity does after all come with a price. But if the star in question is caught buying sweeties what can be done? So the question – ‘Most famous client you have rented to’ gets a necessarily predictable answer.

It was a Hollywood star, but due to NDA… you get the picture.

I really love what I do, my clients are fabulous, I love working with and for them. My dream is to continue doing what I do best.

Life, the Universe and Everything

I interviewed Mrs McGrath before a weekend of celebrations to commemorate her retirement, to explore her experience at this school and future plans. I had the pleasure of having her as my UCAS tutor. She was a devoted and passionate teacher so writing this was a pleasure.

Mrs McGrath graduated from St Andrews University in 1974 with joint honours in French and Russian and started work at the High School in August 1980 as Assistant Principal Teacher of Modern Languages. Over the years her role evolved and for the last 20 years she has overseen the senior pupils' journey to university, in addition to coaching the debating teams.

What are your fondest memories?

I suppose debating has been the pinnacle. Watching a pupil standing up in the Cambridge Chamber and absolutely owning that arena is so invigorating. Feeling like they are finally getting it and realising their potential is wonderful. I also loved my class of six ‘crash’ Higher Russian pupils in 1999.

The amazing young people – many of whom have kept in touch and shared their stellar careers! Winning Cambridge in 2003; watching one of our FPs chairing a debate as President of the Oxford Union; three World Champions in Scotland teams; two of

our FPs topping Euros tabs as student debaters and having made so many friends across the world.

Convening the World Schools Debating Championship in Dundee in 2011 (three years of hard work) where for 10 days the city hosted 420 guests from 48 countries and on the middle Sunday everyone came to the school for a day’s debating.

2007 saw quite an adventure. An otherwise very successful team lost the Mace semi-final to our friends from Grove and I promised the Grove coach that if they won the Scottish final, which they did, I would fly to London to cheer them on. Two hours before he was due to pick me up the phone rang, “ESU headquarters in Mayfair have mislaid their gavels and might the High School be prepared to lend one?” Thus, our thistletopped one made its way to the House of Lords. That evening also afforded me my Facebook avatar and I can casually refer to the picture and say ‘Oh yes, that was me making a speech in the House of Lords…’

Schools Debating Championships (WSDC) in 2011.

You were awarded the BEM in December 2019 in recognition of your services to Scottish Schools Debating – what did that feel like?

I opened the envelope – the words swam before my eyes – I looked up at the photo of my late husband on the kitchen wall and burst into tears. I phoned my son, who got a fright because I was crying so much, I couldn’t get the words out!

How did you start to be involved in debating at the school?

At Harris Academy I was invited to take charge of teams competing in the Press and Journal tournament. This eventually took me to a debate at the High School in October 1979 where I was absolutely blown away by the performance of the F4 boys. A year later I was standing in front of a Higher French class containing two of them. A third is attending my retirement do –he’s now a QC.

How has the university application process changed over the years in your eyes?

I wrote my very first references for two pupils applying to Oxford in 2000. One is now a barrister, the other a solicitor in London. It’s now more competitive but I think we have improved our ways of working and supporting pupils.

How might the school continue to prepare pupils for the application process?

The school does a good job actually! There’s a whole range of support systems led by different teachers in the school and an array of resources on Firefly. The important thing is persuading pupils to have the desire and determination to undertake relevant activities and work experience.

What advice do you have for new pupils on how they should be preparing for university?

It’s not just about grades. It’s also about demonstrating the passion you have for your subject. A Head of Admissions at Oxford called it ‘Sunday Afternoon Syndrome’; what you do on Sunday after you’ve practised music, played sport or gone to your job on Saturday. Do you read about your subject? If you want to be an engineer, do you make things? If you’re fascinated by history, do you go to exhibitions? I tried to make sure that pupils were excited about their envisaged career and I hugely enjoyed my UCAS responsibilities.

What does an ideal day for Mrs McGrath look like?

