McLaren High School

Former Pupils’ Newsletter

June 2010

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Editorial Moyra McLaren

Dear Former Pupils

Welcome to the 2010 edition of the McLaren High School Former Pupils’ Newsletter.

Thank you to all the Former Pupils who have contributed to this edition of the Newsletter. As always I would welcome contributions for the next Newsletter! If you would like to submit articles or photos for next year’s Newsletter I can be contacted at the school or by e-mail at [email protected]

As in previous years we have decided not to charge for this edition of the Newsletter. However, if you would like to make a contribution towards the cost of producing this publication please send cheques to the school. An electronic copy of the Newsletter will be available on our website at www.mclarenhigh.co.uk

We are always looking to increase the number of Former Pupils on our database. If you know of anyone who is not currently on our mailing list please forward their details to me at the school.

I look forward to seeing you all at the reunion in September!

Moyra McLaren

Contents

Page 4 Rector’s Message, Peter Martin 5 School Reunion 25 July 2009, Allan Jack 6 My Literary Calling, Gemma Marshall 7 My Musical Journey, Saul Davies 8 Memories of the North Train, Gavin Dorey 10 Congratulations to…. 11 Obituaries 13 Reunion Information

14 PTA Draw

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Rector’s Message Peter Martin, Headteacher

Dear Friends of McLaren High School

2009/10 has been another very busy year at McLaren High School.

On Tuesday 11 November 2009 current pupils were reminded of the former pupils who had given everything for our freedom and asked also to think of the young people currently serving in the armed forces. A one minute silence was held throughout the school with S6 pupils gathering in front of the school’s memorial plaque. Seventy poppies surrounded the memorial, each represented a former pupil who had died in both World Wars. The silence was broken by the playing of the Last Post and the Head Boy and Head Girl laid a wreath at the memorial.

Holocaust Memorial Day, commemorated internationally each year on 27 January, urges everyone in the UK to pause and reflect on what can happen when racism, prejudice and exclusionary behaviour are left unchecked. This year’s theme for Holocaust Memorial Day was Hope and to mark this all S1 pupils had the chance to attach their hopes for the future to a balloon and release it into the sky. S4 pupils from English created a mini museum and classes within the Social and Moral Faculty wrote their hopes for the future on a white template which was used as the feathers of a peace dove.

Music and sport continued to play key roles in the life of McLaren over the last year. Several fundraising concerts have taken place to raise funds for the Orchestra Tour to Italy in the summer. Pupils also participated in a Jazz Workshop and the Senior Choir performed Schubert’s Ave Maria on board the SS Sir Walter Scott at the launch of the Great Trossachs Forest Project. Our school show this year is West Side Story. Pupils continue to participate and excel in various sporting activities, including rugby, football, dance, athletics, skiing and canoeing.

Our pupils have been involved in a number of fundraising activities throughout the year, including Jeans for Genes, Children in Need, Sports Relief and Pink Breast Cancer Awareness Day. In December, pupils collected 65 shoeboxes packed full of goodies to be sent to disadvantaged children in Africa, Central Asia and Eastern Europe as part of the Samaritan’s campaign. In January, pupils and staff took part in a ‘Battle of the Bands’ contest in aid of the earthquake survivors in Haiti, raising over £1,000.

In May, all S1-3 pupils participated in our annual sponsored walk through Coihallan Wood and Invertrossachs Road. The funds raised support our additional pupil activities.

Each December S4 and S6 pupils are given the opportunity to participate in an Outward Bound residential course at Loch Eil. Over the course of the week pupils were given the opportunity to leave their comfort zones including the now infamous ‘jog and dip’ in Loch Eil. Pupils were encouraged and challenged to develop a wide range of highly transferable skills from effective communication to problem solving and diplomacy. It was inspirational to watch as groups evolved. Pupils from S2 and S3 have also had the opportunity to participate in Outward Bound activities over the last year.

