Brothers Simon and Nick Fraser reflect on a visit to The Academy in December 2022. Here, Nick recounts their reflection.
48 years, 5 months and 7 days is a long time – longer even than the sentences that my elder brother Simon had passed down to the unfortunates that had appeared before him on the bench over his long years as a Sheriff. My first visit since a departure on a warm June day.
I was nervous – walking up the ‘big steps’ to the main building was an ordeal never before experienced. Crikey I thought, this is sacred ground – did Basil (Holden) even do it? I had good cause to be nervous – in addition to our tour, my school record card was to be kindly dug out for communal viewing – as a treat.
Miss McMahon’s commentary and description of the day-to-day events of the school that we were witnessing were wonderfully illuminating, and more remarkably for me, from the perspective of a teacher – an insight that I had never had in my twelve years at the Academy.
What first struck me was the extent of the real estate that the school now occupied, a tribute to the progress made by its Trustees over the intervening years. The other striking thing was the pupils, and it was not that they were both boys and girls. Even we knew of the Westbourne merger many years ago.
No, it was their confidence in greeting us as total strangers, strangers intruding into ‘their backyard’; and they did so with an ability to look us straight in the eye, answer whatever inquiry was made of them, and cheerfully carry on with their industry and purpose, a tribute to them and their teachers. I reflected that had such an encounter with two senior gentlemen befallen me as a pupil it might have been, ‘has Lawrence & Lang finally noticed their stock shortage, got the CID involved and are hoping to pin it on me?!’ or ‘Oh no, honest, it wasn’t me that let off the stink bombs in Malcolm Campbell’s… it was MacNab, I’ve got witnesses… honest officer!’
But these pupils appeared to have clear, untroubled consciences… not necessarily something that these visitors would have then been immediately recognised for.
As we toured around, what Miss McMahon must have made of our running commentary can only be speculated upon…
SF: Ah, this was Jimmy Jope’s room
NF: Oh, I thought it was J on the floor below.
SF: No, definitely this one – he taught me maths in here.
NF: Ah, yes maybe you’re right… I only got him for detention.
SF: Remember this was ‘Chic’ Varley’s room? He taught me French.
NF: Ah yes, I didn’t get him for my set… but we all knew him and he knew all of us… great man.
SF: And this was Boggles’s room… yes, Boggles Winzer taught me Latin and Greek
NF: Yeh, Boggles also took me for Latin, he used to write ‘warning’ usually on my daily Latin 10 question test paper
SF: Can’t really remember getting ‘warning’ on mine
NF: Oh yeah, in red pen if I remember correctly and if you scored low on the next following test he would write ‘tanning’
SF: Crikey, I knew of Boggles supposedly tanning folk but it didn’t happen in my time
NF: You’re kidding? He actually had to lower the pass mark on our tests to 4 as well as invent a whole new category of ‘double warning’ just for our set. I guess otherwise the first 15 minutes of his next lesson with us would have been completely knackering for him!
SF: OMG!
NF: Only had Boggles for a year in room Q, his class moved to Colebrooke Street and then we had ‘EEP’ Peters, he took us for a year
SF: Ah EEP! He was a lovely, kind teacher, double first in Classics, being taught by people with double firsts. We were very fortunate.
NF: I think it was Paul Harrison that used to throw squares of jelly onto the ceiling over his desk before his lesson
SF: What? Really? I was in the same year as Paul’s brother Michael, he and I got belted by Kenny Miles for an ink fight
NF: Or maybe it was Donald Legatt that used the jelly, not too sure.
SF: Why?! Why would anyone want to throw jelly at the ceiling?!
NF: Well if you staggered the timing of the throw upward they’d drop down intermittently when they became unstuck, you know, randomly, over the space of the lesson and poor EEP couldn’t work out where they were coming from. Did you know I got three complimentary ‘O’ levels in Latin??
