FP News 2021

MAY 2021

The Magazine and Annual Review of The Stewart’s Melville FP Club SMC lit up on the National Day of Reflection (thanks to ESMS Marketing for the photo)

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Daniel Stewart’s & Melville College Former Pupils Club

Contents...

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Editor’s Introduction

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FP Club Update

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New Club President - Kenneth Russell

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Principal’s Report

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Patrick Tobin

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Colin Rigby

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Class of 2020

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Reasons to Remember

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James Wight Rutherford

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Iain Riley

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ESMS Development Office and Community Update

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Ross Thompson

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Melville College Trust Update

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A School History Lesson

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Stewart’s Melville College Archives

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Sports Clubs - Cricket

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Sports Clubs - Rugby

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Sports Clubs - Golf

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Sports Clubs - Hockey

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Melville Class of 1963 Annual Reunion

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Tribute - Mike Geddes

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Tribute - Douglas Wright

35 Obituaries

FP News 2021

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Editor’s Introduction

Hello again, First things first – apologies for the lateness of the magazine this year!

A better editor might have rattled out three of them with all this time at home, but it proved a little difficult to assemble with so much disruption. Regardless, I hope you enjoy what we’ve put together. I know it’s been a really difficult year for so many, and continues

to be so, but I’m quietly hopeful that normality will be returned to us sooner than we may dare to wish.

some interesting material and some great photos, and have a look at the piece about the Rutherford building as well.

The FP News this year has been a welcome distraction, and hopefully there’s a good variety of content for you to enjoy. There are the usual updates from Principal Moule, the club president (welcome to the new president – Kenneth Russell), the Melville Trust, our sport clubs, and from the head of Sixth Form.

Beyond this, make sure to catch some of the varied features included. I enjoyed interviewing Iain Riley, a headmaster and school director in China, and loved the contribution from Dave Clarke, part of the SMC History department, about FPs in the World Wars. Make sure to read it – and also see the piece by David McLeish, head archivist at SMC, on the archives projects and the work being done there.

I interviewed a friend from my year at school, Ross Thompson, about the beginning of his professional rugby career at Glasgow Warriors, and also chatted to Colin Rigby, now the VP at the SRU. Both interviews give fascinating insights into Scottish Rugby from totally differing perspectives. Bert Barclay and Alan Veitch contributed a fascinating history of the School playing grounds, uncovering

I am very thankful to all the people who contributed as always. My job is really made easier by sports captains, features and updates writers, and everyone else who contributes in some way. Thank you to everyone who contributed obituaries, which I know cannot be an easy ask. I’d also thank Bryan Lewis for writing a kind obituary for Patrick Tobin, who many FPs will remember. As always, a special thank you to Sandra Shedden, at MDPD, who designs and prints the magazine, Suzi Squires, of the Development Office, and Laura McIntosh as well. Thanks also to Bob Young, Bert Barclay, Alan Veitch, Jack Davidson, and John Archer.

FP Club Update A summary of the significant donation the club has made to the ESMS Hardship Fund, and the changes in clubhouse management.

Donation to ESMS Hardship Fund In July 2020 on receipt of a request from a senior member of the club the FP Club Council agreed to consider what might be done to alleviate the financial consequences of Covid that some parents might experience in relation to meeting school fees and thereby allow for the continuance of the education of sons at SMC. After

due consideration a special resolution was put to an Extraordinary General Meeting of the Club on 15th July held by Zoom and the outcome was unanimous agreement among those present that the Club should donate a sum of up to £215,000 from reserves to SMC’s hardship fund which at times was called upon to assist with payment of school fees on an ad hoc basis. The Hardship Fund is separate and in addition to the Bursary Fund operated by the school via “Access to Excellence”. The donation has proved most helpful to the school in resolving some of the difficulties put before them.

Clubhouse Management The Extraordinary Meeting of the Club on 15th July 2020 also approved a

It’s been a nice project throughout a busy year for me personally – I graduated from Oxford during lockdown, and I’m almost finished a MSc at Edinburgh. Thanks to the club for letting me do it again. I love receiving anything that could end up as content for the magazine – please do reach out to me at fraserjmaclean@gmail.com.

Enjoy! resolution to transfer the operational management of the clubhouse at Inverleith from the FP Club to the school. As part of the transfer agreement the school have undertaken that there will be a seamless experience for users of the clubhouse for the rugby club, hockey club, cricket club and other patrons. Laura McIntosh, the FP Club’s treasurer to this point and Denise Mitchell, long time bar manager, have transferred their employment to the school and will continue to be principally responsible for the services offered at the clubhouse along with Joyce Waterston of the caterer AJ Catering. Unfortunately as all members will be only too aware the clubhouse has remained closed since early March 2020 due the pandemic, so the new arrangements have yet to be tested in operation.

Bert Barclay

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Daniel Stewart’s & Melville College Former Pupils Club

New Club President -

Kenneth Russell emotional challenges we face as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic have provided us with an opportunity for the FP Club to work closer with the school in supporting each other – helping the Development Office and Access to Excellence support current and future pupils and their families while working together to make former pupils aware of the many social and networking benefits of club membership beyond the ones associated with the club’s sporting activities.

We welcome Ken, our new club president, and thank Charles Wilson for his service over the last two years. Below is a press release for Ken, via ASM Media & PR. New FP Club President Ken Russell is particularly keen that the mutual support between the club and the school increases during the challenging times we now face. Having already overseen the completion of a substantial donation by the club to the school’s Hardship Fund, Ken will use his presidency to fundraise further among FPs and the wider business community for the fund and the school’s Development Office.

In return, he hopes to work with the Development Office to increase awareness of and engagement with the club among former pupils, resulting in higher membership.

Opportunity Speaking about his plans, Ken says: “The economic, financial, social and

“I also feel the FP Club and its members are well placed to use their extensive social and business networks to seek new donations from the wider business community for Access to Excellence in order to pass on to current and future generations of pupils the benefits of a first-rate education they enjoyed while a pupil themselves.

I look forward to the support of club members in this goal.

Thanks “I’d like to thank Past Presidents Charles S. Wilson MBE and Robert Barclay for guiding the club through a challenging period including successfully managing the Clubhouse and latterly to Robert in steering the Club through the significant challenges created by Covid restrictions.”

Ken’s links with the club and school go beyond his own attendance at Melville College and membership of the FP clubs since leaving – his uncle, Alistair Birrell (DSC 1940) was a Past President of Daniel Stewart’s FP Rugby Club and his cousin, broadcaster Mike Russell, was also an FP of Daniel Stewart’s (1959). Ken has also been a member of The Royal Company of Merchants of The City of Edinburgh for 44 years.

Background

Ken is the third generation of an entrepreneurial Edinburgh family with interests in construction, property and the automotive sectors. After leaving school he travelled extensively throughout the USA before spending a semester at Lincoln Way High School, New Lenox, Illinois. Ken then spent five years as a management trainee with a national construction group before joining his family construction business in Edinburgh.

Following his father’s unexpected death Ken, then aged 25, assumed responsibility for his family’s business interests, which under his stewardship continued to flourish for the next 40 years, including acquiring one of Scotland’s most award-winning motor dealerships and being a cofounder of the internationally-renowned Howtowdie Restaurant in Edinburgh’s West End. A Fellow of the Institute of Directors, Ken has also been a member of The Society of Edinburgh High Constables, Scottish Motor Trade Association, Federation of Master Builders (Past President), St Andrews Business Club (Past President), Edinburgh Chamber of Commerce and a founder member of the Scottish Borders Chamber of Commerce. Now resident in North-East Fife, Ken is an award-winning business mentor, board advisor and is currently is non-executive chairman of two companies.

Ken and his wife Ann have a daughter, three sons and five grandchildren.

His other interests include cycling, hillwalking and speechwriting.

FP News 2021

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Principal’s Report

An update from the Principal of ESMS, Linda Moule.

They demonstrated commitment, perseverance, and the ability to embrace every new challenge thrown at them.

I am delighted to write a report for the FP News Magazine as the Principal of Erskine Stewart’s Melville Schools.

This has been a year like none other, however, I have never felt so proud of my pupils in their determination to overcome the many obstacles triggered by the Covid-19 pandemic.

In 2019/2020 boys were unfortunately not given the opportunity to sit their examinations as they were cancelled due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Pupils were genuinely very disappointed not to be able to demonstrate their industry and knowledge which they had acquired throughout their studies.

Instead, pupils were graded on teacher estimates based on their demonstrated and inferred attainment in each subject.

The pass rate at National 5 was 97.4% with an A rate of 75.9%. At Higher level boys secured a pass rate of 98.3%, with an A rate of 67.4%. At Advanced Higher level the pass rate was 97.7% and the A rate was 63.3%.

Over the course of the summer boys had the opportunity to participate in various sporting and curricular trips.

These included a cricket tour to Liverpool with two thrilling fixtures, a very wet Gordonstoun tour and our 1st XI hosted to compete for the David Gray Cup in the annual cricket festival.

South Africa Hocky Tour was truly memorable on and off the pitch; 46 U18 rugby players travelled to Ontario, Canada for the SMC pre-season rugby tour. CCF camps (Army) to North Yorkshire and RAF in Hertfordshire; the annual trip to Malawi for S5 boys.

Canoeists enjoyed the river Spey for a few days of canoeing and camping and our skiers a trip to Sestriere.

During the October break, the Drama department led a successful trip to Hollywood, Geography trip to Iceland and the History department to Japan.

Just before Christmas a group of 45 S2 boys headed to London for a weekend of history tours and sight-seeing,

Boys not only distinguished themselves on the academic front but have adapted and demonstrated great resilience to overcome the obstacles of working from home and online learning.

On the sports field, the boys Rugby team won the U18 Scottish Schools Cup, the final was played at BT Murrayfield against George Watson’s College. It was a fast-paced match

where both teams gave it their all, it was a truly memorable game. The boys 1st X1 Football team won the Independent Schools’ Cup with a 3-1 win over local rivals George Watson’s College in an entertaining final played at Falkirk Stadium. The 1st X1 Hockey team were silver medallists at the National Indoor Championships (a school) first. A group of boys attended the Scottish Schools Aquathlon Championships at the Michael Woods Leisure Centre where they all raced well. In the final race of the day one of our S6 boys retained his Scottish Schools title by running into 1st place with the fastest run of the day.

The autumn term calendar was filled with special events and occasions, including Remembrance, The Pipe Band and Dancers’ Ceilidh and excellent performances of Alice in Wonderland, The Last Witch and Othello. Musical events included the Award Holders’ Concerts held in The Dean, followed by the Senior School Chamber Concerts.

The Solo Piping and Drumming Competition was keenly fought at all levels from Chanter through to the Senior events. Keeping with tradition, our Carol Party followed by the Senior School Carol Services in St Mary’s Cathedral were the end to a special term.

We were all hugely disappointed when we had to severely curtail our calendar of events at the end of term 2 due to Covid-19 restrictions. However, our pupils embraced this with many other ways to keep busy and support others: creating PPE at home, running a half marathon round their garden, taking therapet to local care homes, project Linus continued by sewing patchwork quilts from home, designing a child friendly hand sanitiser station and many more.

This session has marked an extraordinary time for so many of us.

Linda A Moule Principal

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Daniel Stewart’s & Melville College Former Pupils Club

Patrick Tobin The SMC Community was saddened to hear of the death of ex-Headmaster, Patrick Tobin. Bryan Lewis remembers his former colleague below.

I remember the day I first met Patrick Tobin shortly after his appointment as Principal of Stewart’s Melville College and The Mary Erskine School (not yet ESMS!) in 1989. I had applied for the post of Headmaster of the Junior School and realised that Patrick, who had not yet assumed his new responsibilities, was the person I needed to convince that I should be appointed, despite all my previous experience being as a secondary school Stewart’s Melville teacher. His eyes were piercing, his questions were piercing and I quickly realised that both were reflective of his intellectual depth and rigour which were also piercing.

Patrick decided to offer me the post and for the next 10 years I worked closely with him, latterly as Vice Principal as well as Headmaster.

The clarity of his vision, his singlemindedness and his ability to analyse problems and come up with solutions were extraordinary. My senior colleagues and I enjoyed the intellectual and mental challenges we faced as we worked hard to keep up with the pace of change as he his realised his vision for the schools, a vision which he had explained very clearly to the Management Teams within weeks of his appointment.

Patrick believed the schools lacked intellectual rigour and in retrospect he was correct. He demanded more of the academic staff and he demanded more of the pupils. He also demanded more of himself and he worked tirelessly

to ensure that the schools he left were much more demanding of themselves than when he had arrived. The schools owe him a great deal for all that was achieved during his tenure as he strove to strengthen the schools’ reputation for academic rigour, for cultural appreciation and for high behavioural expectations.

Patrick had joined the schools in August 1989 from the Prior Park School in Bath where he had transformed the school into a beacon of excellence. Always very courteous with a personally caring and surprisingly shy side to him which did not always come across in public meetings with colleagues and parents, Patrick possessed the steely single-mindedness which marks out leaders who are willing to face up to challenges, and in some cases opposition, in order to fulfil their vision. With an excellent degree from Oxford University and a broad teaching background which included a spell as Head of History at Tonbridge School in addition to his previous experience of Headship at Prior Park, Patrick brought with him wide experience, intellectual curiosity and and an unmatched ability to separate the wood from the trees.