During the week at Loch Eil, pupils also took part in the John Muir Award, an environmental award scheme which promotes an awareness and responsibility of the natural environment, in the spirit of fun, adventure and exploration. Pupils in the Eco Group also carried out an environmental review in November and have been actioning the points raised in the review. In addition, all S2 pupils also took part in an event to measure their carbon footprint and in March over 80 pupils took part in the Callander Spring Clean event.

I enjoyed very much meeting the FPs who attended the reunion in September last year and look forward to meeting everyone again at the reunion later this year. Meanwhile our present school community send our best wishes to all our Former Pupils.

Peter Martin Headteacher 4

School Reunion 25 July 2009 Allan Jack, Former Pupil

What do you say to someone that you haven’t seen or contacted for over 40 years? If you ever are faced with that dilemma, let me tell you that, if you’re lucky enough to have spent your formative years with those folks at McLaren High, the years fall away, the bald heads suddenly are hirsute again, hair magically loses any grey tints it might have, the middle age spreads disappear and it’s as if the years have never passed.

That’s what happened to a bunch of us when we met up at the Dunblane Hydro on 25 July 2009 for a couple of drinks, some dinner and chat. How we chatted! Stories that some of us had forgotten, others hadn’t. People who should have remembered others suddenly went, “Are you sure, you’re ………?” Laughter rang out spontaneously and I heaved many a sigh of relief.

It can be a bit difficult trying to organise a reunion from Saudi Arabia but thanks to email and the internet, not as difficult as it would have been 40 years ago! It is fair to say that very few of us would have been in contact at all if the internet and email didn’t exist. Looking back through the decades, any reunion in 1969 would have been announced, perhaps, with a notice in local shop windows or, daringly, even with one in the Stirling Observer!

This reunion was originally for the class who arrived at MHS in 1963 (in the old building down by the Teith) and, for those who stayed for six years, left in 1969. However, boundary lines get fudged after so many years that ex-pupils two years on either side were made welcome. Families moved in the sixties so we had those who started with us but finished their schooling elsewhere.

People travelled from all over to attend the reunion. The home towns included Edinburgh, Ayr, Falkland, Greenock, Kelty, Middlesbrough, Dunblane, Ocala in Florida and Jeddah in Saudi Arabia. We had good wishes from people in Canada, Australia and New Zealand who weren’t able to make it but wished they could. We did have a couple of late unforeseen call-offs which were unfortunate but we quickly overcame the slight disappointment.

Gathering in the lounge of the hotel, it wasn’t long before we had the place taken over. As nearly everyone had brought a spouse, the volume of the chatter was rising and rising as people recognised one another. The restaurant was ready to sit us down and so through we went. The next two and a half hours were spent, as all good evenings should be, with good wine, excellent food and great company.

What did we talk about? Everything and nothing. We were just glad to be meeting up again.

And then it was suddenly time to say goodbye. We had lost track of time and the hotel staff were moving us out as they needed to get the restaurant ready for breakfast. Those that were travelling home made their farewells promising to stay in touch and those who were staying in the hotel went back to the bar where even more stories came out. And it didn’t stop there as some met up again at the breakfast table. We probably could have spent days talking without repeating ourselves.

Will we meet up again? There’s every chance we will. When? That’s for the future and perhaps for others to propose and organise. After 50 years, perhaps, or sooner?

Before I end, I would like to take this opportunity to thank the staff of the Dunblane Hydro, especially Arnelle Hall, for all their hard work and contribution to a wonderful evening.

The class of 1963-1969 broke up at the end of June 1969. We walked away from MHS into the big bad world and we’ve survived one way or another. Only a few weeks later, someone uttered the immortal words, “That’s one small step for Man, one giant leap for Mankind”. Now, who was that again? Must be getting old but we don’t forget our old friends and this reunion showed that friendships made when you’re young last for ever.

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My Literary Calling Gemma Marshall (nee Barber Fleming), Former Pupil

When I think about my experiences at McLaren High school I imagine they are very different to those of many former pupils, quite simply because ten years later I’m back.

