 |  | | | Class IVe Trinity Academy 1945 | There are 3 messages in this section. |
edward thomson from glamis. Posted 27 Nov 2003.
Teachers were retirees in thier 70s. However, two incidents come to mind which may amuse. Miss Clare Caldwell the Music teacher was acquainted with Dr Herbert Wiseman who did the BBC schools broadcasts and he visited our music class one day. I sat next to a Peter Harkess (now in Oz) and Peter was asked to sing Horo My Nut Brown Maiden For the visitor this was typical of the awful music we 15 year olds had to listen too. Peter refused and was invited to stand outside the room. Wisemans gaze fell on me - sing Wee Cooper o' Fife he demanded. In solidarity with Peter I refused, adding it was a load of gibberish. At this Miss Caldwell intervened and sent us both down to Rector Weir's office with the reccomndation we received six of the belt each for insulting the VIP. Subdued, we returned to Class but when the teacher's back was turned I took my maths compass and inscribed a swastika on the piano!! It must have been overlooked for when my son was at Trinity it was still on the piano in 1967!!
Caldwell was a strange woman - she had very strong views on musical culture. On the day after VJ Day we were allowed to bring in ourown rcords to be played on the radiogram in the Gym. Ian Oldham, another classmate, had some Glenn Miller records he'd got from some American serviceman and he was ordered to stop playing them as they were too modern. We were stuck with Country dance music.
I never enjoyed that School and I was pleased to leave and take up engineering. | | |
|  | Edward Thomson from Glamis Angus. Posted 4 Dec 2003.
I was one of the first pupils to be enrolled in Primary 1 at Wardie School when it opened its doors in 1935. I was at that school until Sept 1941 when we had the 11+ and most of us dispersed to separate Schools in Edinburgh.
The most novel thing about being a new start at the School was the Head master Mr Downie. An ageing educationalist but one who was my Father's Primary teacher at Torphichen Street School in 1910! He wasnt a bad sort nor was his successor a Mr Vickers from Portobello. He cycled in each day, and after I'd left Wardie for Trinity Secondary he used to bid good morning to his former pupils as we passed going opposite ways in Afton Terrace.
But Wardie was nothing like Trinity if you read my other article of 27Nov - we bacme victims of the wartime educational standards. Our entire class failed the Lower leaving Certificate and had to resit. I had a job to start at the end of 1945 in the engineering trade and left. I took my O Grades at Night School (Broughton) and while working with British Airways I took my A level French in 1963 at the Berlitz scool in London at the age of 32!
I am still in contact with some of my schoolmates but age is on us now and many of them have passed the great exam in the Sky.
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| | Ed Thomson from Glamis, Angus. Posted 14 Mar 2005.
As I stayed near Wardie School in Edinburgh I was asked by one of my Senior teachers at Trinity Academy to deliver a letter to one of the Teachers at Wardie on my way home.The teacher in question was one Miss Calderhead an absolute fiend of a woman who had such an uncontrollable temper she would throw her Tawse at any pupil who was slow at a particular Subject.
It could be English "parsing" Maths or Homework if it didn't please her you were "for it": that was at least six of the belt when you took the tawse out to the front of the Class.
This was, of course, Wartime and teachers were scarce in '41.I fell victim on several occasions , but I was given the novel way to hit back the day I took the letter to Wardie 5 years after leaving.
I removed the tawse from its hook on her desk as she was in the Staff Room and threw it on the corridor roof through an open window.(the classroom was empty after school hours).
No doubt in the course of time some roofer may have found it.
That was one day I left Wardie School, a happy lad...
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