Patrick was instrumental in developing many of the structures which remain

part of our schools today including staff appraisal, the use of comparative statistics, annual reviews with all senior school Heads Of Department and Heads of Guidance, the structure of the school timetable, an increase in the range and number of subjects taught and the introduction of a joint Sixth Year and shared guidance system. The schools without doubt became more academic in their approach and results improved considerably during his decade in charge. The schools also became much closer to each other and during Patrick’s tenure the foundations of the future integration into today’s ESMS were laid.

Patrick was deeply involved in independent schools’ education on a UK wide basis where his views and opinions were widely sought and valued. His appointment as Chairman of HMC in 1998 was a personal highlight. By the time he retired in 2000 he had undoubtedly changed the schools and laid the foundations on which David Gray and latterly Linda Moule built the ESMS we know today.

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Colin Rigby I spoke to Colin Rigby (whom many will know from the FP Rugby Club), who was elected VP of the SRU last year. We discussed the pandemic, the club game, the national team, and head trauma amongst other topics. Thanks to Colin for being generous with his time and his answers.

You were elected VP of the SRU in summer last year. Has it been difficult to make progress with the domestic reform you talked about in the campaign in the difficult circumstances of your term so far?

It’s certainly been an interesting opening six months - effectively three AGMs as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, the cancellation of the competitive domestic season, the start of a governance review, and new autumn series – the Autumn Nations Cup and new ways of delivering the game to the wider audience, CVC money into Pro 14 now 16 and of course, the win at Twickenham.

In addition, thanks to Doddie Weir and Rob Wainwright, a lot of us have had the chance to do some exercise in the Doddie Aid inter-district challenge for

MND in January raising over £1m – a quite remarkable achievement!

One of the major items I campaigned on was the level of transparency given to clubs to explain the context behind decisions. The VP Notes are now published after each Scottish Rugby Council meeting and I am delighted they have been a resounding success.

Going forward, since minutes of our Council meetings are now also being published on the Scottish Rugby website, my aim is to weave this into one document combining the minutes of meetings and the VP notes.

The Governance review is well under way with already some five meetings. President Ian Barr and Stewart’s Melville’s Gavin MacColl QC as chairman are driving the review and we remain on track to report back to the clubs by early summer.

As we progress through the pandemic, we will start to focus on how domestic clubs will emerge from the pandemic and reform going forward as the game on and off the pitch as we knew it will need to adapt. One of the positives of the pandemic is that I have been able to speak to more clubs than I would normally as forum meetings are via Zoom rather than in person. Some of the positive initiatives clubs are coming up with to keep contact with

their own rugby community are truly outstanding. For example, buy a virtual round; virtual dinners with delivered meals and wine with speakers; and regional fitness competitions including throwing the welly; and inter-club football leagues to name but a few.

With that in mind, are there new priorities for the leadership of the SRU after the pandemic?

The pandemic, globally, has led to all organisations reviewing their priorities and strategies for the coming years and Scottish Rugby is no different. The priority firstly has to be the wellbeing of stakeholder, that is the clubs and their communities and employees.

We responded with a four-stage plan - Respond, Reset, Recover and Rebuild, and I believe Scottish Rugby was proactive from the outset in its response to the pandemic.

We are now in the reset phase and various strategies are being evaluated and refined, the difficulty on this occasion is the majority of decisions are impacted by items outwith Scottish Rugby’s control such as government legislation and restrictions.

So, to answer your question, yes, there are new priorities, around survival and realigning the game for when we can eventually resume.

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Daniel Stewart’s & Melville College Former Pupils Club

We are grateful for the support we have received from the Scottish Government in the recent weeks by underpinning our plans by the provision of £15 million grant aid and the option to take an additional £5 million loan as part of a rescue package, given the absence of spectators at almost all matches since restrictions triggered by the coronavirus pandemic were imposed in March 2020. This will help finance the game at all levels. Scottish Rugby understands the parlous state many of our clubs find themselves in and I am sure in the upcoming Council meetings and Board meetings we will look to build on the template of last season’s Club Hardship Fund.

Live sport attendance is something a lot of people are looking forward to after lockdown - how do you see crowds being phased back in?

We all wish to see crowds back at sporting events within Scotland as soon as possible following guidance from medical experts and Scottish Government. As the virus continues to mutate more and more scenarios are being planned around how and when crowds can return whether to Inverleith or BT Murrayfield. Scottish Rugby has a threat management group meeting

at least weekly with stakeholders from throughout the game evaluating scenarios and opportunities so when we are given the green light, we are ready to re activate the game at mini , midi, schools , and club levels. We will all have to work hard together to retain and ultimately increase the number of people playing and involved in other roles in our game.

What are your thoughts, and the thinking within the SRU, on how the Super6 league has operated so far?

Are there any plans for it to evolve in the future?

It’s early days with Super6 as their first season was truncated by Covid.

My initial view was it was a positive step forward and from a Stewart’s Melville perspective we have seen many benefits from our partnership with Heriot’s. I also appreciate that not all has been plain sailing and Super6 has much to do to gain the trust of the clubs and build a working relationship with Premiership clubs.

That said, Super6 is here and we need to embrace its conception and standing in the club game and perhaps there will be consideration in the future to increase it to eight or ten teams.

There are a good number of exciting prospects in Scotland at the moment (including some from Stew Mel). What is your opinion on the increasing tendency of clubs giving opportunities to southern hemisphere talent, instead of young domestic prospects?

Great question and one that highlights the issue of where we stand as a game on and off the pitch. The reality is we need to evaluate why our domestic prospects are not in some cases the first port of call? And this comes back to where we need to look to invest in the game at grassroots and create a pathway that the best players are tested week in and week out for clubs and schools so as they rise up through the ranks. These prospects need to have the best coaching, strength and conditioning and understand what is expected of them, but, most importantly, that they have been tested in each environment. We as clubs and schools have never, I believe answered that question to any great degree of satisfaction. We are very fortunate at Stewart’s Melville over the last few years to have provided several players to the professional ranks, Scott Riddell at Scotland 7’s; George Turner with

FP News 2021

Glasgow Warriors and Scotland; Ross Thompson also in Glasgow. And in the Edinburgh ranks we have Jamie Hodgkinson, Jack Blain and Connor Boyle. Add in hooker Isaac Miller at Worcester Warriors, Callum Hunter Hill at Saracens - we are contributing to the Scottish professional game.

This is great news for the school and the rugby club and a progression that we should celebrate. At the same time however, it is in the domestic game where 95% of players play, some for competitive rugby, but most for fun and the social aspect with their friends and that must be at the forefront of our minds when laying out our strategy for the future. The top 5% of our playing population need a structure to be as competitive as possible to drive sucess and funding which is then promoted and distributed to the 95% of the playing population so we must all look at the overall bigger picture as well as within our own team or club.

We need to be open minded and think outside the box, why can’t school teams play against the best club teams? How do we retain players at all levels of the game, irrespective of gender, how do we increase match official recruitment? The list is long, but we must all start to understand the issues before we can apply a solution.

Sometimes we forget that every player that plays for Scotland, Edinburgh or Glasgow started either at a club or school, there were no bright lights and sponsors it was Saturday mornings or Sunday afternoons.

We must get the girls and women’s game to dovetail into these deliverables.

Head safety and concussion is maybe the biggest debate in rugby (and a number of sports) right now.

The RFU and WRU have had former players raise lawsuits against them, and an increasing number of parents have reservations about their kids taking up the game. What can be done to encourage more people playing whilst ensuring their safety? And have the regulations at the professional level gone far enough in your opinion?

This is certainly an area that has become very newsworthy of late.

For those of us privileged to hear Dr James Robson speak at the rugby club dinner a few years back, Scotland through James and his medical colleagues have been and remain vigilant around all aspects of player welfare. In conjunction with their colleagues in coach education, they have been prominent in advancing the importance of safety first around concussion, through, for example, the “Are you ready to play Rugby” and “Rugby Right” initiatives. There is undoubtedly much more awareness of what to look for and how to treat head trauma. You only need to look at campaigns across Scottish sport, in which Scottish Rugby has taken an active lead, such as “If in doubt sit them out” to know the importance we attach to this area of player welfare.

As we have become more aware

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of how injuries occur, the game’s laws have adapted and the emphasis on player safety must continue to be paramount. All sports will need to come to terms and adapt as medical research evolves around head trauma.

This is not just a challenge for rugby.

A lively debate within Scottish Rugby surrounds the potential resurrection or creation of a third professional club. Is that something to realistically expect?

Why not? However, the bigger question is how it can be financed. It’s no secret that Glasgow and Edinburgh lack the financial clout of some of the PRO 14/16 teams and their English and French counterparts. So, before we can look towards a third Pro Team, we need to ensure we can adequately finance what we already have.

Obviously, the CVC investment in the PRO14 will help Scottish Rugby as a whole, however it will also aid the other countries, so we need to fight hard just to stand still.

Then debate will be where does this potential third team play? Borders?

North? Or even London via London Scottish could be a consideration.

It will take a few years for all forms of rugby to settle down and get back to the levels of financial investment that were seen prior to the pandemic so I believe our focus at the current time should be to ensure we have the strongest Edinburgh and Glasgow teams we can afford, with the correct pathways and infrastructure to support this underneath. The club game is what these foundations are built on.

Lastly, Scotland are currently 40/1 to win the World Cup in 2023 – is that worth a tenner?

Surely, you’re not asking me to break World Rugby regulation 6!

Professional rugby at International level is incredibly competitive, especially in the top 10 – most countries on a given day can beat each other so a lot will come down to who performs on the day.

Thank you Colin!

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Daniel Stewart’s & Melville College Former Pupils Club

Class of 2020 An update from Jeff Marsh about the class of 2020 – who left SMC in unique circumstances.

Perhaps only FPs whose time at Daniel Stewart’s or Melville College ended during the world wars can truly empathise with the newest recruits to their ranks, the Class of 2020, whose final year of active schooling was brought to an abrupt halt by the national lockdown initiated by the COVID-19 global pandemic. One week, dissertations were being completed and the climax of the sporting season being prepared for as normal with the distant promise (after exams) of the end-of-year traditional events – the Leavers’ Ceremony, the 24 hour dash to Alton Towers theme park and back, the Leavers’ Ball and of course the final school day and Prizegiving. The next week, it was announced that schools were to close, exams were to be cancelled, as would, ultimately, the inevitable cancellation of all those endof-SMC rites of passage.

That final week saw a mass year group football match up at MES, a post-it note memory wall, the traditional ladsonly final school lunch (see attached pictures) and a cheerful determination to make the most of the situation. As lockdown began, the red blazer team swung into action, entertaining the year group with a series of amusing video presentations, concerts (this being an exceptionally talented year group from a musical as well as a sporting perspective) and intellectual and physical challenges to keep spirits high.

Sixth Form Tutors guided the boys through their final decision-making for the future, and all too soon it was time for the online Leavers’ Ceremony, an opportunity to mark that final week of official schooling with the school hymn, the torch ceremony, and a welcome to the FP community from Alasdair Seale, is spite of the continuing lockdown.

Showing the same resilience which had taken them to the Schools’ Rugby Cup in a memorable Murrayfield final against Watson’s, the national schools’ hockey final and an unbeaten record at football, the Class of 2020 shrugged off these disappointments and left at the end of the year knowing that their contribution to the school was equally as great as those who had enjoyed the good fortune of seeing their final year through to the end.

Little did those going off to university realise at that stage what awaited them in the autumn, campus lockdowns with freshers confined to their rooms under the watchful eye of security guards, but with a solid education behind them and with the school motto and ESMS Nine Values as their guiding principles, they again bore the additional challenges with good humour and can look forward to a brighter future.

Some have already made their mark, with school captain Joe Ewing performing well in televised middle-distance running events prior to taking up his scholarship to Harvard in 2021, and Kieran Ngwenya making his SPFL Premier League debut for Aberdeen FC before the year was out. Peter Molloy began his degree in Modern and Mediaeval Languages at the University of Cambridge, whilst the ancient universities of Durham, St Andrews, Edinburgh and Glasgow, as well as the colleges of the University of London all featured more prominently than usual in the list of destinations of the leavers of a notably academic cohort.

More boys than usual also opted to take an impromptu gap year, to protect their future university experience, whilst those who had hoped to serve our Australasian partner schools as Gap Tutors instead found themselves patrolling more familiar playgrounds here at ESMS. Already notable as the first group of students to enjoy Sixth Form under the enthusiastic leadership of new Director of Sixth Form Mrs Frances McCrudden, the Class of 2020’s final year was memorable for many more reasons than they could have imagined, but their stoicism and collegiality will help them to make a major contribution to both the FP Club and the wider community.

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Reasons to Remember As has become a tradition, Dave Clarke of the History Department has provided a deeply moving piece about some of the young Melville College and DSC men who lost their lives whilst serving in the World Wars.