Yes, I was a pupil at McLaren High School for five years. Yes, when I attended teacher training at Jordanhill I found that when they were giving us details of our second teaching placements I looked down and saw the all too familiar words ‘McLaren High School’ written on my placement assignment. Yes, when I applied to be a probationer teacher in Stirling Council - you guessed it - like a bad penny I returned once again to the familiar: McLaren High School.

And at McLaren High I have stayed for a further three years. I suppose I am therefore the longest standing pupil here, as I am still coming to school everyday and learning from some of the same inspirational characters who were teaching me to spell, persuading me to ski faster and convincing me of physics equations fifteen years ago.

I’m not going to pretend that this hasn’t been a strange experience in a way, certainly an eye opening introduction into my career as a teacher. I didn’t know what to expect when I came back and I am always unsure of what fellow FPs must think when I meet them and tell them I’m here. The truth of the matter is that I have been welcomed back to school and have been offered the support I doubt many newly qualified teachers gain when leaving their own nests.

Many things have changed and many things have remained the same during my time at McLaren both as pupil and as teacher. Of course the school has been completely refurbished; when shown to my new teaching space I was directed to Room 205 on the third floor. As I walked up the corridor I laughed out loud as I read the numbers directing me to where I would teach every day. I stopped outside Room 205 and grinned, what is now 205 was once Room 11: Mrs Chalmers’ French classroom, my regi room and home room for my time as a pupil. Although I was staring the future in the face in the form of the interactive white board (my last room had chalk) I was also stepping fondly back in time.

Although the pupils don’t dress the way we did and they have mobile phones and Facebook and infuriatingly write the term ‘S.A’ on the top of their essays, one thing unquestionably remains the same: McLaren is a great school with lovely pupils, who I hope will look back on their time here as fondly and as regularly as I do.

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My Musical Journey Saul Davies, Former Pupil

I drove past McLaren the other day with my family on the way back from the Highlands to England and found myself spilling out my memories from the past to my son and daughter - I didn't intend to but the sight of the new buildings in what seemed like a very familiar setting got me going. That's where I used to run at lunchtime, that's the river down there where we used to do our Latin class on days when the rain stopped, that's where "the Black Jock" demanded of you "Where's your school tie, Boy"! New buildings yet probably the same school with a similar ethos. I suddenly felt very grateful that I had these memories to call upon and I wondered if my kids would ever have the chance to enjoy their schooling as much as I found myself realising I had done. Time will tell.

After McLaren our family headed north to The Black Isle and by the time I was 16 I was in Hull. At 18, I was at Manchester University where all hell broke loose - music, fashion, girls and cheap beer all vied for my attention and my Law degree became an irrelevance. I left, travelled with my thumb out, returned to study and ultimately qualified for a joint honours in Archaeology and Ancient History. Great, but now what? It was 1988 and I knew I didn't want to spend the rest of my life digging holes! I managed to get a job working as an apprentice in a small pottery in Hampshire where I learnt about clay, slip and glaze and looked forward to creating beauty out of mud. Then it all went wrong. I went to Manchester to say hello to my old mates and found myself at the legendary "Band on the Wall" being dragged on stage to jam with the house band. Reluctantly my one note solo managed to cut through and at the death I was invited to join five or six bands that night. Something made me go to a rehearsal early the next morning in a disused factory with some skinny, odd boys who called themselves "James". We jammed for an hour or two and by the end they were agreed that I should join them. 10 days later I was on tour and Morrissey was in our dressing room doing the Guardian crossword. Four down - lucky git! New Order were in the front row and I realised my life had just changed!

It's now 21 years later and we're just about to release our 14th album. We've had some great highs (working with Brian Eno, going on tour with Neil Young, headlining Reading, playing to 40,000 at Alton Towers, having 16 top 40 singles, number one albums and selling a million albums in America) and some brutal lows (illness, line up changes, some bad reviews!) but I think we're a good band who put making music that we want to hear and play before commercial success. We've been lucky.

And so the other day as I drove past the school I had an opportunity to put everything into perspective. I was young but I'm about to "celebrate" my forty-fifth birthday. I used to live in a place of beauty with clean air and space. I cycled the nine miles from Thornhill to school and back most days regardless of the weather. It's all still there, thank goodness.