In retirement? Maybe a morning of drinking coffee and reading newspapers (particularly political commentary) and doing the cryptic crossword. Then some gardening or walking around the park listening to podcasts, with an evening spent with friends, food, wine and lots of political arguing.

What are your plans for retirement?

I have loved everything about debating. But I have reached the stage where if I don’t stop now, I won’t get to do the other things.

I’ve got stacks of books I want to read and plan to travel in the summer and write in the winter, even though that sounds

frightfully pretentious. I’ve been around the world debating, from Peru to Singapore, Western Canada to Bangkok, so now I want to travel the UK with Pauline (my beloved Volvo) provided I can afford the diesel! There are so many places I have never been; Devon and Cornwall, the Western Isles, industrial heritage museums in the north of England. I want to go back to Ireland and just wander about looking at things.

For 31 years I have done a Christmas letter, a ‘warts and all’ approach to record our family’s year. I try to make it vaguely amusing and chatty. The first two decades were typed, but now they are illustrated in full colour. I have around 7,000 prints, all carefully ordered, corresponding negatives and all the texts, including really old ones transferred from the Acorn computer! The plan is to buy the best quality scanner I can afford and insert photos into the first twenty years. I’ll have the result professionally printed into a book, one for each of my sons and one for me. I’m not going to edit the writing as it might be interesting to see how that has evolved over the years.

I have a vague notion of putting together a memoir, partly based on the best bits of the letters and partly from debating anecdotes, things I’ve encountered and people I’ve met. Maybe people outside of my immediate friends and family will be interested – or maybe they won’t. It’ll be worth a try.

What stands out when you look back on your 42 years at HSD?

‘42’ for my generation is the answer to ‘Life, the Universe, and Everything' (Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy). For all those years the school was my life and my universe, but behind that has been my everything; my late husband Rick and the family that we built together and our two sons that are my strength and of whom I’m immensely proud. One is an HGV Class 1 truck driver like his father, the other an academic mathematician turned cyber geek, who relishes his demanding intellectual work.

When my very first UCAS candidate left school to go and do Law at Oxford, her parents very kindly presented Rick and me with a pair of crystal champagne flutes. One is engraved with a pheasant – the other, a capercaillie. Underneath each bird is a gavel, and in between, one glass bears my initials, and the other Rick’s. This was in acknowledgement of all the weekends and evenings and weeks of holiday when I had taken their clever daughter to as many debating competitions as possible, on her path to twice representing Scotland and becoming a world champion. Behind all the commitment, joy and satisfaction we derived from that was Rick, looking after our sons. I have treasured memories of our marriage as a partnership of two perhaps unlikely people who made a team; we supported and complemented each other, and my life has been immeasurably enriched by the privilege of having been his wife.

The story that I have related to generations of F5s about to start their UCAS applications, is to think about standing in the shower on a Monday morning. Are you excited for the week ahead, planning out what you are going to achieve; or are you counting how many days it is until Friday? I am absolutely convinced that enjoying and taking pride in your job drives a great deal of contentment, complemented you hope by a happy family life. What I’d wish for everyone is to be able to look back on life with a sense of satisfaction that actually, you might not have made too bad a job of it in the end.

Rebecca Hamilton (Class of 2022)

Definitely Missed

It was an honour and a pleasure to speak at Irene’s retirement dinner in the summer.

This was my introduction then, it still stands…

Irene is a confident and articulate young woman, passionately devoted to the world of debating in all its aspects; linguistic, historic, social and emotional. She is determined to furnish herself with the widest possible knowledge, to which end, in her own time she has studied just about every subject under the sun! She is unfailingly positive and honest (but with an arresting tendency to be brutally so at times). That said she is an individual of the highest quality and calibre and woe betide anyone who might claim otherwise… they will be set upon by a horde of equally articulate and fierce debating types! Irene is an all-round good egg.