The 2020 Service of Remembrance was, needs must, rather an odd one this year- not least for its dramatic setting on an atmospherically foggy and floodlit Monday evening. Given the hundreds of names on the Stewart’s and Melville memorials, it is an automatic assumption that all the men thereon lie in some ‘foreign field’- that all our FPs were killed in battle and were buried where they fell in one of over a million Commonwealth War Graves Commission plots in 2500 cemeteries worldwide. It may come as something of a surprise (as it did to me) to discover that a significant minority of our FPs are either buried or commemorated here in the UK- 29 of them from the Great War, and 53 from WWII. Ten alone are either buried or commemorated in Warriston Cemetery

and Crematorium here in Edinburgh- so let us uncover a few of their stories…

Warriston is now a rather rambling and neglected site but is slowly being reclaimed from nature by a dedicated band of volunteers. Buried there is Stewartonian William Ross, a rising star in RBS whose career was cut short by duty and war. At the outbreak of the conflict, he enlisted as a private soldier in the 4th Royal Scots- he could easily have waited for a commission as an officer but divined (correctly) that the fastest route to the front was in the drab serge of an enlisted man. Dispatched to Gallipoli as part of the 52nd Lowland Division in May 1915, the 4th were nearly lost to a man when their troopship accidentally rammed a hospital boat in the dark of a Mediterranean night- but their luck held, and the 4th landed on the fated peninsula on 8th June. They had been in the Dardanelles less than three weeks when they were thrown into a hastily arranged attack on the Ottoman positions at Gully Ravine on the 28th of the month- an assault that was, paradoxically, disastrously successful. Launched at a series of enemy trenches with no preparatory bombardment, the Royal Scots were

shot down wholesale but, against all the odds, swept into the Ottoman lines and, caring nothing for artillery and musketry, carried three lines of trenches and put all those who resisted to the bayonet. Casualties amongst our FPs were terrible- eight Stewartonians and five men from the Institution were killed that day, including James Henderson and Arthur Sanderson (both of 7th Royal Scots Majors) and John Peebles, B Company commander and brother to the commanding officer William Peebles, another EI FP. Badly wounded in the assault, William Ross was evacuated to Graylingwell Military Hospital in Chichester where he died on Boxing Day, 1915. His body was returned to his native Edinburgh for burial. Resting nearby is the Institution’s Robert Lamb- a Royal Naval Division officer who saw service on the Somme and also died of his wounds in 1919.

It is easy to imagine how a wounded serviceman like William Ross might end up under a Commonwealth Graves Commission stone, but the sad tale of James MacNaughton (DSC) reminds us of how precarious life could be before the NHS and the medical advances we take for granted today.

James was unusual in that he was

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Alistair Leslie

Daniel Stewart’s & Melville College Former Pupils Club

Eric Gibb

one of our very few Regular soldiers, enlisting straight from school on 23rd January 1914 into 1st Northumberland Fusiliers. It is clear that he had his heart set on soldiering, having completed his training with the Black Watch as a schoolboy. A strapping lad of 5ft 10ins, he was nevertheless retained in the depot at Portsmouth on the outbreak of war where ill health intervened. He reported sick in January 1915 with a persistent cough, which worsened to such a degree that in May 1915, he was found to be suffering from advanced tuberculosis- his left lung being almost completely destroyed by it. Though James was adjudged to having been suffering from TB before enlistment, the Army took responsibility for his condition on account that the illness should have been picked up in two medicals on his enlistment. On the 17th July 1915 he was honourably discharged to pension as permanently unfit. His medical records make for sobering reading- when asked to assess James’ chances of recovery, the colonel presiding over his medical board simply wrote ‘None’. He died at home surrounded by his family on 7th March 1916, aged 19, having never fired a shot in anger. It is sad to relate that Melville College’s Alastair Leslie died from the same illness in 1947, after contracting it in a POW camp. He is also buried in Warriston.

To peruse the schools’ Rolls of Honour is to be forcefully acquainted with the truly eyewatering mortality rates suffered by our flying services in both world warsespecially so in training. On entering Warriston Cemetery and walking directly south from the gateway, one is quickly arrested by the imposing granite Celtic cross of the McCallum family. Robert, a very promising cricketer and a junior staff member in the Leith office of the North of Scotland, Orkney and Shetland Steam Navigation Company, he went up to Edinburgh University OTC from Stewart’s for basic training in May 1916, before transferring to the Royal Flying Corps

Gus Hogg

Robert Waterson

Robert McCallum

four months later. Accepted onto the pilot training course in the final month of the year, his progress to active service was derailed somewhat by his transfer to the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve, presumably with a view to his eventual acceptance into the Royal Naval Air Service. It mattered not, as in April of 1918, the two forces merged, and Robert found himself as a flight cadet in the newly fledged RAF. By October of that year, and no doubt feeling dreadfully frustrated as the war was drawing to a close, McCallum was posted to 37 Training Depot Station in Yatesbury, Wiltshire. As a finishing school for pilots, it operated a rag-bag of training and ex-service types- none with a worse reputation than the RE8. An ungainly two-seater used for reconnaissance, in the words of one pilot, it ‘flew like a steamroller’ and had a nasty reputation for irrecoverable stalls. With an upper wing of much greater span than the lower, the long wing extensions were structurally suspect if the aircraft was pressed into a dive, so much so that a squadronmate of McCallum’s, Richart St.J Hartley, confided in his diary of the terror he faced going aloft in ‘those deathtrap REs’. Though docile enough in level flight, RE8 pilots were also required, when needed, to intervene to help the infantry on the ground with divebombing and strafing attacks on enemy positions.

On the afternoon of the 8th October 1918, McCallum took C2677 aloft to practice such an operation. Predictably for our Stewartonian, the inherent weakness of the RE8 wing struck and in a steep dive, the whole top plane collapsed, bearing the 19-year-old to his death. His distraught family established the R.P.F. McCallum Trophy for Cricket in his honour.

A few paces away from Robert’s grave is the last resting place of a bona-fide Melville College hero, Eric Fawns Gibb- his valiant life marked by a very unprepossessing recumbent stone. Strikingly handsome, he was apprenticed to Rosebank Ironworks

William Weir

Robert Lamb

before joining the RAF and qualifying as an observer. At this stage of the war, Air Observers were tasked with navigation, photography and dropping the weapon load, and were, in some quarters tacitly accepted as being more skilled than pilots! Joining 35 (Madras) Squadron on twin engine Wellingtons in June 1940, Gibb immediately embarked on a service career that would see him rack up 225 hours of operational flying over an incredible 33 missions.

In November of that year, the elite 35 Sqdn (which was staffed by Bomber Command legends such as Leonard Cheshire VC) was nominated to bring into service the Handley Page Halifax, a veritable leviathan and the second of the RAF’s four engine bombers to see action. Gibb continued to take the fight to the Nazis, ranging out in broad daylight to bomb Scharnhorst at anchor in La Pallice- the sort of operation an insurance salesman wouldn’t look twice at. His mettle was tested on June 30th, 1941 in another dreadfully risky daylight operation to strike at harbour installations at Kiel. Gibb had just released the bombload and was setting a course for home when an anti-aircraft shell turned the fuselage of the Halifax where he was stationed into a colander. Worse was to come- they were attacked by three Me.110 fighters which shredded the aircraft’s wings and reduced the starboard outer engine to a flaming wreck. Still- Gibb got them home. It was only after landing that he revealed that he had been hit by shrapnel but had carried on regardless.

This incredible work was immediately recognised by a commission to Pilot Officer and the award of the Distinguished Flying Medal, his CO opining that he was ‘an observer of outstanding ability, possessed of a high order of courage’. Rested after an overlong operational tour, he was posted to 28 Conversion Flight at Leconfield to pass on his skills. The events of 22nd December 1941 are still as murky as the weather that day. Officially slated

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as a flight to deliver Halifax L9522 to Handley Page’s HQ at Radlett, possibly for refurbishment, the aircraft took off with- unusually- a full crew and an extra passenger. Whether there was any intention to visit Radlett (due well south and on the outskirts of St Alban’s) is unknown- and can never be known.

L9522 collided with the high ground of the Terrace Hills to the north of Melton Mowbray in thick fog, with the loss of all onboard. Rumours persisted to make the loss doubly sad and poignantthough officially bound for Radlett, the plan had been to visit RAF Grantham, to the east, to collect turkeys for the station’s Christmas lunch, just 72 hours later. Christmas in the Gibb household that year does not bear thinking about.

Malta. Further success in the air came with the conversion onto the even more potent Hurricane. Posted back to the Deck Landing School at HMS Condor at Arbroath to train new pilots, he, by pure chance, found himself a passenger on an Avro Anson on a short hop from Prestwick. The Anson, never overburdened with power, lost a Cheetah engine on takeoff and gravity rapidly reasserted itself. Staff at Ballochmyle Hospital did all they could for the 20-year old- which was nothing more than to make him comfortable.

He died the day after the accident on the 18th March 1942. Thus, fate accomplished what the entirety of the Luftwaffe and Regia Aeronautica could not- dared not- do.

Nearby the cemetery is Warriston Crematorium, and a handsome war memorial with no less than five Melville College FPs remembered on it, all of whom were in the flying services. Both William Weir and William Taylor were killed in training accidents before they ever reached operational squadrons- or their potential. Tom Ainslie’s death was particularly cruel- after completing four peril-fraught missions as the second pilot of a 75 Squadron Wellington, he lost control of his motorbike near Cambridge on the night of 26th February 1941.

Also remembered on the memorial is one of that immortal band ‘The Few’an RAF fighter pilot who defended these isles during the Battle of BritainRobin ‘Bubble’ Waterston. Like Gus Hogg, he was another fine Melville lad and a pre-war Volunteer Reserve pilot in the socially exclusive 603 (City of Edinburgh) Squadron, based at RAF Turnhouse, the site of today’s airport.

Initially a bomber squadron, in the run up to war the unit’s Hinds were swapped for Gladiators, and then, joy of joys, for brand new Spitfires. Posted to Dyce, on 20th June 1940, Bubble Waterston shared in the destruction of a Dornier 17 bomber, which his patrol dismissed headlong into the sea off Aberdeen. Moved south into the heat of the battle, he could little know he had just 72 hours to live. On 30th August high above Canterbury he attacked a Messerschmitt 109 at point

Also remembered here is the redoubtable Fleet Air Arm ace, Gus Hogg. Posted to 806 Naval Air Squadron at the tender age of 17, he could little know that his unit would become the Navy’s ‘top guns’ of WW2, and he himself would go on to carve a swathe of destruction through the enemy above the Mediterranean with twelve confirmed victories and the Distinguished Service Cross and Bar. His war started inauspiciously- defending the Orkneys with an outdated Gloster Gladiator biplane! Converting onto the Blackburn Skua divebomber, he took part in the legendary raid which saw the sinking of the Konigsberg in Bergen harbour, though Hogg commented with habitual modesty in his journal that his 500-pounder fell well wide of the mark! Posted south into the heat of the Battle of Britain, he had the misfortune of being shot down over the Channel

by RAF Hurricanes- his gunner being killed. Shipping out to the Med on Illustrious and ditching the lumbering Skua for the sleek eight-gun Fulmar, Hogg and his squadronmates made short work of the Italian seaplanes, flying boats and bombers menacing

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blank range and tore his opponent out of the sky for his first credited solo kill.

The next morning RAF Hornchurch was the target of a devastating attack.

Bubble amazed his pals by coolly sitting in a slit trench as the bombs fell all around, joking and generally unfavourably comparing his chances on the ground with those in the air! He flew three gruelling sorties that day- his last in the late afternoon. Nobody is sure what occurred in the air above Woolwich that early evening of 31st August 1940, but a memorial today marks the spot where Waterston’s Spitfire came to earth. He was 23.

There are over 2500 Commonwealth War Graves burials in Edinburghmen and women claimed by illness, accidents, or simply just broken by their war service. Taken from the context of the battles they fought in, the people they served with and dotted around our civilian cemeteries miles from the seat of war, it can take some digging and a lot of time to uncover their stories. This rather begs the question- does a man need a story to be remembered? Is it not what he was willing to do when called, not what he did, that really counts? Irrespective of what their service and sacrifice had on the outcome of the war, it is with great pride and real affection that we remember each of our FPs. It goes without saying that their spirit of willingness to put service before self runs in no less a vein right down through the years to the incredible young men of today who have the pleasure and privilege to call Stewart’s Melville College their home.

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Daniel Stewart’s & Melville College Former Pupils Club

James Wight Rutherford David McLeish gives a short biography of James Wight Rutherford – one of the most generous benefactors in school history. The new Rutherford Building was finished in recent months.

The new building at Stewart’s Melville College is named after James Wight Rutherford (1908-1978), who attended Edinburgh Institution (later Melville College) from 1913-1925.

He was a loyal supporter of the school during his lifetime and donated several prizes for sport and the Boarding House. Following his death, the entire proceeds of his estate were left to the Melville College Trust to be used for the benefit of the school. The story goes that the size of his estate came as a great surprise to the school. It

had been assumed he would leave a small donation but when the letter from the lawyer arrived, the Bursar showed the letter to the Principal (and Bryan Lewis) who miscounted the zeros and read it as five thousand five hundred pounds… the Bursar pointed out it was actually five million five hundred thousand pounds.

How did he end up with this amount of money?

He lived in a very average bungalow in Craigleith and had never given any indication of his wealth. He was a wise investor and did not spend money unnecessarily. Just prior to WW2 he told his wife that war was imminent and therefore he would invest in 6 pairs of good brown brogues (these he wore until his death - never needing to buy any more pairs) and that all of their money should be placed in

Government Bonds.

Once invested he left the money there and never touched any of it, so that by his death it had become the large fortune that he donated to his old school.

It is especially fitting that the first building on the Queensferry Road site to have a Melville College connection should be named after such a generous benefactor. In keeping with his quiet and unassuming manner we can find no photograph of him despite his being a governor of the Melville College Trust for many years and having been a supporter at literally thousands of school and FP, rugby and cricket matches at all levels.

He always stood quietly on the touchline, beautifully attired in his kilt and, of course, never without one of his 6 pairs of brogues!