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Memories of the North Train Gavin Dorey, Former Pupil

The North Train ran for many years, both before and after the brief period (1941 - 1944) during which I was a pupil at McLaren High School. What follows is a miscellany of somewhat haphazard recollections from that short time during the war. I should like to apologise in advance for any evidence of damage to my memory caused by the time that has passed since, and to thank my brother Bill for valuable help.

We always called it the North Train, but when you think though not without a touch of the sour-grape syndrome, about it there was something a little pretentious about the on the sophisticated urban life of Callander and the towns name. In brute fact it consisted of a single, dilapidated further south. On the train itself there were certain definite railway carriage - presumably the most expendable that social patterns. Boys sat in different compartments from could be found - which was hitched every morning to the girls, a situation perhaps imposed by authority, perhaps back end of the Oban - Glasgow express when the resulting from the natural shyness of adolescents of express reached Crianlarich. When it arrived at Callander either sex toward the other (though it should be added the carriage was detached, and the train, having shaken that in general this tendency was modified by the spirit of the infection off its tail, so to speak, continued its journey merry camaraderie that prevailed in the community as a through the Lowlands to Glasgow with renewed self- whole). What is less easy to understand is the custom respect. Meanwhile the carriage was moved into a siding whereby each compartment was - if I am remembering at Callander station, where it spent the day until we correctly - occupied by the same individuals on every boarded it again after school, to be ferried home - though occasion. This may have been sheer force of habit. this trip had none of the borrowed grandeur of the journey down: instead of being attached to an express we now Life on the train was eventful, to say the least. There trundled along behind a small tank-engine of a type we seemed to be an ineradicable urge - I am speaking here called a ‘Pug’ (we had our own names for all three kinds mainly of the male half of the population - in two distinct of engine on the line). The carriage presumably spent the but complementary directions: daring and destruction. night at Crianlarich in readiness for the next day’s The carriage was not one of the posh kind with a corridor: journey. the compartments were separate units each with its own door. The reason for choosing such a vehicle for our daily To the best of my recollection there were only five stops journey was probably the divide-and-rule rule principle, between Crianlarich and Callander: Luib, Killin Junction, and if so it must be said that it largely worked. On the Balquhidder, Kingshouse, and Strathyre. So if you lived in other hand movement from compartment to compartment a remote place you might have a considerable problem during the journey - by the outdoor route - was not getting to school: there was a war on, and no one had unknown. There are some activities the railway petrol to take you to the nearest station, let alone to authorities recommend should take place only while the Callander. The solution was to cycle. I cannot remember train is in motion; this is certainly not one of them. ever investigating how our comrades from Killin, for instance, made the uphill journey to the Junction, but I There was a greater emphasis, sad to say, on various should be very surprised if there was a connecting train forms of anti-social behaviour, as it is called today. The at that hour of the morning, so I guess they cycled. Gaelic greetings shouted to old ladies on railway Certainly that is how we from Lochearnhead covered the platforms as the train moved off were hardly edifying. two and a half uphill miles to Balquhidder Station, in all They may have taught the Sassenachs their first words of seasons and all weathers. Road conditions could be the native tongue, but these were of a kind unlikely to lethal in winter, especially on the downhill run home, but appear in any dictionary, and hence of limited usefulness. on most days the ride was enjoyable and quite often it And then there were the more muscular activities. I do was exhilarating. Even minor accidents were rare, and not recall that damage was ever done to the permanent the danger from cars was virtually nil: they were hardly fabric of the carriage - this was before the age of ripping ever to be seen. up seats on the way back from football matches - but railway property did suffer in lesser ways. From time to Apart from a sprinkling of outsiders - the Guernsey folk time one heard the crash of light-bulbs exploding against from Lochearnhead, of whom I was one, and some steel girders as the train crossed the bridge over the Leny evacuees from Glasgow and London almost all of whom gorge; and on more than one occasion awful things lived in Strathyre - the student population of the North happened to glass-globed station oil-lamps as the train Train consisted entirely of native highlanders. Together pulled away. This latter phenomenon came to a crisis, we were a colourful crew, with a reputation at school - however, with the evolution of more powerful catapults partly deserved I suppose - for being barbarians. We and the advent of ball-bearings as the ideal form of ourselves saw the situation differently, of course, taking ammunition. We disembarked at Balquhidder one pride in our unspoilt simplicity and tending to look down, afternoon to be met on the platform by the local 8