Generous to a fault she supported and encouraged me as I stepped into this daunting and demanding role. She was always there, offering much needed hugs or sending a message at just the right time. I cannot thank her enough for her honesty, energy, love and care. She challenged me, corrected my typos, sent missives about debating success and chased for references, always with a smile and a laugh.

In 1980 when Irene joined the school, she inherited a great tradition of debating, and has coached and mentored many teams who have found success. Success that continued beyond school with countless debaters in highly respected professions, many becoming firm friends and integral to Irene’s wider family.

Fiona Dewar, in 1999, was the first (of many) representatives on the Scottish Debating Team and went on to win the World Debating Championships, beginning a dynasty of world class debaters coming from the HSD stable. They are listed below, I know Irene also cherishes the many pupils, stalwarts who came so close to national selection, always being ‘robbed’ of a place. We know who all of you are!

1999 & 2000 Fiona Dewar – World Champion

2003 Gavin Illsley

2004 James Moir

2006 & 2007 Neil Dewar – World Champion

2008 Lauren Pringle (Chamberlain)

2009 Lauren Pringle & Scott Ralston

2012 April Shepherd & Neil Dewar (coach) – World Champions

2015 & 2016 Clara Mitchell

2017 Ivan Kapelyukh & Steven Roy

2021 Dominic Westwood

I am sure many of us can remember attending the 2011 World Championships in Dundee with Irene as convenor and Fiona Dewar as keynote speaker, an amazing event with such a feeling of pride in our pupils, our school and our city.

As Coach of Team Scotland for many years Irene was elected to the World Schools Debating Competition Executive and then Board of Directors, where as Secretary, she has been at the very heart of world debating. So it was fitting that she should be recognised on the Queen’s Honours list with a British Empire Medal.

In 2008 Irene assumed responsibility for checking all UCAS references alongside Val Vannet as Deputy Head. In 2014 Personal Statements were added to this and Irene assumed overall responsibility for managing, checking and sending all applications. It is difficult to do justice to the scale of this task and we often take for granted our outstanding record in helping pupils to secure places at their chosen universities, colleges, conservatoires, and schools. Further, we are grateful for the support and coaching that she provided to the teams of people involved in this task, confident that we will continue to provide the very highest levels of support and advice to our young people.

Simply put she is an institution. I had the privilege of chairing a show debate in the summer when seven of her prodigies (some of whom had travelled great distances) dusted off their debating credentials and put on a display of wit, repartee, intellect, creativity and deep affection for the woman who had, in their view, been at the root of their successes. It was a powerful and moving day.

Irene has unlocked potential, supported the underdog, ignited intellect and changed lives. A fitting gift from the debaters has allowed us to establish a Prize in in her name that will be presented alongside the Cambridge Gavel for services to debating.

She is missed, by me and many others.

Lise Hudson

Drumming in Uganda

Mary Begg-Saffar (class of ’88) studied Scots Law at Edinburgh University before embarking on a career in the energy sector, but no previous position was as remarkable as her current role.

If you had asked me upon graduating in 1992 what a working day in 2022 would look like, never in my wildest dreams would I have imagined that a typical meeting would take place under a mango tree on the shores of Lake Albert nor that my contracts would be about issues like the protection of cultural assets or reforestation of chimpanzee corridors.

My Ugandan journey started one Friday lunchtime in the work canteen. A colleague mentioned that our Ugandan subsidiary was looking for someone to engage with local NonGovernmental Organisations (NGOs) and to carry out a Human Rights Impact Assessment for our petroleum project there. With both my children now off to university I decided to apply.

Our project is heavily criticised in Europe because it is a new fossil fuel development, raising concerns about climate change issues. However, during the energy transition the world still needs affordable energy. Access to power underpins access to basic human rights like health, education, and opportunities to work. My challenge, along with my colleagues, is to make sure that our project is sustainable, respects the local population and brings maximum benefits to our host communities. Unlike many international NGOs, civil society in Uganda is extremely welcoming to us and whilst they challenge us to continually improve, they can see the benefits we bring.