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Iain Riley I interviewed Iain Riley, a school director and principal in China, about the education sector in China, the Chinese response to the coronavirus, and mistaken European assumptions about Chinese society.

number of years ago which changed the face of education. China looked at the leading countries across the world using the PISA results and external organisations including the IBO to create a hybrid curriculum that is creating individuals for the rigour of the 21st Century and the changes in the job market. China also has an ageing population so again something needed to be done quickly to create the ever changing workforce of the future.

How would you explain Chinese success at managing the virus, beyond the simple Western answer of ‘fewer liberties in general’?

First of all, can you briefly explain your role in the education sector?

I am very fortunate of having multiple roles across my company and also with the IB. I am currently the Head of School for a very large IB school and also the General Principal for 7 Kindergartens and the Director of IB for the company. I also hold the post of workshop facilitator with the International Baccalaureate and Visiting Team Member with the Middle States Schools Association for the American High School Diploma. Finally, I am also a consultant for a famous UK boarding school that is owned by a Hong Kongneese and is expanding into the Chinese market.

In your experience (having taught in Scotland and worked in China) what can the UK primary education sector learn from China?

Adaptability. The Second Educational Reform Act in China was introduced a

China was smart. They locked down the whole country and had support infrastructure in place in 48 hours.

Everyone followed the rules as the Chinese government was clear on how serious this could be. The UK would not be going through such a hard time with the second wave if they had followed some of the rules from China - for example hotel quarantine is coming in a year after that of China.

The smartest move was closing their borders to lower cases and stop the spread.

A lot of Chinese parents continue to value UK universities - do you think this will still be the case a decade from now? Will China emerge as the global standard for higher education?

China is not really known for its universities presently. However certain universities such as Fudan and East China Normal University are changing this. Parents are wanting a more internationalised education system so in many respects the UK and the US will never miss out. However with the rise of Chinese education system, we will see in time that less students may apply to the UK.

Do you think the China is politically and culturally misunderstood as a nation from a British perspective?

Yes. China is one of the most diverse countries that I have ever lived and worked in. They are indeed run by a communist government that likes to standardise across the board, however in reality this is not possible. Shanghai for example has its own municipal government and the city along with those of Shenzhen and Guangzhou are extremely internationalised. In terms of culture, you can go 30 minutes in the car and see something completely different. The people from the north certainly live differently to people of the south. They even look different and speak a different dialect.

If you could pick one, what would you say is the biggest challenge facing China as it moves past the pandemic? Feel free to give multiple answers!

Trust in the government. People are still not convinced how the virus started and many of the people still believe that the government did not tell them the truth.

What are your thoughts on British schools launching Chinese operations? Will they stay viable?

In certain cities yes. Fettes and Merchiston both have representation in China. Harrow, St Bees and other English names have a clear presence also. It is interesting to see these schools adapt with the East meets West philosophy.

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Daniel Stewart’s & Melville College Former Pupils Club

ESMS Development Office and Community Update An update on ESMS community activity during the unique year, from Suzi Squires and the Development Office.

As with all parts of the school in the last 12 months, the Development office has had to adapt and change its planned activities for the year. The usual schedule of family ceilidhs, quizzes, reunions and career-based events were set to one side whilst we worked out the best ways to support the wider ESMS community through various lockdowns and restricted access.

We firstly launched a neighbour helping scheme, predominantly in Edinburgh but also looking to assist elderly or isolated alumni wherever they were in the world.

We had lots of young alumni, parents and pupils volunteer their assistance in fetching groceries and essentials for those who were elderly or shielding.

We spent a week or so looking into how we could help to support our community in various ways during the lockdowns, tested various different technologies which could help us to bring activities to the community and spoke to a wide range of teachers and other school staff to see what they could help us to bring to the community.

We then launched a blog (www. esmscommunity.org) to be a hub for all our planned activity. This was initially a temporary website but it’s been such a success and so popular that we’ve decided to maintain it all year round now.

We launched several initiatives that ran throughout lockdown: • Twice weekly digital coffee mornings featuring a wide range of speakers from the ESMS parent and alumni community.

• A weekly quiz for children during the daytime • A weekly community/family quiz for everyone • A weekly singalong

• A weekly photography competition • We linked pupils with alumni to exchange letters in a pen pal type scheme • We shared jokes, baking, recipes and generally positive news from the ESMS Community, including a lockdown wedding, several promotions and new roles for alumni • We facilitated a couple of special digital events, like the Peboryon bakealong!

Life started to open up as we went into the summer, we paused the coffee mornings, singalong and weekly children’s quizzes. The community/ family quiz remained very popular and in demand so we ran this monthly during the summer and autumn to give families an opportunity to spend some time together on a regular basis and have some fun. We also continued the photo competition and introduced an art competition for the summer break to help parents keep children occupied.

November also saw the first ever digital Inspire Lecture. Attendance was up and we had alumni tune in from around the world to hear leading female polar explorer, Felicity Aston, talk about some of her experiences exploring in extreme climates and leading expeditions too.

During the autumn term, a large amount of our time was spent preparing for our Remembrance Day. This was supposed to have been an exhibition of school, alumni and family memorabilia in the Dean on the weekend following the 11th but due to the restrictions on gatherings, we had to change our plans and launch this digitally instead. We owe a great debt of thanks to both School Captains, Lily Burgess and Conrad Derbyshire, and their friends as they spent much of their October break recording themselves reading out transcripts of testimonials from alumni and from our archives for the montage. Thanks are also due to our amazing archivists and the MES Guild archivist who spent a lot of time researching some interesting stories from the archives to bring to the community.

The end result was a stunning tribute to those who served in the war and those who served to support the war effort at home. It gave context to their efforts whilst paying tribute to their sacrifices.

The video can still be viewed here: https://youtu.be/R5o7zaogIPI.

We also found time to start a new initiative in the autumn term – video interviews with alumni in a range of careers. The first two videos were with alumni whose businesses had been significantly impacted by the lockdown – a baking company and a magician!

Christine Jensen, MES 1992 leaver, owns and runs Peboryon Cakes with her husband Phil. They usually provide wedding and celebration cakes, not just for people in their local area but they also undertake large sculpture cakes which are sometimes featured on TV programmes, such as Extreme

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Cakes. In addition to their interview in which they discussed how they’d pivoted their business to deliver letterbox cakes and online tutorials in baking, icing and sculpting, they also ran a bakealong session earlier in the year for our community. 2012 leaver Cameron Gibson may be a familiar name to those who live in Edinburgh as he has been a magician at all sorts of events in the area, including our own May Fantoosh ball a couple of years ago. Cameron embarked on a new initiative which saw him moving to Toronto in the middle of the pandemic to be the Lead Magician at James Allan’s Illusionarium, an experimental magic exhibit featuring Penn and Teller amongst others.

And finally, lockdown 2 has seen the return of our popular coffee mornings, children’s quizzes and photo competition. We now run our family/ community quiz fortnightly on a Friday evening and have been receiving over 50 teams entering each time.

Ross Thompson I recently caught up with Ross Thompson, who’s now playing professionally for Glasgow Warriors.

Since school, he’s been studying at Glasgow Uni, and was playing in the Super 6 prior to a call-up to the Warriors playing squad. We spoke about what comes next, his adjustment to professional rugby, and the journey up to this point. Thanks to Ross for giving up the time, and congratulations also go to fellow FP Jamie Hodgson (who we spoke to last year), who signed another contract with Edinburgh in January.

We are looking forward to our March Inspire Lecture which will feature young Scottish Science and Technology writer Gemma Milne talking about experimental science and how it will apply to our future, including lab grown meat, genomic therapies for cancer and fusion energy, amongst other innovations.

This will take place on 22 March from 19.30pm – all are welcome to attend!

If you would like to talk to the Development Office, perhaps you want to share a memory or you have an idea of something you think may work well for our community, please don’t hesitate to get in touch. You can contact Suzi on development@esms. org.uk or on 0131 311 1131.

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FM: Congratulations on the contract. Does it feel any different?

RT: Thanks – no it doesn’t really. I don’t feel like things have changed that much, but I suppose there’s maybe now some more expectation going forward?

What has the journey to this point looked like since school?

Well after school I went to Glasgow for university and played with the (Glasgow) Hawks for two years, then moved to the Ayrshire Bulls for the 2019-20 season. During lockdown, playing obviously stopped – so getting that first gametime for Glasgow was the first live rugby I’d played for about ten months.

And the Super 6 was good…

It was great in a way – it meant getting proper gametime, but the standard wasn’t similar to pro rugby.

It’s not an equivalent to domestic professional leagues elsewhere, but it’s a great start and a really promising development for Scottish Rugby. I think I was also getting frustrated being close to playing for the Warriors but not getting gametime.

Were you at all close to walking away?

There were times throughout last year where I remember speaking to people and saying I wasn’t sure if I wanted to do rugby next year, and just training with no opportunities was obviously not what any player wants.

I remember speaking to a few people though, including Mr Edwards (from SMC), who encouraged me just to go for it – I know I’d have regretted not trying and seeing what comes of it.

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Daniel Stewart’s & Melville College Former Pupils Club

But it came eventually – were there nerves?

It did! There were a few, but it was mainly just exciting to be able to get playing again after so much time. It was also good to start alongside a couple of other younger guys like Rufus (Maclean), because at the team line-up announcement it meant there were a few of us coming on together.

And then the match was postponed for a frozen pitch.

That was actually quite lucky – it was annoying for it to be called off so close, but it definitely helped with everything.

I knew exactly what it felt like to be starting, which helped when it came around for real – it was like a good rehearsal.

It must be weird to play with guys who have been internationals for a decade.

I really remember looking around a couple of years ago, the first time I

was in the Glasgow practice squad and thinking it was mental. There were a whole bunch of guys who had been playing for Scotland for years.

It’s still weird now to think about, but it feels pretty normal. The speed of the game was immediately noticeable – it was so much quicker than rugby I’d played before. The other thing I noticed was just how good the international guys are at the basics. They’re just so consistent, it’s a been a good environment to learn in.

So even if it’s harder to get gametime, you able to learn a lot?

Yeh exactly – I’ve had Adam Hastings and Pete Horne around, and I’ve been picking their brains and learning.

We signed Ian Keatley as well, who’s played for Ireland, and he’s been great.

So it definitely goes both ways, there’s more competition, but the experience at the club is pretty impressive.

And what’s plan from this point?

For the next year or two, I think it’s just

about getting as much time playing as possible – I’m enjoying getting out and learning. There’s a bunch of younger guys coming through, and everyone just wants to play.

It must be funny seeing other Stew Mel guys at Edinburgh.

Yeh it’s pretty funny – obviously I played with Hodgy in the 1st XV during his last year and we toured together, and I played with Jack (Blain) and Connor (Boyle) at school It was actually pretty weird seeing them on a different team, but it’s great they’re getting to play.

George Turner is also at Glasgow as well, so there’s a lot of Stew Mel across the two clubs at the moment.

And what about the degree?

Glasgow have actually been quite decent about it – I went to doing it part-time during the last couple of years, and have a year to go, which I’ll just do along with rugby for a year. It might be something to use after rugby.

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Melville College Trust Update An update after an unusual year from Alan Veitch, Chair of the Melville College Trust.

The Covid 19 pandemic has obviously impacted all our lives in recent months and in these times of great uncertainty it is good to report much has happened in the work of the Melville College Trust over the last 12 months. Along with most organisations we continued our regular Committee meetings and our Annual General Meeting via Zoom technology.

The main purpose of the Melville College Trust is to promote the advancement of education through the provision of school bursaries and grants to perpetuate the memory of those Former Pupils who lost their lives during the two World Wars. We are an Independent Trust set up in its current format in 1976 and registered as a Charity under OSCR (The Scottish Charity Regulator). The Trust has formally elected Trustees all from the ESMS family.

During the School Year (2019/2020), the Trust provided £230,000 in bursaries to the Erskine Stewart’s Melville Schools, which has enabled 26 pupils to enjoy the excellent facilities and education available. I am pleased to say the bursary provision covered 11 boys at Stewart’s Melville, 13 girls at Mary Erskine and 2 pupils in the Junior School (primary 7).

In addition to the bursaries, the Trust has donated £10,000 to a diverse number of School clubs and societies.

In the Erskine Stewart’s Melville Junior School we supported the purchase of photographic equipment for School trips, play materials for the Queensway House playground and equipment for the primary 7 Netball Club. Mary Erskine School received funding for their

basketball club, 2 rowing machines for the Rowing Club and a video tripod plus camera stabilizer for the Film-making Club. In Stewart’s Melville College the Astronomy Club received support and across the Erskine Stewart’s Melville Senior School there was the purchases of a canoe trailer for canoeing/kayaking trips plus Duke of Edinburgh expeditions and Challenge Scoreboards for the Middle School.

The Trust is formally registered for Gift Aid and this is now helping to attract new donations from not only Melville FPs but others with connections to the extended ESMS family. Recent donations helped the purchase of a defibrillator now available at the entrance to the Inverleith clubhouse.

Alan Veitch (Chair of Melville College Trust) with Charles Wilson (FP Club) The Trust again acknowledges the fantastic work now being done by the School Archivist David McLeish and in the past year with further donations we have been able to support the digitisation of the History of Edinburgh Institution 1832-1932 and the History

of Melville College 1832-1973. Some years ago, the Trust published a book covering Edinburgh Institution WW1 and Melville College WW2 roll of honour and it is great to this this has also been digitised and available on-line at https://archives.esms.org.uk/ Recently the Trust received exciting news from the School that their new building for Modern Languages and Classics is to be officially named the Rutherford building in memory of James Wight Rutherford a former Governor of Melville College and a very generous benefactor to the Melville College Trust where income from his bequest goes to assist the School bursary funding.