policeman, who like the Ancient Mariner detained one of went into the freezing air. The morning express was our number. We waited for the victim in the subway, and hauled by a big Class Five 4-6-0 - these were ‘Hikers’ in when he appeared asked him what it was about. ‘Och our special terminology - and in the dark its boiler’s front nothing much,’ was the reply; ‘the bobby just wanted to end glowed red-hot from the exertions of struggling up to borrow my catapult.’ There were no further the summit of Glen Ogle and then pounding down the repercussions, but the hint was taken and the long incline to Balquhidder. bombardment ceased. One final memory of the station is of a morning when the More irritating than destructive was a pastime that I can train was very late indeed, and to while away the time I describe only at second hand: I do not remember wandered along the platform by a goods train which had witnessing it, but I have had it reliably vouched for. The halted on the other side. When I reached the engine (this train sometimes slowed while passing a place - I think it one was a ‘Jumble’, the third type, a slow but powerful 0- was near Kilmahog - where there were a few cottages 6-0) I soon found myself in conversation with the driver. close to the line. Between the cottages and the track itself We ranged over various topics before discovering a was a terrace, on which on warm summer mornings the common interest in poetry - a subject we were still deeply inhabitants would set out tables and chairs to have engaged in when the train arrived. All my life I have breakfast al fresco. The tables were near enough to the quoted that incident to illustrate what was certainly a fact line for an expert to toss a pebble or two into the waiting then, and I hope still is - the value that Scots set on bowls of porridge as the train went by. education for its own sake rather than as a means to achieve a desired standard of living. That man loved Having said all this I have recorded the worst there is to poetry. say about North Train mores: the pranks were sometimes potentially dangerous, but in their genesis they were There are other memories too, of a more delicate kind. thoughtless and silly rather than malicious, and sprang We lived and moved in a natural world almost as sweet mainly from an excess of high spirits. And in any case it as Eden, and as I have already hinted its beauty was not must not be supposed that the kind of thing I have lost on us. It is not easy to single out particular things, but described was all that took place. To begin with there on the journey to Callander there were special moments. were restraining influences among the senior members of Near Kingshouse Halt we had a splendid view up the the contingent; and when these more staid citizens did Balquhidder valley towards the majestic skyline at its little to hinder the exploits of their juniors the reason was head, dominated by the clean and soaring lines of usually that they were engaged in serious conversation - Stobinian’s top - most striking of all the local mountains, as serious, that is, as a short railway journey will allow. and nearly the highest. Further south came Loch Individual friendships flourished. All in all it was not too Lubnaig, lovely in itself and towered over by massive uncivilized. cliffs on the western side. The line threaded its way along the foot of these, and if the train slowed near Stank you Some of my most vivid memories cluster round could reach out and touch the ferns growing from the Balquhidder Station itself, mainly because of the time we dark and dripping wall. Then came the Pass of Leny - spent waiting for the 8.20 which frequently belied its true gateway to the Highlands: a deep and narrow gorge name. The station-master was a gentleman called Mr through which the loch emptied itself to the south, with Johnston, universally known among us as Hurricane Jake the bulk of Ben Ledi rising huge above it on the right. Not - though this ferocious name suggested the terrifying many children, anywhere or at any time, can have had personage he seemed to want to be rather than the less the privilege of a daily journey to school to compare with frightening one he actually was. Much more awesome in ours. our eyes was one of the porters, a man of immense frame and stony countenance who along with his uniform I have been back since. In the mid-Seventies I visited and peaked cap wore knee-length breeches and a pair of Balquhidder Station and wandered over the ruins, those black leather boots (jackboots!) that come to just remembering and pondering. The buildings had below the knee: the very image of totalitarianism. We completely gone, and all that remained were the christened him The Communist, and it was not until long shattered platforms sprouting weeds and grass after that we discovered his mild and amiable nature. His - one with Nineveh and Tyre, like the rest of yesterday’s name, for the record, was Sandy Mackintosh. pomp. But it occurred to me that that was not the real point. Even if Dr Beeching had not vandalized the whole Each season of the year had its particular glories, but on railway a few years before, even if the station were still in the whole it is the clear days and nights of snow and hard business and diesel-electric locomotives were hauling frost that I remember best - firstly for their pure arctic new trains plying between Glasgow and Oban, none of it magnificence, but also for certain moments of more would have anything to do with us. You do not step into ordinary experience which by chance have not been the same river twice; and all that concerns the North forgotten. I recall sitting in front of a blazing fire in the Train we knew was something that can be real now only waiting-room with a new poster on the wall: a snarling in the memory, part of the vanished world of our lion clad in a Union Jack, above the caption THE SPIRIT inaccessible, irrecoverable past. OF 1943. Then we heard the train coming and out we