My working time is split between the capital city in Kampala and the Lake Albert area. Every day is varied and colourful. All families who must be resettled because of the Project receive a new house with a land title in addition to resettlement support. Our aim is that livelihoods are not only restored but are improved. Almost all the affected people I meet are happy to move because of the quality of resettlement houses, they include

kitchen areas, solar lamps, rainwater collection systems and for most this is the first time they have had access to water and electricity. On one visit I complimented a lady on her hair, she explained that since she no longer needs to carry water on her head (in jerry cans) from the lake, she can now braid her hair. We have given this young widow not just water but dignity and that makes me prouder than any contract I negotiated in my previous roles.

Until recently there were few tarmacked roads in the Lake Albert area, so they were cut off from the bustle of Ugandan city life. It still shocks me to see very young children (two or three years old) walking or playing right at the side of the road seemingly unaware of the dangers. Some children even sit on the road on cooler evenings because it retains heat. We have been working with an NGO to carry out community education drives and school training to teach children about road safety. It’s a far cry from the Tufty Club I remember from primary school!

As part of our biodiversity programme in the Murchinson Falls National Park, degenerated due to poaching, invasive species and lack of trained wardens, we are working with other NGO’s to

reverse those trends and I hope that one of the project’s legacies will be to allow for the reintroduction of the rhinoceros, which is currently extinct in Uganda.

My husband Laurent is not with me in Uganda although he and our two grown-up children come to visit regularly. Living on my own has given me more time to devote to my new passion, drumming, which I took up seven years ago. A highlight of 2022 was a visit from Finnish band Shiraz Lane and their drummer, Anna Willman. I organised a “fusion music” workshop bringing together Finnish rock and Ugandan folk in an eclectic and joyous two days, I was glad a dared!

When I think back to my time at DHS, I always think of Irene McGrath. Not only was she my French teacher (my husband is French) but she also coerced and convinced me into doing some school debating. It pushed me way out of my comfort zone but turned out to be fun. That was the most important lesson I learnt at school – never to hold back – and so I always to throw myself into whatever adventure comes my way.

Tributes

John Nolan

Mr John Nolan It was with great sadness that we learnt of the death of our colleague Mr John Nolan, on Monday 20 June 2022.

It is a huge privilege to be able to make a small tribute to Herr Nolan’s extraordinary contribution to teaching over a remarkable 51 years, the last nine of which have been spent here at the High School of Dundee.

John, was born in Oakley, Fife and attended Holy Name Primary in Oakley and St Andrew’s High in Kirkcaldy. After graduating with an MA (Hons) in German and a Diploma in Education from the University of Edinburgh and Moray House respectively, he began his teaching career, becoming Principal Teacher of German at St Columba’s RC High School, where he worked for an extraordinary 35 years.

Making the decision to embrace new challenges and carve his own path, John worked in a number of schools in Scotland and England for 14 years, joining the High School in 2013, to teach German parttime. From the start, it was clear for all to see that we had an enthusiastic Germanist in our midst. Many years of service had seen to it that John was a highly skilled and most knowledgeable teacher, whose engagement with his pupils fostered genuine respect and enthusiasm for the man and his subject. Passionate about German language and culture, he accompanied a group on the German exchange to Hessen in 2014, and brought German magically to life with his reworked German fairytales, delighting audiences in Trinity with his quirky and most enjoyable versions of Rotkäppchen and Rumpelstilzchen. These were just two of eight German Plays that John penned throughout his career and remain a lasting memory of joyful times, along with hard-wired German vocabulary! Through this and his passion for his subject, he has left an indelible imprint on countless pupils and on the whole community. Failing health has meant that John has not been physically present in school since September last year, but he continued to teach Higher German online, ever faithful to his pupils. It is a testament to his passion for teaching German and his commitment and dedication to his pupils that he remained in post through the pandemic, adapting to teaching remotely, and even ensuring extra classes for his pupils who were sitting certificate examinations this summer.