As we progressed our tour around, each destination held slightly different recollections….’this was ‘Humbies’ room… and ‘Smoothy’ Kimber taught English in here… and then Johnny Garland used it for French?? And ‘Morty’ Morton Black was in here… Dodo Ogilvie was here… and Geordie Preston took us for History in here… yes, that’s right… and Lachie took Geography in here….(’Ah well Faither’)….and ‘Davey’ Laird was in here… and then Colin Black taught English in here… and we got Henry Hall and Spike Pender for French in here…
And so like two muttering inmates from One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest, we continued our ramble through a landscape that although had changed in many ways, was still a terrain we knew like the back of our hands.
SF: The old chemistry block still looks the same though, Dr Walker and ‘Norrie’ Ploughman did their best to try to get me to understand the periodic table in here
NF: Yeah, I remember Norrie took my set for Chemistry in here as well, can’t remember if it was Fraser (Thomson) or Murray (Dobson) who worked out that you could attach the Bunsen burner to the thin water tap via the Bunsen’s orange pipe, and then unscrew the metal flame adjuster on the burner, or was it James Black??
SF: You did what?! Why? To what end?
NF: Why?!!! Well… why not?! Not when you want to create the most effective high-powered long range laser type water jet of all time of course!
SF: Are you serious?
NF: Aw it was great fun! You could actually hit Norrie’s desk from the lab benches 50 feet away! Turn it on and off quickly and you got this jet stream suspended in slow motion in the air, like something out of The Matrix! Not sure if I got a C or a D in my O level re-sit though? Probably a D.
And so we progressed...
SF: Jimmy Cowper taught me Maths in here
NF: Did he? No, I was lucky, as a boarder it would have been the kiss of death to have had ‘TD’ for a lesson when he was housemaster up the road, no I’ve got Sweaty (Wayne) to thank for my Maths ‘O’ level
SF: Really? You got Ken Wayne for Maths?
NF: Yup, and obviously rugby, he must have had the patience of a saint and maybe a soft spot for some of us, probably because of coaching us at rugby, yeah, he took the ones that were already condemned to a state of mathematical oblivion (mostly boarders), and by his sheer perseverance got us beyond believing that a tangent wasn’t just a clever ruse you could draw a master into to talk about his days in the war. He was just brilliant. That Maths O level was definitely a high point in my second year 5th…
SF: 2nd year 5th, oh dear! The Corps hut used to be over there. Next to the shooting range, we used to go smoking there. Never got caught though.
NF: We never had to, TD allowed us to smoke at the boarding house in the senior study, only with parental permission though.
SF: Yes, of course you were a boarder after we moved. I had left by then, but the folks gave you permission to smoke?!
NF: No, of course not, but it wasn’t a difficult signature to forge. Yup, boarded from 1st form and it was definitely different from being a day boy.
SF: What way??
NF: Well, for a start if you were a boarder you thought you had to be ‘hard’. And took no truck from anyone. And stuck together! And although you fought like crazy, at 12 Belmont Crescent you were one unit down at school playing football in the playground – Boarders v Day Boys. Or rugby, we fielded a team to take on the 1st’s the year I left – 6 of us had played for the 1st’s. Yes, being a boarder stood you out. Thing is, you have to bear in mind there were probably only 35 of us. From all over the world; India, Iraq, Bahrain, South America, Jamaica, Canada, Hong Kong, Kenya, Kuwait, Zambia… Largs. Point it out on a map and there was probably someone from there. Yup, one unit, you all went through the same routine of daily life there, bet you every boarder could still give you the weekly meal menu without even having to think about it.
Yup, and we shared the same dread.
SF: The Same Dread!? That sounds a bit dark?
NF: Well, you were living on the edge a lot of the time.
SF: Really! How so? I thought you had a great time?