For more memories of the North Train view Jim Caution’s memoirs at http://www.btinternet.com/~cheekycaution/jim1.htm Jim attended both the Callander Public School and McLaren High School during the 1930s.

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Congratulations to…..

…...Alex and Wynn McLaren who celebrated their 65th wedding anniversary on 6 November 2009.

…...Marjory and Philip Hutchison who celebrated their 57th wedding anniversary last year. The marriage of Marjory Rentoul and Philip Hutchison took place 30 August 1952 in Kilmadock Parish Church, Doune. The marriage ceremony was taken by the Kilmadock minister assisted by the father of the groom, Rev A. S. Hutchison who took the vows. Also included is a photo taken on the 50th Anniversary of the occasion. …...Neil and Anne Gulland who celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary on 10 November 2009.

…….Duncan and Kathleen Ferguson celebrated their Golden Wedding Anniversary on 3 June 2009 and Deirdre and Mark Johnston who recently celebrated their Silver Wedding Anniversary.

We set up home in December 1959 in this area, and are still resident here, Kathleen having started married life as an Army wife near Aldershot after the June wedding. We both started at McLaren in August 1944. However I was in first year at the High School, and, wait for it, Kathleen was starting in the primary! Her father farmed at Braendam near Thornhill where the local primary was located, but travel problems including safety issues (military vehicles) pointed her in the Callander direction as a private pupil at £5 per term! It took an FP dance in the Ancaster Hotel to light the flame which has burned brightly and warmly ever since, despite Kathleen’s ongoing confrontation with multiple sclerosis for almost 30 years.

Deirdre's husband, Mark Johnston, also attended McLaren High School and they have just celebrated their Silver Wedding with a replication of their original nuptials by sailing on the SS Sir Walter Scott and a reception with ceilidh dance at Foresthills Hotel. Duncan Ferguson

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Obituaries

Jean Allardice

Jean, aged 89, died suddenly but peacefully at Abbeyfield, Stirling, on 4 May 2009. Jean was the daughter of the Sergeant of Police at Doune and on his retirement they moved to the Lodge at Doune Castle. After leaving school and a period of secretarial training, Jean spent all her working years with the Inland Revenue. She and her mother moved to Dunblane in the 1960s. Jean was a great walker and a keen correspondent. She served in the WAAF during the war years. Shy of disposition she was a good and faithful friend.

Eileen Broughton (nee Williamson) 1928 – 2010

Eileen was born and brought up in Dunblane and attended McLaren High School during the war years, when probably there were fewer opportunities to go on to further education. Following a period with the army and her husband’s career, she then returned to education and from the wonderful obituary following her death in January we learn of many achievements in Business Studies, Economics and Languages. Eileen was a highly intelligent and colourful character and until recently she supported our FP Lunches.