John’s career has allowed him to bring his deep conviction of the importance of languages to generations of young people across the country. Alongside this, John ensured that he used his experience, insight and understanding of effective learning to challenge current thinking. He embarked on a research project over four years and was delighted to publish his paper ‘Mehr Schein als Sein: More Appearance than Reality’ in both TES Scotland and TES England respectively. As his colleagues we were honoured and privileged to be able to discuss his findings and conclusions with John earlier this year and his passion, conviction and energy were infectious.

John’s motivation for this important research came from his many years as an SQA marker, examiner and sole setter for all German SQA Examinations. When, last year, John was interviewed by the press for a story marking his half century in teaching, John characteristically took the opportunity to share his conviction and the findings of his research, saying, “I formed the opinion that assessments over the last 20 years have been losing their value and I was so exercised by this that I decided

to do my own academic research. For three years I asked, ‘Has German teaching testing failed Scottish pupils?’ “I looked back at 50 years of assessments as part of that and the answer was an utterly resounding and compelling, yes. Simply put, the majority of pupils are leaving with high grades but do not have the competency for those grades.”

In this respect, John’s legacy is in safe hands. Alongside many High School Teachers, Mr Neil MacKinnon (Head of Modern Languages) is Principal Assessor for French at the SQA and we are fully invested in the current reform of Scottish Education, ensuring that all voices are heard, particularly those of our pupils. It was particularly important to me as Rector, that I was able to give my personal commitment to John, that we would continue to ‘fight the good fight’!

Although John directed much of his energy and expertise towards this campaign, it was in his pupils, colleagues and family that he was most invested. Despite embarking on his profession when approaches to teaching and learning were quite different, John was vocal in his belief that the secret of effective teaching lay in the quality of the relationships, built over time, between teacher and learner. The fact that John remained in touch with so many of the young people whose lives he had transformed, is testament to the legendary status that he had acquired after a lifetime in teaching. For many, the interest and time that John took to understand the individual needs of each young person in his classes, was life changing. His pupils were enthused, built confidence in themselves and also had tremendous fun along the way. This culture allowed Herr Nolan to set very high standards and expectations against a backdrop of care and support where young people excelled, often surprising themselves along the way. The impact of this on countless generations of those who were lucky enough to be taught by John cannot be over-estimated and each and every one is his legacy.

Most recently, one of these young people, Anna Campbell, had the fortune to be the last pupil that John would teach. She has written the following tribute to Mr Nolan and it is a particular honour to be able to include it in full as part of this tribute:

“Mr Nolan was by far the most enthusiastic and passionate teacher I have had. Despite only having him as my teacher for one year, I feel that he has had the biggest impact through my journey in school. His passion for German was truly inspiring and having him as my first teacher on a Monday morning made Mondays sound not as bad. He made sure I only spoke German to him. This of course, was frustrating at first, but as the weeks went by, we learnt more and more about each other, and it became easier. I learned about our mutual distaste for the SQA and his love for German folk tales! He even was determined to learn and understand the rules of my favourite sport.

“Mr Nolan was too ill to come into school, therefore almost all lessons were online. At the end of each one he would attempt to play a German song for us to listen to. As he would repeatedly mention – he was not a technological genius. So often I sat there as a disjointed song played through the speakers. But these 3½ minutes were never awkward or uncomfortable, it was often the highlight of my day because I could see how excited he

was to show me German music. Thanks to Mr Nolan, I wish to learn even more German and stay connected to its culture. I am honoured to say that I was Mr Nolan’s last student.”

It is with deep sorrow that we his colleagues and those in the Modern Languages Department in particular, learned of his passing. We have lost a loyal and committed colleague, whose thoughtful and measured input into professional discussion will be sorely missed.

Most importantly, however, is that in losing John, we have lost a true friend. Our deepest condolences and thoughts are with John’s wife Trish and all his family.

