Laura Duckworth on a Recent Tour of Duty in Afghanistan Editorial Contents Not Bad for Survival! 3 Right of Reply I Always Enjoy Lunching with the Gasbags
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Number 16 Autumn/Winter 2011 The magazine for former pupils and friends of Glasgow Academy and Westbourne School Laura Duckworth on a recent tour of duty in Afghanistan Editorial Contents Not bad for survival! 3 Right of reply I always enjoy lunching with the Gasbags. It’s a great privilege for one so young. 4 Business Etcetera Gasbags? That’s Glasgow Academicals Slightly Biased Against the Governors, for those 5 Anecdotage not in the know. The society was founded in 1947 and has been meeting regularly 6 The Academy in the 50s and 60s ever since. It’s rather an odd acronym given that Russell Bruce, one of its founder members, was 10 Reunions and get-togethers actually a Glasgow Academy Governor at the time of its foundation! Russell told 14 Academicals Abroad me a number of years ago that – as one of the younger Governors at the time – he felt that the old men on the Board had been there rather too long and had become 16 Hill walking in the 1960s complacent. He and his co-founders felt the school needed a bit of a shake up! 17 Profile Although each of the Gasbags left Glasgow Academy before 1945, there is no sense today that it is a gathering of old men. They are as sharp today as they ever were. 18 Academical section At some point in the proceedings, the Rector will update them on what has been 22 Westbourne happening since their last meeting and they are never happier than when they hear about new things happening at The Academy. 24 2010-2011 Regular Giving Appeal Final Report There is, however, one new thing that they don’t like the sound of… They have no intention of opening their membership to youngsters. And when one is privileged to 26 Family announcements be in their company one can easily see why. They’ve always met in this way and each member of the group is valued for his contribution over many years. 28 Obituaries 30 There’s no business like show business… 31 Picture Post Do we have your e-mail address? It’s how we communicate best! Keeping in touch The External Relations office is situated in Colebrooke Terrace. Former pupils are always One regular attender at Gasbags’ functions is Andrew Howie (1941) one of our welcome to pop in for a chat and look round the school. Just give us a call to arrange a Honorary Governors. On 22 August this year, Andrew and his wife Joan celebrated time. Our address is Colebrooke Terrace, their Diamond Wedding Anniversary with not one Glasgow G12 8HE and you can contact us but two parties to mark the occasion. The two on 0141 342 5494 or at [email protected] photographs above show the happy couple in the same wedding attire with 60 years separating the The Glasgow Academical Club two events. As Andrew himself comments, ‘Not bad 21 Helensburgh Drive, Glasgow G13 1RR President – John Taylor for survival!’ E-mail – [email protected] Someone else who celebrated her wedding in Secretary – Kenneth Shand August of this year was our own Joanna Lennox. In Tel: 0141 248 5011 marrying her groom, Andrew, she not only became E-mail: [email protected] a very happy and very lovely bride – she became The Academical Club pavilion Joanna Wallace, the name by which we’ll know her is available for functions. from now on. Academical Club’s London Section We wish them as many happy years together as the Secretary – David Hall, 20 Cadogan Place Howies have known. London SW1X 9SA Tel: 020 7235 9012 E-mail: [email protected] Malcolm McNaught, Director of External Relations Front cover: Laura Duckworth (2001) serving in [email protected] Afghanistan 2 Etcetera Right of reply Dear Malcolm came in with a cup of coffee and biscuits for Mr Preston. There was nothing for us, but I don’t think we expected anything, so I would like to take you up on one or two points in your we weren’t disappointed. After he’d drunk his coffee, the real Editorial where there are some inaccuracies, not only in fact, business of the morning commenced as Mr Preston called us but in your underlying assumptions. As the Second World all outside so he could indulge his passion – cricket! We had War fades into history, it seems necessary for those who lived a knock-up game which was interrupted occasionally when through those days to correct these errors while they can. we stood aside so that a car could be driven past. We waved The First XV did not dig up the tennis courts. Thanks to a to the driver and he waved back. It was like that in those days. unique moment in history, Glasgow Academy was the only While all this was happening, contractors were again called in active school in Glasgow – due to DORA and foresight. The to dig up the tennis courts and replace them with shelters. As Defence of the Realm Act, enacted early in 1939, laid down these were completed, we were recalled to Colebrooke Street. that all urban schools must have air-raid shelters for all their My agreeable spell in Giffnock lasted about ten days, I think. pupils and staff. Whether the foresight came from the Rector, A strange sight met me on my return. Some of my friends had Roydon Richards, or the Governors, or both, I cannot say, but disappeared as their parents made other arrangements and were it was decided that after the Highers were over, the Fifth and replaced by boys from the High School and Hillhead etc. as Sixth forms should spend the rest of the summer term digging well as girls from Park and Laurelbank. Ancient rivalries were a shelter. This was not where the tennis courts were, but on a set aside and the girls huddled like cowboys surrounded by piece of waste ground to the left as seen from the main building redskins closing in for the kill! I expect there were Westbourne looking south, near a flag-pole. (Was it replaced?) No doubt girls there too, but I don’t remember them. By October, the some elderly chap was appointed gaffer or foreman to supervise other schools – like Craigholme – had either migrated to the work, but I’d guess he spent most of the time telling the country hotels or had built their own shelters, and so, in ones boys tall stories about his time in the Army during the Great and twos, these exotic people went their ways, and life in War of 1914/1918, because all that they had to show for their Colebrooke Street settled into what passed as normal ‘for the efforts was a muddy ditch! During the summer, contractors duration.’ were called in to finish the job. You say that the tennis courts were dug up needlessly. This is When war was declared in September, Glasgow Academy had not how it seemed at the time. Thanks to DORA, the shelters a shelter with accommodation for some 60 people. Meanwhile, were a legal requirement. No one was to know in 1939 that ‘village schools’ were set up in various suburbs. It was a period Glasgow would be the least-bombed city in Britain. We had a of fine weather, and I enjoyed cycling out to a house in Brier three day ‘blitz’ in March 1941 but most of the bombs fell on Road, Giffnock which was the home of a boy named Thomson, Clydebank. There were a few ‘alerts’ during the following years who was a year or two younger than me. There were some when some bombs fell but none of these raids occurred during twenty boys in the class, none of whom I can now remember. the day, so far as I can remember. We had occasional drills when The morning was divided into two periods. During the first the janitor rang his bell to call us to shelters, but even these we did English followed by maths. This order was reversed next lapsed after a time... day, and so on. These proceedings were overseen by George Preston whose subject was History. At half-way, Mrs Thomson Douglas Alexander (1944) Etcetera 3 Business Etcetera clients. Discretion is clearly of crucial The Admirable Johnny importance and Johnny does not like to name names. ‘Suffice to say I have a in south London, is a hive of activity. black book of contacts that Tatler would All of the units are bustling with work die for.’ While he is both loyal to – and for the firm Johnny founded with his thoroughly in tune with – his rich, business partner, Rolline Frewen, thirty famous and powerful clients, Johnny years ago. He recalls that ‘in those first stresses that behind the glamorous six months, when the phone rang, I jet-setting, the company’s success is insisted we were too busy to take on primarily due to hard graft. Getting contracts’. This tactic clearly worked started and staying at the top of a because, when The Admirable Crichton competitive market is in many ways did start running events, they were about ‘working really hard, all day, day hugely in demand: ‘being unavailable had after day’. convinced potential clients that we were exceptionally good!’ Learning to work hard and be self-reliant is something Johnny notes of his time at Johnny admits that in reality they had school. He was one of many generations a lot to learn in the early days, even to of his family to attend The Academy.