Andrew Duncan

Andrew Duncan, who died at his home in Milngavie on 17 February aged 82, was one of Britain’s foremost horticulturists. He attended the McLaren High School from 1940 to 1944. After taking his ‘Highers’, he studied horticulture at the West of Scotland Agriculture College at Auchencruive. While at the school, he lived at Lanrick Castle where his father was head gardener. At this time Andrew was an ardent member of the Boy Scouts in Doune and played football for Doune Thistle, the forerunner of today’s Doune Castle football team. It was perhaps ironic that Andrew had just come to the McLaren High School – a rugby only school from Montrose Academy – a rugby only school too, at that time, so there was to be no school football for him!

Andrew did his national service as a sergeant in the RAOC in Germany and afterwards completed his college studies.

Andrew and his father set up business in Main Street Nursery in Milngavie, trading as R&AN Duncan. Tomatoes were their main crop from glass houses producing one ton per 100 feet per glass house but they also grew cucumber, parsley, potatoes, cauliflower, bedding plants and soft fruit. The business grew rapidly until in 1972 the new enlarged shop was opened, designed by his architect brother Robert (also a pupil at the school) before he died tragically in a car crash. The design with the Spanish style frontage became a familiar landmark on Main Street. The shop was opened by TV gardener Percy Thrower.

By this time Andrew was a well known business man in Glasgow and further afield and at various periods served as chairman of Interflora Scottish District; chairman of Scottish Garden Centre Association and first chairman of the Leisuregro Garden Centres. As a result, he became one of the best known horticulturists in the country.

The garden centre continued to grow as Duncans of Milngavie, doing business at home and abroad in the Channel Isles and the Netherlands. Sales were in all areas of garden centre produce and in bedding plants alone grew and sold as many as 2,000 boxes of chrysanthemums annually. Further expansion to the shop made available a selling area of some 9,000 square feet (85 square metres). The excellent Terrace Tearoom was added and the new premises opened by Miss World (Mary Stavin). The garden centre had a basic staff of about 45 rising as needs arose to some 65.

Andrew was in demand to give radio talks, presentations and lectures to various organizations including the Womans Guilds etc. With his father he often enjoyed taking part in flower and vegetable shows and won many awards. However he would say that his first award, a silver cup for twelve vases of wild flowers at the age of twelve in Montrose, was perhaps his most coveted trophy.

In 1969, Duncans of Milngavie decorated the QE2 for its maiden voyage to New York; the firm also decorated the Royal Bank of Scotland stand at the Royal Horticultural Show each year and the decoration of the Interflora stand at the Chelsea Flower Show made him especially proud.

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There was always something of interest at Duncans of Milngavie such as the preparation for the annual Milngavie Week and the memorable Austrian - Bavarian Christmas nights with a real Oompah band. The Garden Centre was even the location of a scene played out by the Taggart television team requiring “horticulture evidence” with Andrew himself participating.

Whenever possible Andrew was always interested in football and indeed played for a large variety of teams, depending where he was living at the time, including Borestone Thistle, St Johnstone YMCA, Tulliallin Rovers, Blanefield Thistle, Bearsden Amateurs and in 1943 he had a trial for Raith Rovers in Kirkcaldy. But the most successful team he played for was probably Cumnock Juniors who went to the final of the Scottish Junior Cup in 1950 playing to a crowd at Hampden of nearly 50,000. Maybe he would agree, however, that his most enjoyable match was Doune Scouts against a Glasgow Boy Scouts select in 1944. If Andrew had not taken up horticulture, he would undoubtedly have become a professional footballer and a very good one.

Andrew was always happy to make time for any customer who needed his advice. It mattered to him that people derived lasting enjoyment from the plants and flowers he sold them and time spent helping someone getting the most out of their garden was always time well spent as far as he was concerned. The words ‘Quality with service’ appeared beneath the shop’s name on all its stationery and Andrew always made sure the business lived up to this.

Andrew’s health declined after a series of strokes and he retired in 1999. He always looked forward to attending the School Reunion, the last one being just over a year ago. For the school’s one hundredth anniversary, he was pleased to donate a substantial tree for the occasion. Andrew once wrote of the McLaren High School “it was really an unforgettable experience and the teaching staff gave me all the encouragement and inspiration to achieve the best that I could do in future” . Andrew is survived by his wife Margaret and daughters Anne, Jane and Ruth.