NF: Well the dreads were multiple; coming back at the start of term, occasional homesickness, the food, the difficulty of concocting homework excuses, haircut nights (Harry the one-legged barber could only cut a fringe on 45 degrees), school reports at the end of term that seemed to contradict the reassuring Sunday letters you had sent home telling your folks that your Physics was going swimmingly, getting caught by the Duty Senior, letters home from TD about being gated (again), being banned by various local churches for getting thrown out of services…
SF: Well come on, everyone got thrown out of a church service now and again…
NF: Not for starting a raging fire in the back pew of Wellington Church with a Commando Comic they don’t, think that was Gordon Ross, or one of the Legatts, or maybe Tommy Thoupos from Cyprus?
SF: Not quite, I see what you mean, pretty full on, but we did get a first class education. Taught by some of the finest minds, coached ready for life’s challenges, tutored ready for University??
NF: Oh the schooling side of it was a fine way to pass the time, though strangely enough the Uni bit eluded me, but the Boarding House years, if only…
SF: Did you find them difficult? That’s a shame, you should enjoy your schooldays.
NF: Difficult? Enjoy them? I loved the Boarding House! It was brilliant, really – a total riot! Card schools on a Friday night when Bingo Little was in charge, the end of term parties, the fits of hysterical giggles when one of the bogs got mysteriously blocked, watching TD go bonkers with big Ross (again) and then realising he had already gated him for the entire school year, TD having to go and bail a certain person out of the cells! Just priceless! Oh yes, we had it all, bet you there isn’t a boarder that can’t recite the first 50 lines of Macaulay’s ‘Armada’ as a cultural party piece! Yes, top times and top men!
SF: Well it sounds eventful!
NF: Eventful?! Did I ever tell you about the night the boarding house got raided by the police? No? Well it happened like this…
But as the late Queen might have said, “some recollections may vary”.
Pictured: The Middle Study, Glasgow Academy Boarding House ‘70/71
Rear row, l/r:
Roddy Turner; Jimmy Crombie; Gordon Ross (spent his entire school career gated!); Donald Leggat; Nicky Fraser; Andrew McKenzie;
Middle row, l/r:
Jazy Argo (held school sprint record without even trying); Tom Cunningham; Gordon Dixon; Big Joe Argo;
Front row: Charles Tomney
Picture two: Entire Boarding House pictured in Belmont Crescent Gardens, 1972;
Rear row l/r:
Tommy Thoupos; James Tomney; Andrew McKenzie; Nicky Fraser; James Crombie; Roddy Turner; John Wilson; Fraser Thomson; Dougie McKinnon; Jazy Argo; David MacNab; Alan Stewart; Douglas Evans; Tom Cunningham; Alisdair McKenzie
Centre Row l/r: Andrew Webster; Alistair Cameron; Donald Leggat; Bert Thomson; Charles Leggat; Neil McKenzie; Douglas Leggat; Gordon Ross; Gordon Dixon; Ian Edgar; E G Thompson; Bill Jack; Russell Dewar; Joe Argo.
Seated:
Miss ‘Cookie’ McKinness; Iain Evans; Mrs Brown; Murray Mackay; Julie Cowper; Jimmy Cowper, TD., Housemaster; Mrs Mary Cowper; Peter Wareham (Head Boy); Matron; Andrew Edgar.
Front Row:
Bobby Tomney; Andrew Hamilton(?); Minto Argo; Ian Torrance; Alisdair (?) Shaw; Misty the Dog; Charles Tomney; Michael Wilson; Ian Coates; Robert (?) McGarry.
Wonderfully nostalgic, and thanks, Nick, for mentioning me who taught you English in 4th Form and also used to supervise the Boarding House one night a week on a Monday to give Jim and Mary Cowper some respite and also to enjoy swig of his whisky, with his blessing.. I remember you and your boarding mate Fraser Thompson so well. Alas, the Belmont Street boarding house has long gone. As another great writer (like your father, Simon and Nick) once said “The past is a foreign country; they fo things dofferently there”. The references to colleagues of yesteryear, even to Boggles Winzer, took me back to my salad days.