Musis Respublica Floret
Happy Days - The Fifties
The Fabulous Fifties
With regard to Bobo, I can't say where the name came from, but he was always one of the most popular (and most unmercifully ragged) characters in the school. I remember one occasion when we collected all our chunks of cheese from the refectory (The Grubby?), wadded the whole malodorous mess into something resembling a greyish-yellow basketball, and waited in class until someone signalled that Mr Aitken was on his way. It was in the middle of winter, and the huge old-fashioned fireplace in the classroom had been stoked to the point of meltdown. We immediately scooped a hole in the blazing coals, dropped in the cheeseball, and covered it with fresh coal. The nexty forty minutes are gone from memory, save that we were all gasping for air, and the more scientifically-minded pupils were probably calculating whether or not carbon monoxide was a by-product of best Ayrshire cheddar. Throughout it all, Mr. Aitken refused to show any sign that anything was amiss, and steadfastly refrained from opening the door or a window.
Olfactory Armageddon
I will not attempt to describe the olfactory Armageddon accomplished by our next prank, save that it involved several dozen pairs of soaking-wet -- and in many cases not-recently-washed -- socks piled on the wire-mesh fireguard after we'd been caught in a heavy lunchtime downpour. My interest in History was at that time non-existent (not helped much either by Jocky Cunningham's remark on one of my essays: " a surprising mixture of maturity and irrelevance.") In fact, my interest in anything at all involving swotting and hard work was non-existent, taking a decided second place to the pubs on Rose Street, and the Palais in Fountainbridge on Friday nights.
Fifi Again
Looking back, I believe it was the authoritarian nature of our educational system which aroused a kind of passive rebellion in some of us. Authoritarian? Good grief! Anybody who had Fifi as French teacher would know what the word meant: the woman was made of titanium, and about as approachable as a polar bear -- and was capable of reducing the most obstreporous pupil to a quivering jelly with just a few vitriolic words. Even though I towered over her by a full inch by the time I was fifteen (and the rest of the class by considerably more), the half-pint left us in no doubt about who was boss. And she swung a mean tawse.
Come and have a smack
Sometimes, though, I wondered why we were generally so passive in the face of what later generations would consider over-the-top behaviour on the part of the teachers. I remember one morning Bill Bowie kept us in after the service and declared he would not let us go off to our various classes until a particular menace to society revealed himself. Bill had spotted the miscreant across the pitch at Murrayfield the previous Saturday -- or at least somebody wearing a black-and-white diagonally-striped scarf, and blatantly smoking a cigarette, thereby disgracing the School. I don't think any of us considered that this didn't really fall within the ambit of pedagogical authority: Saturday wasn't a school day, Murrayfield was not on school property, and smoking was not a crime. After about five minutes (it seemed longer), a sheepish member of the criminal underclass (a Pict, I think) shuffled to his feet and was led away to be introduced to Bill's Lochgelly Special, probably with Bill's characteristic silky whisper "Come and have a smack."
Mass Punishment
Some teachers believed in mass punishment. On one occasion, I was running an errand for one of the masters and arrived a couple of minutes late for a maths class. The class was filing in slowly, to the regular whack of leather on flesh. At the end of the line, I stuck my hand out meekly for the lash, and joined my fellow-pupils blowing on our hands as the lesson began. I learned later that some of the boys had been making a noise outside the classroom and the master had decided to belt them all, even the latecomers. Why we didn't turn on him in a demented fury is perhaps something best explained by psychologists. Nor did we pause to consider that schools constituted almost the only British institution in which corporal punishment was still a daily, and unremarkable feature. Later, I used to wonder why the deep thinkers at Jordanhill couldn't come up with better ways of teaching pedagogues how to maintain classroom discipline.
Better Days
I mentioned that my interest in History at that time was non-existent. Well, History is full of ironies. After leaving the School, I went to Canada, decided I had better pull my socks up when it came to academic work, and graduated from the University of Western Ontario in 1964 with a First in Honours History (being beaten out of the Gold Medal by one-half a percentage point, which I consider to be Clio's just revenge for my previous slackness).
Mr Aitken at Leith Academy
A few years later I visited my grandparents in Edinburgh, before going to Paris to do research on my doctoral dissertation for the University of Toronto. I found out that Mr Aitken was then teaching at Leith Academy, and went to see him. Naturally, he didn't remember me, until I mentioned the names of the brighter members of my class, and reminded him of the Great Cheese Fireball Incident. When I told him I was working on my third degree in History, the expression of confused disbelief on his face was something to be forever imprinted in my memory. Perhaps the School did have some beneficial effect on me after all.
Remember Charlie McAra? Wullie Gatherer?
To conclude: I earned my Ph.D, worked on Parliament Hill in Ottawa for a few years as a legislative researcher then, after a detour into journalism, returned to my alma mater in London, Ontario as professor of History. My wife and I decided on early retirement in 1999 and moved back to Ottawa (She has a Ph.D in Russian Literature, twice as many functioning brain cells as I have, and enjoyed a productive career on the Administrative Staff of the university).
Next year, we'll be moving to Vancouver Island, where the rest of the Portobello Kerr diaspora is enjoying the benefits of life on the Pacific Coast. I hope this helps enlarge your portrait of the School in the Fifties. Anybody remember Charlie McAra? Wullie Gatherer? (Now THERE was a character!)
Best wishes from the New World.
NEXT PAGE -->1959 to 65
- "Bobo" Aitkin