At our Annual General Meeting last November, Julian Scott our long serving Clerk and Treasurer stepped down after some 25 years of service.

Julian and Grant Macrea, who also retired as a Governor and former Chairman were elected Honorary Members of the Trust in recognition of their outstanding service.

The elected governors of the Melville Trust are currently – Alan Veitch (Chair), Stephen Patterson (Vice-Chair), Andy Scott, Ken Richardson, Christine Collingwood, Malcolm MacColl, Steven Newlands, Victor Coltherd and Tommy Bryson. David Dunsire has been appointed as the new Clerk and Treasurer.

For further information about the Trust or perhaps you are considering a donation then do visit our website: http://melvillecollegetrust.uk and follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/melville_trust Alan Veitch Chair Melville College Trust

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Daniel Stewart’s & Melville College Former Pupils Club

A School History Lesson...

Time for some history as Alan Veitch, Bert Barclay and John Archer take a nostalgic trip around the sports grounds of Daniel Stewart’s College and Edinburgh Institution / Melville College.

We are all of us used to the superb sports facilities at Inverleith and the older among us will fondly remember playing at Ferryfield. I can guarantee, however, that no one reading this will remember games being played at Warriston or Gorgie or the other venues used before both Daniel Stewart’s College and Melville College settled on opposite sides of Ferry Road.

Map of Warriston ground in 1878 and is still there today being used as Edinburgh Council School Playing fields the club won the unofficial Scottish championship. Brewis also skippered the Institution FP cricket and golf teams and later captained the Scottish rugby team. However in 1890 the London and North Eastern Railway Company bought the land at Coltbridge for the purpose of developing it by erecting engine sheds and railway sidings and the Institution was once again on the search for a new location.

Edinburgh Institution/ Melville College The Edinburgh Institution, established

by Rev Robert Cunningham in 1832 in 59 George Street, lacked any sort of facilities for sports until 1867 when ground was rented from the Orphan Institution, later the Dean Orphanage and now the eastern building of the National Gallery of Modern Art. This ground was rented in 1867 and 1868 but in 1869 a piece of land in Warriston situated between Eildon Street and Warriston Terrace was taken for the purpose of school sports.

Edinburgh Institution School Sports at Warriston in 1895

Edinburgh Institution FP CC first home match at Warriston on 4th May 1878 The Edinburgh Institution (FP) Football club which had been founded in 1871

by RM Neill played at Warriston as did the FP cricket club (founded in 1877) but conditions there were far from ideal. The pitch was both damp and short and changing facilities were under canvas in a tent which, even for these days, some clubs found unsuitable! In view of this, and in part due to the generosity of a father of two pupils, the club was given use of a pitch at Coltbridge almost opposite the main entrance to Murrayfield, and this was used from 1878 for some years.

This move to a new pitch brought great success and in seasons 188081 and 1881-82 under the captaincy of NT Brewis and latterly R Ainslie

Map of Coltbridge ground replaced by the Engine Shed in 1890, very close to the Murrayfield Stadium main entrance A return to Warriston was not on the cards but an excellent pitch was found at Lady Napier’s Park in Portobello on the land now occupied by Southfield Square.

While the ground was ideal the location most certainly was not! The ground was virtually inaccessible with the nearest transport being Portobello Station, a

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good 15 minutes walk away. This caused great problems for players and spectators alike and the club was on the verge of going out of existence when in 1902 it was forced to give up Lady Napier’s Park and had to return to Warriston. Proposals to acquire and enlarge Warriston to better suit the needs of both school and FP Club were unsuccessful but in 1906 the school and former pupils were able to lease ground in Ferry Road directly opposite the Scottish Rugby Union’s ground of Inverleith. In 1924 a 3 day bazaar was held in the Music Hall in George Street and the money raised by this was used to purchase Ferryfield for the sum of £5700.00. It must have been some bazaar!

Map of Lady Napier’s Park in the grounds of Duddingston cottage in 1901. Now occupied by Southfield Square, close to Milton Road West

Edinburgh Institution FP Rugby Club Scottish Club Champions in 1880-81

The first FP cricket match played at Ferryfield on 20th July 1907

Picture of cricket at Ferryfield in the 1920s North Inverleith Mains Farm buildings are visible on the left side

Photograph showing the original pavilion at Ferryfield in 1920

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Daniel Stewart’s & Melville College Former Pupils Club

Pavilion at Ferryfield, 1963

Opening of Memorial Gates at Ferryfield, 15th October 1965

FP News 2021

Daniel Stewart’s College In 1870 Daniel Stewart’s Hospital became a day school and changed its name to Daniel Stewart’s Institution.

There were no organised sports under the auspices of the school but Daniel Stewart’s Institution had an advantage over the Edinburgh Institution in that the school boasted a playground! It cannot be said that the playground was ideal for organised sport in that not only was the surface in the main composed of clinker but it also ran down a slope towards the main school building. Despite this a XX was organised and captained by James Gibb and a challenge duly issued to George Watson’s College. The result was in Stewart’s favour and the school won by a drop goal. It was not until 1875, however, that an FP team was formed and again its first match was against George Watson’s FPs. This was very much an ad hoc game and the Stewart’s College FP Football Club was not formed until 1885. Early matches were played at Gorgie, although it has not been possible to establish exactly where these took place. Before Heart of Midlothian moved to their present ground at Tynecastle they too played elsewhere in Gorgie from 1881 at a ground now occupied by Wardlaw Street and Wardlaw Terrace. It would be pleasing to think that they may have shared a ground!

Ground at Ravelston around 1900

Albeit Honeyman’s Field was in an excellent location geographically for the school it was being somewhat rocky and undulating, not an ideal playing surface.

In 1895 the governors of the College were again induced to purchase a parcel of land at Inverleith from the Rocheid family. This land was situated at the north west of the present ground where the artificial cricket wicket is located.

Map from 1894 showing location of Ravelston ground

Map of Inverleith from 1898

The first FP cricket match played at Ravelston on 28th May 1887

The first FP cricket match and formal opening of Inverleith on 18th May 1895

The clinker is clearly visible in this Daniel Stewart’s College team photo The formation of the Stewart’s College Athletic Club in March 1886 brough together all sports and the Merchant Company was encouraged to take up a lease on Honeyman’s Field from the governors of Trinity Hospital at £8.00 per annum. This field and its three cottages was at the junction of what is now Ravelston Dykes and Queensferry Terrace and is of course now built on.

The school sports of 1887 were held there and were organised by the FP Club, a tradition which lasted until 1970.

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Photograph showing the original pavilion at Inverleith in 1895

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Daniel Stewart’s & Melville College Former Pupils Club

Shortly thereafter in 1897 the Scottish Football Union purchased a field at Inverleith from the Fettes Trust for the sum of £3800.00, paid for by the sale of debentures. (Plus ca change…!).

This was used as the Scottish international ground until, after the purchase of land at Murrayfield from the Edinburgh Polo Club in 1922, the last international was played at Inverleith on 25 January 1925 with Scotland beating France 25–4.

Once again the Merchant Company, this time with the aid of the FP Club, was willing to supply the funds with which to buy the international ground.

Now possessed of one of the finest grounds in the country the first match took place on 2 October 1926 when Royal High School FP was defeated by 8 points to 6.

The grounds of Stewart’s Hospital, the Scottish Football Union and Edinburgh Institution in 1912

Scotland v Wales at Inverleith on 7th February 1920 Result Scotland 9 Wales 5

Just prior to this in 1920 plans were drawn up for a sports field for the Edinburgh Ladies College at that part of the ground bounded by East Fettes Avenue and Ferry Road but separated from the Stewart’s pitches by a low wall. The headmistress, Miss Clarke, opened the ground by hitting the first tennis ball in 1923 and senior pupils would travel by tram from Queen Street to make use of the facilities although it was not until 1929 that junior pupils were allowed to use this facility.

When the new Mary Erskine school was opened at Ravelston in 1967 tennis courts and hockey pitches were included on the site and this enabled Stewart’s to expand into the furthest west corner of Inverleith. First of all the existing tennis courts were taken over and then the hockey pitches were converted into a further rugby pitch during the winter and for the summer an artificial wicket for cricket was laid. The tennis courts have now metamorphosed

Large crowd for the opening match at Inverleith into an all-weather hockey pitch and a new pavilion has been added to serve both hockey and those playing cricket on the “arti”. The wall which ran north – south separating the Stewart’s and Mary Erskine parts of the ground, acting as a cordon sanitaire separating the sexes, was demolished although there exists

still a slight banking showing its original location. As for the Union Field the press box which stood for many years atop the banking on the east side of the field all but demolished itself during a bout of severe weather and the banking itself was used as infill to level up the ground where the cricket nets now stand.

FP News 2021

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Following the amalgamation of the schools in 1973 the Ferryfield ground was sold by the Merchant Company for housing for a price which at the time was the highest price ever paid for land anywhere in Edinburgh. However, the Ferryfield Gates were re-erected close to the entrance at Inverleith as a reminder of the importance of Ferryfield to the history of the schools.

Inverleith development plan in 1966 after Mary Erskine School had relocated to Ravelston

Stewart’s Melville College Archives

David McLeish gives an insight into the work of the SMC Archives.

In August 2018 Ian McKerrow passed on the baton of SMC Archives to me after sterling work in the Archives and dealing with countless inquiries.

For those who do not know, I retired as Assistant Head in the Junior School after 37 years. This had included some “three school” responsibilities as well as involvement in organising events such as the Robert Cunningham 200 Anniversary Service in 1999 and the Daniel Stewart 200 celebrations.

Hopefully before too much longer the Archives will once again be able to welcome visitors, but in the mean time I thought it might be useful to give an overview of who we are, where we are and what we do.

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Daniel Stewart’s & Melville College Former Pupils Club

Who? In addition to myself we are extremely fortunate to have Mr Dave Clarke as part of the Archives Team. Mr Clarke is an inspirational teacher of History at SMC and has a particular interest in and knowledge of World War 1 and the role of our Former Pupils in it. His knowledge is encyclopaedic, and he is currently involved in researching every former pupil from Daniel Stewart’s College and The Edinburgh Institution who took part in the War in any way.

Once the current restrictions ease, we will be extremely excited to welcome two knowledgeable volunteers to help us on a regular basis: • Miss Lydia Lawson who was formerly Mr Gray’s P.A. • Mrs Barbara Wood who was formerly P.A. to the JS Headmaster and JS Admission Secretary

Location?

We are situated in the West Attics of Old College. We have an attics Archives Store which was refurbished during 2019 as well as an Archives office / reading room which we moved into in May 2020.

We hold memorabilia, records and photographs from Daniel Stewart’s College and the Edinburgh Institution / Melville College, and Stewart’s Melville College.

We also hold materials from Dean Parish Church and John Watson’s School Former Pupils. Included in the store are Collegian School Magazines 1910 – present, Melville Chronicles 1919-1974, some Merchant Company information, along with Committee minutes and some trophies no longer awarded.

as the budget allows. SDS Heritage Specialists in digitisation of rare, precious and priceless archives (sds-heritage. co.uk) have just completed scanning and digitalising Collegian Magazines 1945-73 to add to the already available 1910 -1945 editions. We aim to have all Collegians available within the next three years. Once complete we will then aim to start the same process with Melville College Chronicles Follow the Archives on social media;

The office has space for the Archivist and Assistant Archivist to work as well as to host visitors and those Senior boys wishing to research the archives.

Facebook: We have an SMC Archives Facebook page: @SMCArchives

Online and Digital Presence

In addition to the above:

Perhaps the most important recent innovation is the presence of SMC Archives on the internet. Anyone who wishes to, can access our digital archives at: https://archives.esms.org.uk The Digital archives are searchable so if you are looking for a particular name just type it in, and all mentions will be listed.

We are adding to the Digital Archives

Twitter: We have an SMC Archives Twitter page: @smcarchives An email is sent to all SMC and JS staff once a week including a photograph from archives and covering an aspect of the history of the schools so that we increase knowledge amongst staff.

Each S1 class has a tour of archives and Old College and we give a resume of the history of the schools.

Please do take the time to investigate the Digital Archives and we do hope to be able to welcome visitors to the Archives again before too much longer.

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Sports Clubs...

CRICKET The lockdown imposed by the Scottish Government in March ultimately led to competitive league and cup competition being abandoned for the season when it became apparent that even 50% of the organised programme would not happen with August 1st being targeted by the cricket authorities for some kind of resumption.

The first difference for the club was lockdown preventing the normal importation of overseas players and coaches to assist the club so that arrangements made with Alex Ranson (school), Shaylen Pillay (mens/junior cricket), Hannah Short (womens/ junior cricket) and gap student players including Hayden Sweet had to be cancelled. Unfortunately the club incurred the expense of renting a flat for Shaylen Pillay for the Summer without the opportunity of running the Summer schools which usually helped meet the costs involved although the costs were mitigated when President Lawrance Reilly took over the lease for the last few weeks.

Eventually the playing of matches against other clubs was permitted from 8th August with “Covid safe” rules introduced meaning no pavilions to be open, no seating around grounds and no spectators allowed with numbers at any match restricted to 28 including players, umpires and scorers, matches played within local areas only and no car sharing on the way to matches. Special match conditions were introduced to encourage social distancing on the field of play.

For the 1st XI a programme of Saturday 40 overs a side matches and midweek 16 over a side matches were introduced involving Carlton, Grange, Watsonians, Corstorphine, Heriot’s and ourselves. That meant no games with Stoneywood-Dyce (Aberdeen), Forfarshire (Dundee), Arbroath and Meigle.

