We will be publishing Bruce Skivington’s recollections of life at the school from 1954 to 1967.
Here is a taster (first published in our Guest Book)
What a wonderful time. Now most of the staff would be arrested if they carried on like the mob of the 50s and 60s.
The wonderful things – James Gillespies girls school, catching up on sleep in Tom Fairlie’s class, Weedy Graham’s slide shows of his holidays in his Dormobile (yup now own a classic Dormobile), Wee mac personally driving Rommel out of Africa, Big Dave chatting up the secretaries in the US Consulate, finding out later after school that Fred Scott was actually human.
Still feel guilty about the rough time we gave Jim Noble, who never belted me near enough for all the hassle. He must have been in his early 20s.
The completely barking science teachers, years later finding myself working alongside Bert Gristwood and Horsey Shires, schools now are not a patch on the old place.
I spent two years at Castlebrae High (Niddrie) which at that time was third worst school in Europe. Bert Gristwood was the head of PE. He told me some stories about some of the staff which confirmed what we all thought. I spent some time filling in at Firhill where I met Horsey Shires. I introduced myself and told him I had been at Royal High and he seemed to cower.