Lise Hudson, Rector

Mrs Rosemary Stewart

It was with deep sadness that we learnt of the death of our former colleague and friend Mrs Rosemary Stewart on 8 August 2022.

Rosemary is fondly remembered by generations of High School pupils both in her capacity as a brilliant Biology Teacher and as someone who was passionate about the welfare of her pupils. Rosemary had an innate understanding of the complex and often difficult issues that underpinned both academic performance and more importantly affected children and young people’s ability to thrive. These combined skills, alongside Rosemary’s fierce belief that gender should be no limitation to opportunity, made her an obvious choice to lead the newly formed Biology Department from its inception. Rosemary was appointed ‘Headmaster’ of Biology a mere three years after embarking on her teaching career, having come later to teaching following time in industry.

A little-known fact about Rosemary Stewart was that she pursued her career, balancing family life with study and earning an income. While her children were young, Rosemary attended college to gain Higher qualifications which today would have secured entry to the most competitive of courses. In the late 1960s, Rosemary encountered much resistance because of her gender and only as a result of her tenacity and determination, did she secure a place to study Biochemistry at the University of St Andrews. It is a testament to Rosemary’s intellect, focus and organisation that she graduated with an Honours degree in 1975, whilst raising her two young children with her husband, Bob. Within a year Rosemary had completed her teacher training at Dundee College of Education and the High School was lucky to appoint her to her first teaching post.

Taking on the leadership of the Biology department in 1979, she was instrumental in putting the discrete study of Biology ‘on the map’. Rosemary was more than a match for her male counterparts, advocating for the underdog, devoting herself to encouraging girls to pursue science and giving of her time to engage with her pupils on a human level. Although we regard this as part and parcel of the role of a teacher in 2022, Rosemary was radical in the emphasis that she placed on this vital element. She believed that success comes from nurturing, supporting and challenging young people to believe in themselves. Little wonder then, that in 1987, Rosemary was appointed Assistant Rector with responsibility for ‘Personal and Careers Guidance’. In this role, Rosemary set down and built the framework which was to become the blueprint for pastoral support in the school. She was uniquely qualified to do this basing her approach on a view that values should be lived and that there was an onus on all teachers to demonstrate the values which they wished to nurture in their

pupils. This is a philosophy with which, many of us, as young teachers at DHS in the early 1990s, were imbued. We grew to understand by listening to Rosemary speak and lead and by reading her superb UCAS references in support of all High School girls applying to university (GC Stewart, Deputy Rector, wrote all the boys’ references!) that understanding the environment around a child was critical to unlocking their potential, both at school and in the world beyond.

Rosemary also managed to find time to contribute to the wider life of the school in several areas. Passionate about a number of charitable causes she gave her time and energies to championing many of these personally and professionally. Rosemary was also very much ‘up for’ adventure and challenge. She participated in several foreign school trips, most notably being part of the High School’s incredible and historic trip on the SS Uganda twice! Personally, and professionally so many of the High School Family owe Rosemary Stewart a huge debt of gratitude for being such a passionate and, at times, fierce proponent of the importance of down to earth advice and guidance, the application of kindness over everything and the power of simply being interested in others and their development and success.

Inherent in everything that Rosemary did, was the constant that her family (and her daughters in particular) came first. This was central in encouraging a generation of girls and women to believe that they had a right to ‘have it all.’ A direct and positive result of Rosemary’s influence was that this very phrase was used about me as I applied and was successful in securing a PT Guidance position in the new Guidance Team which was formed immediately following Rosemary’s retirement in 1999. These features are now fundamental to the High School in 2022 and this is in large part Rosemary’s great legacy. I hope she would be very proud that in 2022, the High School has a female Rector, Deputy Rectors, Bursar, Director of ICT, Head of External Relations and that 10 of our 25 Heads of Department and Principal and Assistant Principal Teachers of Guidance are women! Alongside the countless young lives that she influenced positively, this radical change in the representation of women in leadership roles at the High School is Rosemary’s lasting legacy to the school.