The East of Scotland Cricket Association (“ESCA”) split their 70+ participating teams into pods based on location and ranking so that our 2s, 3s and 4s had games arranged centrally for every Saturday once a start was made. In addition the club continued the practice of playing intra club matches both midweek and Sundays open to all seniors and older juniors as well as some midweek external Trojans matches (pretty much involving 3s and 4s players).

A small number of womens cricket matches were arranged again in conjunction with our “partner club” Edinburgh South.

The mens 1st XI (above) defeated RH Corstorphine on Saturday 5th August

From the beginning of July practice nets were allowed for young cricketers subject to pre booking, restricted numbers and limited access to coaches. While similar practice arrangements were later introduced

for senior players the club found it administratively easier and more productive to continue playing intra club matches which ran throughout the abbreviated season.

For the senior teams external games started on Tuesday 11th August when the 1st XI played Watsonians at Inverleith 16 overs a side with a 6pm start. Further “T16” matches followed against Grange (18th August), Heriot’s (20th August), Carlton (1st September).

The wet weather endured mostly post lockdown prevented the match against Corstorphine being played while a deluge brought an early conclusion to the match with Grange. We were on the wrong side of the result in the matches with stronger Heriot’s, Carlton and Watsonian selections.

Each Saturday the club fielded four full teams in senior mens cricket and on Sundays weather permitting intra club cricket took place. In Saturday matches, planned for 40 overs a side for the 1st XI, Carlton, Grange and Heriot’s and Watsonians ran out comfortable winners and Corstorphine were defeated.

Following the July resumption of practice 97 juniors (75 boys and 22 girls) took part in junior club activity

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Daniel Stewart’s & Melville College Former Pupils Club

while 27 boys and 14 girls played in senior mens or womens cricket in the period from 8th August.

Notably the Womens joint team with Edinburgh South (pictured above) defeated Carlton on Sunday 16th August, Carlton a second time and Watsonians in the three matches arranged for them.

The opportunity for noteworthy individual performances was much reduced. In the 1st XI Kris Steel scored most runs, 80 at an average of 13.3 with a top score of 41 v Corstorphine.

Adam McHoul scored 74 at an average of 14.8 with a highest score of 40 (his best in the 1st XI) and maybe regrets missing out on a fifty (having been comfortably run out). Steven Parker scored 69 at an average of 17.25 with 21 not out his best. Callum Steel (ave 8.3) and Joe Newman (ave 31.9) each took 7 wickets. Individual high points were Callum Steel achieving his second hat-trick (and 4 wickets in 5 balls) for the club v Grange in the

RUGBY When lockdown hit us in March the Stewart’s Melville RFC 1st XV was sitting top of National League Division 2 with only four games left to play. We had a seven point advantage with a relatively straightforward run-in, having already played our close rivals both home and away. We were also in the semi-finals of the National League Cup. The growing belief that we would be playing in the second tier of Scottish club rugby came to an abrupt halt when the SRU called the season ‘null and void’ due to the unlikelihood of remaining fixtures being fulfilled. A

subsequently abandoned “Super Six” 16 over match. In the Saturday match Chris Miller batted through all 40 overs v Watsonians for 23 not out. Adam McHoul (40), Mikey Miller (37) and Vishal Shah (35) helped put a winning score of 164 on the board v Corstorphine after difficult start. Ollie Rees with 80 runs from two innings (HS 50 v Marchmont) was top scorer in the 2nd XI (won 3 lost 2). Leading wicket taker was Ben Jamieson who played all 5 matches taking 9 wickets (ave 4.67) in 19 overs. The 3rd XI played 4 matches (won 1, lost 3), highest run scorer was Victor Coltherd with 71 runs (ave 23.6) and most wickets were taken by Simon Edgar with 5 (ave 6.4). In the 4th XI (won 1, lost 4) Rory Anderson played all 5 matches and finished both equal top run scorer (63) (ave 15.75) and leading wicket taker with 10 (ave 9.6). Aly Wallace also scored 63 runs in his 2 innings with 54 not out v Boroughmuir 2s.

The Trojans played 2 matches -

defeating E=MCC twice. Their final three matches were rained off.

The resurgence of Covid over the Winter months has to date prevented any indoor practice and may impact on what kind of season we may have this Summer. Looking forward it is anticipated that some junior practice will be allowed indoors subject to Covid compliance while the form of outdoor cricket in the Summer remains an unknown.

The club was sorry to hear of the losses of Hon Vice-President Ian Adam, and significant past players Dougie Morgan and Ron Scobie in the past year.

Last year I intimated I would stand down as Secretary at this time and Lawrance Reilly having completed two years as President is also retiring. I am sure everyone wishes the successors a better cricket season than 2020.

Robert Barclay Secretary

FP News 2021

heart-breaking end to the season, although I do recognise that, for many people, there are far more important things to worry about than club rugby!

The lack of promotion (or silverware) should not, however, take anything away from what was a pretty sensational season. The grit, determination and skill shown by the players was nigh on faultless. Some of the games will live long in the memory, particularly away wins against Kirkcaldy, GHK and, in particular, Dumfries Saints. The fact that no-one ended up frostbitten after the Dumfries game mystified many, but the ability of our boys to defend the line in the last 10 minutes was simply phenomenal. A real team effort if ever there was one.

Not to be outdone, the newly branded Development Team (formerly the 2nd XV), also pulled off some rather impressive results. Wins against Boroughmuir, Heriot’s and Edinburgh

Accies, amongst others, helped the team finish third in East Reserve League Division 1. The fact that many players represented both our sides shows there is good strength in depth at the club.

The Ferry Road Wanderers, our social side shared with Heriot’s, is on hiatus at the moment. Playing numbers in clubland have continued to drop which has led to a number of teams pulling out of league rugby. We are hopeful we can restart the project in the near future. Please get in touch if you fancy a run out!

To off-field matters. When the country was in lockdown the players came to me with the idea that they could help

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our vulnerable members by running errands for them. They would happily pick up groceries or medication and deliver them to the door. Our committee also kept in regular contact with certain members to ensure they were coping with the difficult situation.

I could not be prouder of everyone involved with these initiatives. The bond holding the Stewart’s Melville Rugby Club family together is a strong one.

A quick note of congratulations to our very own Colin Rigby, who was recently voted in as Vice-President of the SRU. Very well deserved!

Simon Breeze Club President, Stewart’s Melville RFC

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Daniel Stewart’s & Melville College Former Pupils Club

Stewart’s Melville RFC wins Lions award Stew Mel RFC was named the first ever Lions Origin Club of the Month in February, thanks to innovative fundraising by the Graves family. Twin brothers William and Thomas Graves, and dad Adrian (P7 Stew Mel Lions Head Coach), came up with the idea to turn old rugby balls into pencil cases and wallets, and sold them to raise money for the Wooden Spoon Charity.

They had been inspired by a market stall they saw on holiday in 2019 and began producing the recycled products in summer last year. They began selling them in September and enjoyed a lot of attention – leading to the award early this year. The British and Irish Lions, in conjunction with Canterbury, were suitably impressed. Stewart’s Melville has produced six British and Irish Lions

to date – Finlay and Jim Calder, Sandy Hinshelwood, John Douglas, Doug Morgan and Doddie Weir. Well done to the Graves family!

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GOLF Like the activities of so many during 2020, the Former Pupils’ Golf Club’s golfing and social year was sadly abbreviated (as, consequently, is this report).

The year nevertheless started promisingly, with another well-attended AGM at which, alongside the earnest constitutional business, the assembled members were – in what is becoming something of beloved tradition – entertained and informed by resident oenophile Jim Preacher. Alas, that was to prove the last of the Club’s revelry for some time, the Annual Dinner and Spring Meeting to Panmure falling victim to lockdown.

When restrictions did finally lift, it was at Muirfield that members assembled for the Summer Meeting. The otherwise untrammelled joy of a return to the links on a lovely midsummer’s evening was tempered only by rough that suggested that nature had not only ‘healed’, but had gained superpowers.

But even especially fierce rough proved no obstacle for perennial winner, Alan Anderson (74). Victor in the handicap competition was Euan Robertson (35 points).

Happily, we also managed to hold

the Autumn Meeting at Lanark, on a wonderfully sunny – if rather breezy – Sunday in September. Alasdair McLeish (86) and Donald Lowe (31 points) prevailed.

One of the favourite outings of the year – that of the Rabbits – also took place, with George Bee running out a worthy winner at Ratho.

The Club had mixed success in external competitions, beating Heriots FPGC in the Grand Match / Volvo Trophy, and recording a pleasingly

convincing win over Heriots, Edinburgh Academicals and Watsonians in the Edinburgh Cup (albeit unfortunately not repeating that success in the under-35 version of it). The Glasgow Club took the spoils in the latest instalment of that fixture. There was also defeat to the schoolboys at Murrayfield. If nothing else, we can perhaps take comfort that in these times of unprecedented disruption there at least some constants…

Other competitions regrettably succumbed to the year’s turmoil. We therefore look forward with hope and extra enthusiasm to those competitions (the Spring Meeting, new ‘1887 Trophy”, Gilbert Archer and Summer Singles and Foursomes) in the coming season.

A global pandemic achieved what tempests and the odd hangover could not - and forced cancellation of 2020’s Retreat. But that no doubt merely means that Retreaters shall be like coiled springs ready for the competition and camaraderie of this year’s excursion to Morayshire.

So 2020 was a fitful golfing year, but one undoubtedly brightened by the resilience, enthusiasm and conviviality of the Club’s members on the occasions on which we could gather.

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Daniel Stewart’s & Melville College Former Pupils Club

FP pair named first: Scott Gill & Euan Robertson v Alistair Adam and Tom Blain (both of S6)- pupil win.

Bert Barclay & David Arthur v Chris Black (S5) & Jake McGlynn (S4) - pupil win.

Hugh Jackson & Scott Noble v Harry Cusiter and Harry Hawthorn (both S4) - pupil win.

So a 3-0 victory for the pupils extending their winning streak going back to 2014 since the last FP’s victory.

HOCKEY In general, whilst the pandemic has halted our ability to play senior competitive matches since February 2020, the atmosphere within the hockey club is very positive.

Although we were able to play some league matches at the start of 2020, once lockdown was introduced it became clear that hockey would not resume for some time, although at the time missing a whole 2020/21 season would have been unthinkable! During the height of the lockdown in March, April and May, our Club President, Ian Moss, helped to keep spirits up by kindly hosting a ‘virtual clubhouse’ on Saturday afternoons via Zoom, giving members the chance to catch up in a social setting.

Following on from the initial easing

of lockdown restrictions during the summer, we played club & local friendlies and maintained regular training from July until matches were again placed on hold in September.

Throughout this same period, our Youth section did very well as we were able to provide continual youth hockey training sessions since the start of school term in August 2020 until December, with most of our age groups at capacity. We were also able to hold a back to hockey camp in August, and an autumn training camp in October. Feedback from several parents has so far been very positive, particularly that we were able to continue to provide safe training during testing times.

Moving past the festive period and through the lockdown during the 1st quarter of 2021, things are certainly looking up for ESMHC as a whole.

Following a further change in the covid guidance, we are hoping to return to the pitch before Easter with socially distanced fitness and training once more. In addition to this, we will be able to hold our annual Easter youth camps from the 12th-16th of April. I hope that this is a good indication of a more active 2021!

Moving forward, several of our youth players have been forward for East of Scotland Development Squad and for the East Academy series. For the next playing season our adult teams hope to capitalise on successes of the 2019/2020 season, with our Ladies 1s competing as a new entry in the Scottish Hockey Premiership, and the Mens 1st team competing for a top spot in National League 2 after previously finishing 3rd place.

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Melville Class of 1963 Annual Reunion Having met religiously every year since 1963, it was not an option to miss out in 2020 despite the pandemic.

For all our advancing years, technology has not entirely bypassed us and we were able to convene a Zoom meeting. Most of the population is depending to a large extent on Zoom for keeping in touch with family and friends and so we all had some experience of what is involved.

Doug Scott was the technical host of

the meeting and Mike Wheeler carried out what chairmanship organisational duties that were required. However, as a bunch of guys who were brought up at Melville under the influence of Miss Stewart and her slipper and latterly in the CCF under the command of Arthur Bain, we were well behaved and disciplined and everyone (there were 17 participants) had the chance to contribute. We used up three 40-minute Zoom sessions, and so

Tributes Mike Geddes (1951 – 1985) – An Appreciation DSC 1956 -1969

I make no apologies for penning this appreciation of the late Michael George Geddes so long after his untimely death in 1985 from oesophagal cancer, but it is only recently that a fresh batch of information has come to the notice of those who knew him at Daniel Stewart’s College.

Mike was a bright person and most definitely of the scientific and practical bent, best evidenced perhaps by him building his own working television set while still at school, (and remember that this was in the days of valves and cathode ray tubes), as well as sweeping the boards at the prizegiving in his final year by taking not only the Daniel Stewart’s Prize and the Daniel Stewart’s University Bursary but also the Alan Stoddart Mathematics Prize and the Dr George Nisbet Cup for Sailing. However, Mike’s great love lay in the outdoors. He was a keen member of the scouts in Blackhall, headquartered firstly at St Columba’s church, and latterly in the Venture Scouts whose HQ was in a wooden building in a field at the west side of Ravelston Park, now built over, with a handy quarry to the south which provided opportunities for climbing, abseiling and canoeing.