John Findlay (1931 – 2009)

We former pupils of the forties have happy memories of John who lived in the pink house just across the river from the school. John’s enthusiasm for the Scouts and the Pipe Band (where he was an able piper) brought him many friends. John studied agriculture, doing his practical training with Bertie and Meg Bart at Drumloist Farm. Later John returned to live near Stirling to continue the family business. He devoted a lot of time to the Stirling Gaelic Choir and enjoyed shooting and stalking with his friends. John died last August after a very long illness: he and his wife Kate, who nursed John at home so skilfully and cheerfully, never failed to welcome friends with warm smiles. It was unfailingly a happy home to visit and we all extend our sympathy to Kate, Sara and Andrew.

Wade McColl

Wade McColl was a pupil in McLaren High during the war years, being one of the ‘Hostel Boys’ under Miss Edmond’s care in Teithside. After school he went to Glasgow University where he took a degree in Mechanical Engineering. His career took him to Northern England, but he later returned to Gartmore where he died in December 2009. Wade was a valued member of the community and Session Clerk in Gartmore Church for many years. Wade was predeceased by his wife, and had three sons, one still living in Gartmore.

Heather McNiven

Heather, who hailed from Aberfoyle, left McLaren in 1954. She had a lovely soprano voice and played Rafe Rackstraw in the 1954 production of HMS Pinafore. Heather married Teddy Lamb, son of our music master James Fleming Lamb, and they emigrated to Montreal. After a break up in her marriage, Heather returned to Scotland and lived in Crieff where she was self employed. Sadly Heather’s health was problematic over the latter years of her life. She faced her illness bravely but sadly death overtook her in December 2008. We are glad that she was able to attend a Reunion in the Riverhouse, Stirling, for the 70 years young group. Heather is survived by her brother Ian, also a MHS FP, who lives in Crieff.

Margaret MacDonald (nee Niven)

Following the Clydebank blitz in 1941, Margaret and her brother John came to McLaren High School. Margaret stayed in the girl’s hostel, Ellangowan, where she became known affectionately as ‘Paddy’. Margaret returned to Clydebank after two years but maintained a keen interest in McLaren High School and kept up with her many friends there. Following her marriage to Alex, Margaret moved around Scotland and finally settled near Milngavie. Margaret remained in Milngavie after her husband’s death until severe illness forced her to leave her home and she lived for some time with her daughter in Glasgow. Margaret bore her illness with patience and fortitude, and kept her sense of humour and her love of contact with old friends. Margaret died on 19 February 2010 and is survived by her son and daughter as well as by her brother John. Her friends will remember her courage and humour, which she retained to the end.

Thank you to Joan Black, Jessica Carmichael, Jean Fergusson, Anne Gulland, Reg Herschy and Margaret Wilkie 12 for providing these obituaries.

Reunion Information

McLaren FP Reunion 2010

Saturday 11 September 2010

12.30pm for 1.00pm

For further information or to order tickets please contact Karen Vernon on 01877 330156

Pictured above are Former Pupils, who attended McLaren High School before 1945, at the FP Reunion in September 2009.

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PTA Draw

The PTA Draw is a draw held monthly for 10 months of the year. We are currently recruiting members for 2010/11.

Annual Membership is only £10. We give away 50% of the money we receive as prizes, the more members we have, the more we give away.

The funds raised by the PTA are used to enhance the pupil experience at McLaren High School by supporting various clubs, subsidising activities and helping towards the provision of the school minibus. The contribution made by the PTA makes a real difference to life in the school and we need the support of as many people as possible.

If you would like to join the PTA Draw, please complete the form below and return it to Chris Clark with payment (cheques to be made payable to McLaren High School PTA). If you know anyone who would like to join, please feel free to encourage them! We just need the information below and a cheque/cash for £10.

Name:

Address: email:

Telephone:

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