More importantly, our Integrated Curriculum recognises the central importance of exceptional Pastoral Care to success. Rosemary retired from teaching and the High School in April 1999. At the time the Rector, Mike Duncan, wrote the following tribute to Rosemary in the School Review. I include it here in full. “Countless pupils have reason to be grateful for her down to earth advice and sympathetic understanding. She has been unstinting in giving of her time to pupils and their families, particularly at moments of difficulty for the pupil. Professionalism, attention to detail and expecting the highest standards in herself and others have marked her many years’ service to the school.”

Our deepest condolences go to Rosemary’s daughters, Fiona and Moira, and to all those who were former colleagues and friends. Rosemary will be sadly missed but remembered with great affection, respect and warmth.

Lise Hudson, Rector

A Trip to the Archives

These pics were taken in 1992 and we would love to hear from you if you are in them or if you can put a name to a face.

It is often said that ‘everyone has at least one good book in them’. The accompanying retort, ‘and for most people that is

We want to share the journeys that you have been on, give voice to the people you have meet, the songs you have sung and the dances you have learned. We want to celebrate those who view prosperity as something to be enjoyed, not just to be counted. (But if filming your story requires Tom Cruise, Steven Spielberg and a budget of £150m we are all ears).

The editor of the 1973 Review had a very interesting take on his role, as expressed in his editorial:

We hope that you will all enjoy it as much as you are meant to. It should be varied, humorous, serious, informative, interesting, topical, relaxing and original. A school magazine should not simply be something that you pick up and see if your article is in and then drop… Humour is another very important ingredient. One normally finds that magazines providing a majority of humour are the most popular. But humour has to be controlled. Too much humour becomes monotonous.

The Editor (1973)

High School of Dundee Merchandise

On the next couple of pages you are able to view our selection of High School of Dundee Merchandise which would all make fantastic Christmas presents! The profit made from all orders will be allocated to our HSD Foundation Account and will benefit our Bursary Fund, Capital Projects and General Fund.

In 2013, the School commissioned two new, original works to realise in a contemporary interpretation the life of the School today. These unique oil paintings by renowned artist Nael Hanna are available in limited numbers as large, impressive and impactful framed prints.

Prints are commissioned, numbered and signed by the artist individually at the time of your order.

Professionally produced using the highest quality giclée printing method on international gallery standard acid-free paper. They will be double mounted with bevelling, and will be realised in a heavy French grey frame, hand finished with gold leaf and glazed to provide a truly exquisite finish.

On completion, we will arrange for collection at a mutually convenient time from the Development Office.

Enjoy a festive treat with 10% off our retail line using code XMAS10.

Offer available – 16.12.22 to 13.1.22. Please note that the school will be closed for the festive period from 23.12.22 to the 9.1.23, orders placed during this time will be processed on our return.

Print by Nael Hanna – 1 £500.00

Print by Nael Hanna – 2 £500.00

Bob Servant £5.99 Mug £15.00

Notebook £5.00

Friendship in a Time of War £15.00

Please note shipping costs for the Golf Umbrella will incur a higher delivery charge than the above to accommodate appropriate P&P.

Order online now at the following web address: www.highschoolofdundee.org.uk/browse

Alternatively:

Telephone: +44 (0)1382 202 921

E-mail: development@highschoolofdundee.org.uk

Former Pupil Tie Polyester £15.00 Silk £20.00

Old Boys’ Club Tie £20.00

Pen – Executive £28.00

Key Ring – Universal £7.50

Fridge Magnet £3.00

Cufflinks – Nickel Plated £20.00

Golf/Pipe Band Towel £10.00

Handbag Umbrella £13.00

Former Pupil Lambswool Scarf £20.00 Apron £12.00

Dux of the School £5.00

Whisky – 5cl £12.00

Cufflinks – Brass Plated £15.00

Memory Stick – 8GB £12.00

Key Ring – Executive £20.00

Golf Umbrella £30.00

For Bursaries

Appeal for Bursary Support

Thank you for supporting the school’s Bursary Fund and helping to change the lives of so many young people over the years.