While a scout Mike was introduced to hillwalking and took to it like a duck to water completing adventurous and challenging solo hikes in the Cairngorms and the western highlands.

His skill and stamina were phenomenal and I can remember in particular one instance when, in the course of a competition hike and in pitch darkness, Mike led a trio of us on a compass bearing course of a little over two miles over mountain and stream from a dam on the Bruar river to a fisherman’s hut near the foot of Beinn Garbh. After about an hour of walking and stumbling Mike stopped and said, “Well, I think this must be it but I can’t see it.” At precisely that moment a shaft of light appeared about a hundred metres away as someone fortuitously opened the door of the hut. I still don’t know how he managed that feat!

At the age of 17 Mike completed the full set of Munros and tops over 3000 feet, being only the 100th individual to have managed this and the youngest ever by some distance! His choice of Cambridge for university was probably not his best decision. It was too far away from his mountains and Mike spent a great deal of his university time either in Snowdonia or, preferably, the Cairngorms where he perfected his ice climbing. It was not unknown for Mike to hitchhike the 900 miles return trip from Cambridge to the Cairngorms in the course of a weekend

there was plenty to talk about. By a little careful planning, the timing of the meeting was set so as to allow Iain McCrae in New Zealand and David Wallace in Canada to take part at a civilised time for them.

Generally speaking everyone was in good form and there were no reports of anyone specifically affected by the virus. Let’s hope it stays that way and that a return to our convivial gatherings will be possible in 2021.

but this was a style of life not conducive to academic studies!

While still at Cambridge Mike, either solo or with a variety of climbing partners made first or 2nd ascents of awesome climbs as Hadrian’s Wall Direct, North Post, Orion Face Direct, Point Five and many others and tales of these launched him as a star into the climbing fraternity. He also climbed in the Alps making the first British ascents of Zapelli-Bertone on Mont Maudit and the first winter ascent of the Rebuffat route on the Pointe du Domino, and after graduating he took part in expeditions to Patagonia and Peru, although the first was a disappointment to him as the team’s equipment was “lost” in the docks.

The 1970s were not particularly good

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Daniel Stewart’s & Melville College Former Pupils Club

years for Mike when he taught in London but was away from his beloved mountains. However, in 1977 he started his first “real job” as a chemical engineer at the pulp mill in Corpach in the shadow of Ben Nevis and from there he was able to trail blaze climbs such as Galactic Hitchhiker, Five Finger Discount and Route II to name but a few. It was in Fort William that he met Helen Wood and they married in 1980.

Helen was herself an experienced climber and walker and the pair of them moved to Aberdeen from where

Douglas Wright (17/1/1946-8/2/1970) There has been much debate recently in the media about the damaging effects of concussion in sport with particular attention on soccer and rugby, be it Union or League. The devastating impact on a family having to cope with the illness cannot be under-estimated and to see loved ones disintegrate over a period of time must be heart-breaking. In soccer the Astle family have bravely made public the tragic case of Jeff Astle who played for West Bromwich Albion for many years but died at age fifty nine from Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE) caused by heading the heavy leather footballs used in his day. England’s football World Cup winner Nobby Stlies is also reckoned to have had advanced dementia again contributed to by heading footballs. Studies are ongoing and it is hoped that the advent of the lighter football may reduce damage from heading in the long term and of course medical attention is much better than it ever was but the importance of recognising concussion in sport is vitally important and possibly life-saving.

Rugby Union is now beginning to investigate the long term effect of head injuries following disclosure that the England World Cup winning hooker Steve Thomson has been diagnosed with early onset dementia.

Other former players are also coming forward to reveal their own problems caused by head injuries. The FP Rugby Club now has a doctor on site at every first fifteen home game and if at all possible someone with

Mike intended to start work as a self-employed IT consultant. Sadly, however, tragedy struck in late 1983 when he contracted a severe form of oesophagal cancer. Having survived the operation Helen and he made a move to Boat of Garten where they had plans to combine mountain guiding and running a guest house along with his computer consultancy. After a slow but doged recovery fate intervened and his cancer returned, eventually defeating him. On the day of his death it was only fitting that in the Highlands it rained

incessantly as if “his” mountains were shedding tears for him.

a bit of a medical background at lower-level games. There are also physiotherapists in attendance for muscle injuries etc. However this was not always the case as many of us well remember the days when the only “medical” attention available was a bloke on the sidelines with a bucket and wet sponge……and that was just for the 1st XV. The lower sides had even less, relying on a committee man be he a surveyor, lawyer or bank manager! In those days you were expected to shake off a knock and just get on with the game.

student at the time, in his Austin A35 van. Douglas was later transferred to the Royal Infirmary. He was kept in hospital for weeks until the tragic news reached the Club that he had died on 8th February 1970. His Death Certificate stated that the cause of death was “Head Injury”. It is thought that Wright had previously suffered a head injury but was so enthusiastic about rugby that he refused to miss a match. He had clearly suffered concussion in an earlier match or matches, had come back far too soon and suffered another ultimately fatal head knock. Nowadays of course he would not have been permitted to play for at least three weeks as a preventative measure.

Before the merger Melville FP Rugby Club was having one of its best seasons for many a year, with four fifteens turning out and young men keen to join the Club to play the game. In 1969 a young student named Douglas Wright turned up at Ferryfield looking for a game and very soon made his mark as a hardtackling wing forward quickly forcing his way into the first fifteen. However in December of that year the worst of all possible tragedies occurred. The first fifteen was playing either Glasgow University or Hutcheson’s Grammar School at Ferryfield (nobody can quite remember the exact opposition!) when Douglas was badly injured following a tackle. He was seen to have been hurt at the bottom of a ruck and at the next line-out had to be virtually held up by team-mates. It appeared to be a serious injury and he was carried from the pitch on a duckboard by amongst others Alan Veitch a ball boy at the match and currently Chairman of the Melville College Trust.

The injured player was driven to the Western General Hospital by Richard De Soldenhoff, a young medical

Mike was taken far too early from all of us. Had he lived longer he would undoubtedly have been hailed as the leading Scottish ice climber of his generation. But it was not just his climbing that made Mike remarkable.

His accounts of his climbs, his hillwalking and ski touring were poetry in themselves and his conversation sparkled with erudition, wit and humour.

John Archer

The Rugby Club and the FP Club were devastated as of course were his parents David and Marion. A clock in Wright’s memory hung in the Ferryfield clubhouse then Inverleith for very many years before eventually falling apart but those of us old enough still remember the tragedy. Thankfully as stated lessons have been learned and it is hoped that such an event will never happen again. Despite the bulking-up of players and bigger “hits” the number of deaths in rugby is thankfully remarkably few although one is too many. It is generally accepted that the benefits of playing sport seriously outweigh the risks but we never wish such an unfortunate event to be repeated.

Apologies if some of the information contained here is inaccurate but the incident happened a long time ago and those of us who remember it are getting on a bit!

Bobby Clark

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Obituaries...

Paul A Caton 1940-2021 Paul Caton, former mathematics teacher and deputy principal at SMC, died age 81 in January this year. He was born in Lancashire and was Head Boy at Audenshaw Grammar School in 1959, where he was a standout cadet, and captained the 1st XV. He proceeded to Edinburgh University, and later Moray House, before starting at Melville College.

Paul was a well-liked Mathematics teacher at Melville College, and was head of the middle school at the time of the merger – a transition in which he played an important role. He was heavily involved in the CCF, serving as contingent commander from 1978 beyond even his retirement in 1996, and was appointed Deputy Principal in 1987. He was also a coach with the 1st XVs at the school and FP club.

He was awarded an MBE for his services to the cadets in 2002 and had a number of leisure pursuits outside of his work. He was a keen gardener and enjoyed DIY projects – like renovating his entire family home in Perthshire.

He is survived by his wife Sue, sister Jackie, niece Lisa and her family.

Malcolm Fife 1954-2021 Malcolm was born on 1954, attending Melville College before going on to the university of Edinburgh, where he studied Geography.

He worked for Edinburgh Council before becoming a full-time writer and a freelance photographer. He wrote well-regarded books on the history of Edinburgh, works on military airfields, on the Leith docks, and on civil aviation

in Scotland, among many other topics.

He had a unique ability to make random subjects, like Nor Loch or Calton Jail, intensely captivating.

His photography graces many a postcard – and his focus was showing Scotland’s beauty in landscapes of both rural and urban settings. He is survived by his sister Marion, and is greatly missed.

Eric Lindsay Revell Crichton Eric died peacefully, at Edinburgh Royal infirmary, on April 30 2020, aged 86. He was the beloved husband of Bridget and loving father to Angela and David. Eric was in the insurance world, firstly with the Royal Exchange Group in Edinburgh, and moved to be a loss adjuster with John Cruickank just down Castle Street from the Royal Exchange, and then moved to Toplis & Harding. He will be greatly missed by his loving family.

Rugby 1st XV, Cricket 1st X1 and Athletics teams. He also represented Edinburgh Schools at rugby. After School he went to Edinburgh University to study medicine. After qualifying as a doctor he worked as a GP in the Farmilehead and Morningside areas of Edinburgh. In later years he lived in the Carrbridge area.

Tommy was a School Governor of Melville College 1968 to 1973 and was a Life Governor and Past Chairman of the Melville College Trust.

Tommy was a loyal Melville man who put time and energy into working on behalf of the Melville Trust. He had a huge number of contacts and was able to use many of these to further support The Trust. He gave calm leadership and listened carefully to suggestions from other members. Tommy was a tall, gentle, likeable, man who had a lovely sense of humour. During his work with the Melville College Trust he was one of the driving forces behind the publication of the ‘red book’ – the History of Edinburgh Institution and Melville College 1932-1973. The Trust owes a great deal to him.

Michael Robert McPhail-Smith 1942-2020 Michael attended Melville College from 1950 until 1959 and was a well-liked member of the FP Golf team. He represented the Club many times at the Dispatch Trophy at the Braids, and will be sorely missed by family and friends.

Tommy Manson 1929-2020 Tommy Manson was educated at Melville College. He was an excellent sportsman and was Captain of the

Dr Andrew Fraser 1937-2020 After being educated at Daniel Stewart’s, Andrew graduated with a First-Class BSc in Bacteriology in 1960. Only 7 years later, he was appointed lecturer at the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary in the Department of Bacteriology. He became a senior lecturer in the University after the award of MD in 1984. In his spare time, he was involved in Architectural history, editing the journal of the Architectural Heritage Society of Scotland. He was chairman of the Conservation Panel at

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Daniel Stewart’s & Melville College Former Pupils Club

the University as well.

Andrew was a keen rock-climber and mountaineer and made headlines in 1958 after an accident in which he narrowly escaped death. He summited every Munro – completing the set of 282 in 2001. He married a fellow adventurer, Marguerite (Bobbie) Cocker, in 1962, and they had three children – Simon, Sally, and Vicky. He died peacefully in March 2020, after a fighting Parkinson’s for six years. He will be missed.

across Hong Kong to Lingnan University in 2017 to lead the research department on cities and social change.

He is survived by his wife Jacqui and his children, Hana and Robert.

Stuart Sinclair 1937-2020

Stuart and Fiona had two wonderful children, Karen and Michael, as Stuart always called him, and they in turn added to the Sinclair family by marrying Colin and Cath and producing the best grandchildren in the whole world, Megan, Elis, Ronan, Magnus and Isaac.

Donald Macgregor 1939-2020 Donald was born in Edinburgh in 1939 and attended DSC as a young man. He was a brilliant long-distance runner, competing in the 1972 Munich Olympics as a marathon runner for Great Britian, and finishing seventh with a time of 2:16:34.

He competed for Scotland at the Commonwealth Games in 1970 and 1974. In 2007, he was elected to the Fife Council, and in 2010 he published his autobiography, Running My Life (Pinetree Press, St Andrews).

Donald and his former wife had three children, and he is greatly missed.

Ray Forrest 1951-2020 Ray was born in 1951 and attended DSC. He attended Heriot-Watt, and then did a master’s in urban and regional studies at the University of Birmingham. After working as researcher for seven years, he moved to the University of Bristol, where he got his PhD in 1988. He became a professor in 1994 and was appointed head of the school for policy studies seven years after that. He left Bristol in 2012, and became head of the department of public policy at the City University of Hong Kong, moving

met Fiona but it has to be said that she spotted him first and spent considerable time and effort helping him to come to the realisation that she was the girl for him! Stuart left school without many academic qualifications and starting with HJ Heinz as an office boy, he worked his way up over many years to the dizzy heights of Scottish Regional Sales Manager. There were a lot of beans and cans of soup eaten in the Sinclair household, especially in the early years!

Stuart was born on the 22nd of October 1937, seven years after the birth of Alex and Jean’s first son Alastair. His mother, Jean, was an accomplished seamstress who sewed for Holyrood Palace. She was a gentle woman and looked after her sons kindly, even accompanying 16 year old Stuart down to Leith for his first job interview at Salvesons - he got the job! Stuart’s father, Alex, owned a fishmongers’ shop in Morningside for which he worked tirelessly from dawn till midnight! He was a lovely gentle person with a droll sense of humour!

He began, age 5, at Flora Stevenson’s Primary School at the bottom of his own street, Craigleith Road, but quite soon moved to Daniel Stewarts.

There he excelled at cricket and rugby reaching the much-coveted status of First Team in both.

As a teenager he gave his life to God, for His service, and spent many years working as a Sunday School teacher, a youth leader, a deacon, an elder and church secretary in various churches: Charlotte Chapel, Ward Road Baptist Church and Barnton Baptist Church.

It was in Charlotte Chapel that he first

We, as a family were always proud of him and the good news is he was proud of us too. But more importantly he loved us and told us both of these things frequently. Perhaps not fully realising that he was a husband, father, grandfather and great-grandfather to be equally proud of and dearly loved.

He will always be in our hearts.

Maurice C. Murphy 1924-2020

Maurice was a pupil at Melville College from 1929 (joining when it was called

FP News 2021

the Edinburgh Institution) until 1942.

He was one of the school’s governors from 1957 to 1973. His two sons Grahame and Malcolm were also pupils at Melville College for their full 13-year primary and secondary education.

In the sporting field, he is known to have won awards for the 100-yard sprint and throwing the cricket ball.

He also was a member of the school’s boxing club until, as his memoirs declare, he realised his big nose was a liability!Prior to leaving school in April 1942, in the midst of the Second World War, Maurice enlisted into the Territorial Army. Just three days after his final day at Melville College, he commenced his training with the 9th Field Training Regiment. Although noticeably young when joining, Maurice served overseas, from 1942 until 1947. By the time of his release from service, just after his 23rd birthday, he had been promoted to the honorary rank of captain.

After training to become a Chartered Accountant with the firm of Robertson & Maxtone, Maurice ultimately became a partner in his father’s C.A. firm, based in Charlotte Square, Edinburgh. For nearly 30 years that was his place of work, moving steadily up to take on the senior position in the business.

Maurice was a member of the C.A. Institute for 69 years. During his C.A. career, was a Director of Scottish Tea and Lands Company of Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) and made visits there. He was also the auditor for the Carlton Cricket Club and remained a member right up until his death, ultimately having a perpetual ‘Most Improved Senior Player’ quaich named after him.

In 1951, Maurice met his wife-to-be, Beryl Muir, at a dance while on holiday in the Isle of Man. They married in 1953 and went on honeymoon to the Isles of Scilly off Cornwall. They revisited this part of the U.K. nearly 60 years later and it is believed they stayed in the same hotel and in the same room!

They went on to have three children – Grahame, Lynda and Malcolm.

For the last 20 years of his life, home for Maurice and Beryl has been in Ireland, initially Mitchelstown, then

Clonakilty and ultimately Kinsale in County Cork. He and his wife have been residents of Haven Bay Nursing Home in Ballinacubby for the last five years. They had been married for 67 years. He will be greatly missed.

Alistair C Skene 1934-2020 It is with deep regret that the club has to announce the passing earlier today of a great ‘Shire servant, Alistair Skene.

Alistair had been ill for some time but dealt with his situation with remarkable fortitude. Our sincere condolences go out to Sheila, Andrew, Hamish and Iain as well as the extended family.

Alistair’s connection with the club started in season 1965-66 and, as a player, playing in the same side as the legendary Scotland and British Lions full back K.J.F. Scotland who played stand-off for ‘Shire. Also in the same side was the future Scotland standoff, Ian Robertson, who went on to have a long career in broadcasting.

Alistair gave great service to the club as Secretary, Vice-President (for ten years) and President from 1980-1982.

However, it was his willingness to help out with all the unsung tasks that need to be done in any rugby club that made Alistair, ably assisted by the ever enthusiastic Sheila, a real ‘Shire man.

As an example, through his printing business, Alistair was responsible for the production of the annual Fixture Cards, Function Menus and not least the two Centenary Booklets that were produced in 1975 and 1993.

Andrew, Hamish and Iain were brought down to the club at an early age with Andrew and Hamish playing for the senior club. Hamish is now President of Lismore R.F.C. in Edinburgh while Andrew keeps in regular touch with what is going on.

It is no co-incidence that Alistair shared his birthday with our national bard.

Alistair was an enthusiastic supporter of the club Burns Supper and would

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pipe in the haggis as well as helping with the speeches. After he and Sheila moved to Ballater, Alistair continued to lend his piping expertise to the Ballater and District Pipe Band into his eighties!

Although living in Ballater, Alistair took a keen interest in what was happening at the club and it was a delight to meet up with him and Sheila and reminisce with him over a cup of coffee and multiple biscuits!!

Murray McGrath 1936-2020 Born in June 1936, Murray McGrath was educated at Melville College where he was a keen swimmer and won the annual Crombie Cup as best swimmer of his final year. He carried on that love of swimming throughout his life as a member of Drumsheugh Baths where, even in his late 70s, he was able to swing on the rings from one end of the baths to the other without so much as a wet foot.

He started work as an ophthalmic optician in the long-established practice of his father W M McGrath in Queensferry Street. After a few years he started to see contact lenses as the way of the future for him and he grew that business until it became his full-time work. He was an innovator, often designing little devices to achieve a particular end and always he would strive to improve on what everyone else was doing at the time In 1981 he joined Donald Cameron as an equal partner in McGrath & Cameron and it is said that on conclusion of that financial deal Murray bought his Ferrari Quatrovalvoli!

He never married although he came close to it more than once and he was never short of having a lady on his arm when the occasion required it. His most endearing feature was his optimism and decision to see the best in everything. One day he announced he was driving his 1200cc Kawasaki to France to have a 14-day holiday with a female friend. Four days later he appeared in the practice with the story that when he arrived after the two-day

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Daniel Stewart’s & Melville College Former Pupils Club

trip, things had not gone as expected and the relationship ended rather abruptly. So, he set off for the two days trip home. Donald commiserated with him over the waste of the journey but he said how wonderful the journey had been with the stunning sunset, the warm driving in the sunshine and the views in France. He never mentioned that event again and never seemed to wallow in distress over anything.

Murray was a keen jazz enthusiast, amassing a huge collection of his favourite recordings, and played the guitar in a band. Murray also fancied himself as an artist - though his art teacher was slightly less convinced!

He had always been an animal rights campaigner long before that was a trendy thing to be, and he worked with Advocates for Animals for many years.

Murray passed away on 27th December, 2020 after a stroke. He is survived by his brother David, who lives along with his wife, Karen, in Richmond.

George Will

By Grant Ballantine Former classmates of George Will, and many others who knew him, will be saddened to learn of his death on 31 January 2021, in the city of Melbourne, Australia where George had made his home for some 50 years.

Virtually all of George’s schooling was at Daniel Stewarts, and for most of that time he lived in a top floor flat in Comely Bank with a wonderful view of the Edinburgh Accies’ rugby pitch.

This may have incited his interest in sporting matters -- he certainly became an enthusiastic participant in many sports, excelling in several, including rugby, cricket and golf. He was captain of the rugby first XV (and selected for Edinburgh schoolboys), as well as a demon bowler for two seasons in the cricket first XI. He played his sport competitively, and our friendship did not prevent him from clean bowling me for a golden duck in a House cricket match, when he was captain of

Drumsheugh and I of Ravelston.

Ronald Scobie

George joined the Royal Insurance group on leaving school but continued his participation in sports. It was not long before he was playing at full back for the FP first XV rugby team, following in the footsteps of his friend Fred MacLeod, who died in 2019. George was a keen Sevens player and won several medals. No doubt he would have won more, had he not decided in his early twenties to take advantage of a career opportunity with Sime Derby in the Far East, with spells in Hong Kong, Malaya and Sabah.

On his first home leave after 4 years, he met and married Kate, who was a nurse in Great Ormond St Hospital.

What a marriage that turned out to be – full of joy and laughter, with over 50 years of caring for and supporting each other. It was an honour to be Best Man at their memorable wedding in Canonbie in 1967.

George and Kate settled well into the Aussie way of life, and George’s business in insurance broking prospered. Their two sons, Stuart and James, were born in Australia, as were their four grandchildren. He continued to have contact with former pupils of DSC, and welcomed visits from them. Two of his classmates, John Wright from Kelso and Colin Furnival from Brisbane, were regular visitors to his Melbourne home, and also spent some time in his house by the beach in Point Lonsdale. George was President of the Melb Stewartonian Society for some time.

In spite of living so far away from the UK, George was very diligent in maintaining contact with friends. Every 3 or 4 years, George and Kate would make a pilgrimage back to the UK for a month or two. This was partly to visit Family, not least his younger sister Elizabeth (GWLC - 1963), but also to meet up with old friends from the South of England to the North of Scotland – sometimes arranging lunch at Inverleith for the Edinburgh contingent.

George was a good and true friend, and will be greatly missed by his family and all who knew him. George made life so much better for so many people.

Ron, who passed away in May 2020, was a pupil at Stewart’s from 195163. School activities were such an important role in his school life, followed by playing both rugby and cricket for the FPs. Ron had to give up rugby due to heart problems but continued to be involved through his role as Secretary of the FP Rugby Club. One of his fondest memories of this time was making all the arrangements when the team played in the prestigious Middlesex 7’s tournament at Twickenham in 1982 which they won.

Ron was a very accomplished cricketer, as was his father (Charles S Scobie, who also attended Daniel Stewart’s and was capped several times for Scotland). Over 5 seasons playing for the 1st XI (1964, ‘65, ‘69, ‘70, and ‘71), Ron topped the figures for most wickets in the season.

He was also an accomplished tennis player and good golfer.

Ron always appreciated the education and sporting experience at Stewart’s and was very happy to support “Access to Excellence” so other pupils could have the same opportunities that he was lucky to have had.

Ron and his wife Peppy moved ‘down south’ to Buckinghamshire in July 1983 and in the October their only son Andrew was born. Ron missed his life and friends in Edinburgh but never lost that pride in being Scottish, hailing from the city, and being affiliated to

FP News 2021

the school and its FPs. He continued to keep up personal relationships and always checked the FP rugby results on a Saturday.

After leaving school he became a qualified Chartered Accountant and had a very successful career, mainly in the food and drink sector.

He was well known for his wicked sense of humour (always the life and soul of the party), but he was also a loving, caring, kind, loyal and generous man.

Family was all important to Ron and he was so proud of his son Andrew, daughter-in-law Jen and grandchildren Charlie, George and Olive. He will be sorely missed but remembered with love and fondness by all his family and friends.

Charles W. Morton 1942-2021 Charles was born in Hawick and attended a local primary school. He attended Melville College in Edinburgh where he received his secondary education. He was a boarder for six years in the Class of 1960. He showed considerable musical talent, both in his singing and piano playing, and he was also a keen member of the school’s Combined Cadet Force.

On leaving school, he entered Edinburgh University to study Mathematics; he graduated with a B.Sc in Mathematics in 1964. During academic year 1964-5 he attended Moray House Training College and gained his teaching qualification. In the summer of 1965 he joined the Maths Department at Robert Gordon’s College in Aberdeen, where he taught until he retired.

Throughout his career, he was a staunch member of the congregation at St Machar’s Cathedral in Aberdeen, singing in the choir and playing the organ, apart from being actively involved in the life and work of the parish. For many years he acted as secretary/treasurer of the Aberdeenshire association of church organists.

Charles was known to all his friends for his friendly nature and his highlydeveloped sense of humour. He had to take early retirement from his teaching duties in his early fifties because of health issues which seriously affected his mobility; latterly he was confined to a wheelchair. However his spirit never wavered, and he remained goodhumoured and in good spirits through many difficult years. Very recently, he was diagnosed with cancer, and died peacefully in his sleep on Saturday 20th February.

Dougie Morgan 1947-2020

By Jack Davidson Douglas Waugh Morgan was born in Edinburgh, eldest of three sons of George and Catherine nee Lamb.

The family lived in Duddingston, and between 1952 and ’65, Dougie attended Melville College where he was Head Boy. He was in the 1st XV for three seasons and was captain in his final year when he also captained the cricket and hockey XI’s and won awards for swimming and athletics, a sporting polymath. Adding to his laurels he later became a single handicap golfer at the Royal Burgess, having begun playing during North Berwick family holidays.

In 1972 he captained the combined Edinburgh/Glasgow team against New Zealand followed by his international debut against Wales a year later, the last Melville F.P. to be capped. Earning a cap out of a weak club side was eloquent of the lofty standard of his own play. In direct opposition that day was Gareth Edwards - the world’s best scrum half whom he harried relentlessly to help secure a memorable victory.

After the 1973 amalgamation he was pivotal in the club’s rise to top league status along with fellow international Ian Forsyth and several sets of brothers including Brewsters, Calders, and Scotts.

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Jim Calder recalled, ”He was a very inspiring figure with total self belief who set high standards which everyone bought into. A natural captain, he prepared well for every game and was a great influence on all of us.”

In 1982, aged 35 and against the odds, he led ‘Stew-Mels’ to victory in the Middlesex ‘7’s at a packed Twickenham against favourites Richmond, celebrating the final whistle with a spontaneous handstand. He also played in the Melrose final in 1983 but lost to the French Barbarians, Serge Blanco and all. He began coaching initially with Edinburgh then became involved with the national set up contributing to the 1990 Grand Slam and Scotland’s 1991 World Cup semi final place. In 1993 he became Scotland coach initially with limited success but in 1995 led the team to a Grand Slam decider after overseeing Scotland’s famous win in Paris, their first in 26 years.

On 28th March 1970 in Edinburgh he married Doreen Cowper, originally from Montrose, a chiropodist, whom he had met socially through rugby.

They lived mostly in Barnton and had two daughters, Mandy and Nicola.

Dougie became a chiropodist himself, based for many years in Jenner’s where Doreen replaced him while he was away on tours. They were a great partnership, family and rugby being his dual passions.

He is survived by his wife, daughters, brothers, sons in law, Graham and David and grandchildren Charlie, Lois, Josh and Nathan.