The ‘cost of living’ crisis is very real and now affecting some of our current school families as well as those who hope to join the school in the coming months.

As a result, we are seeing an increased need for bursary support and rely on your donations to ensure that current families are able to stay and new families are able to benefit from HSD’s teaching and learning.

Please consider making a donation to the Bursary Fund

Leaving a Legacy

Making a will is a deeply personal decision and we understand that your first consideration will be the needs of your family and friends but we hope that it is possible for you to include a gift to the school.

This can be in the form of money, or assets such as shares, property or other valuables. Making a bequest today is a simple and straightforward process and may have tax benefits for your estate by reducing exposure to inheritance tax. A solicitor will advise you about the different types of legacies and how to make a will.

If you decide to support the school it would be very helpful to have an indication of your intentions. A confidential pledge form can be found below and this information will help our long-term planning.

Confidential pledge form

Thank you for supporting the school.

Aman Bailwal (Class of 2010) is going to run 4 marathons in 4 days up and down Scottish Mountains to raise money for Tiny Tickers.

Earlier this year, Madi (Class of 2011) and I welcomed our baby daughter, Alina, to the world. Alina was born with a major heart defect that, undetected, can prove fatal. For the first week, Alina presented as perfectly healthy, and we would normally have been at home with no awareness of the critical danger she was in.

mountains.

But thanks to Tiny Tickers, a charity improving the detection, care and treatment of babies with serious heart conditions, this was detected at the 20-week scan. The medical team had time to prepare for her birth and treatment.

Alina’s health deteriorated for the first 2 months until her pre-scheduled open heart surgery. Since then, her recovery has been amazing. She is doing great now!

1 in every 125 babies is born in the UK with a serious heart condition National prenatal detection rates of congenital heart conditions

Every 2 hours, a baby is born in the UK with a serious heart condition

1000 newborns leave hospital every year with undetected heart conditions

Supported by

Aman’s Epic Challenge

What? When? For who?

1 in every 125 babies is born in the UK with a serious heart condition

4 days. 4 marathons, up and down Scottish mountains.

Total distance over 100 miles.

Total ascent over 8,000m.

Every 2 hours, a baby is born in the UK with a serious heart condition

3rd-6th June 2023

Tiny Tickers

Aman Bailwal (Class of 2010) is going to run 4 marathons in 4 days up and down Scottish Mountains to raise money for Tiny Tickers.

National prenatal detection rates of congenital heart conditions

1000 newborns leave hospital every year with undetected heart conditions

Earlier this year, Madi (Class of 2011) and I welcomed our baby daughter, Alina, to the world. Alina was born with a major heart defect that, undetected, can prove fatal. For the first week, Alina presented as perfectly healthy, and we would normally have been at home with no awareness of the critical danger she was in.

Supported by

One in every 125 babies is born with a heart problem but only around half of those are spotted during pregnancy. Unfortunately, more than 1,000 newborns still go home without anyone knowing they have a serious heart defect, which can lead to extreme complications with health – or even worse. After our experience, Madi and I decided we had to do something for other children like Alina.

I decided to do a multi-day endurance challenge to reflect the daily struggle I saw Alina go through with her breathing before her operation. And I’m no runner – before I decided to do this challenge the farthest I had run was 8km!

But thanks to Tiny Tickers, a charity improving the detection, care and treatment of babies with serious heart conditions, this was detected at the 20-week scan. The medical team had time to prepare for her birth and treatment.

Alina’s health deteriorated for the first 2 months until her pre-scheduled open heart surgery. Since then, her recovery has been amazing. She is doing great now!

Aman works at ION8 – a Dundee company, who are supporting and sponsoring the challenge in every way they can.

Please help us make that difference.

ion8.co.uk/pages/have-a-heart

1 in every is born with National detection congenital