We were delighted to receive a letter this week from a former pupl of Strichen School. The letter, from Dr Duncan Cummine, tells us abut what it was like in Strichen in the 1930s and 1940s. It is very interesting and gives a great insight into how the village has changed since then to the present day. Dr Cummine has kindly given us permissino to copy the letter on to the blog so that others may get the opportunity to read it. We hope you find it interesting and we would like to thank him for getting in touch with us.
The Headmaster,
Strichen School,
North St.,
Strichen
Dear Sir,
As a former pupil, I am sure I can contribute some reminiscence and anecdotes which will be of interest to today`s pupils. I attended both village schools from 1939 till the closure about 1949 when we were provided with a train ticket to get to Fraserburgh Academy each morning and a bus ticket to get home in the afternoon. I remember your school being built and would drive my pedal car from High Street (I lived at no. 17) to watch the men at work. When I started in 1939, Miss Taylor, the infant mistress, living next door to the school, taught arithmetic with cotton reels(pirns) on a string. A child held each end of the string and we counted them as they were slid along. For writing we used slates with a grey slate-pencil and a damp cloth to wipe them clean. Our reading book was not very exciting –“ a fat cat sat on the mat” Although the new school had just been built, it only had 4 classrooms. To accommodate the third class (then Primary 1), we had to go to an upstairs room in the town hall, never intended as a school, exposed to any traffic in the village centre, and with an old-fashioned stove in front of which Miss Dunbar, our teacher, stood. I must have been more confident then than I am now, for I would stand in front of the class and sing little songs. For gym we went to the Templars` Hall (opposite the Freemasons` Hotel) Why we did not use the hall in your school I do not know. Teachers must have been in short supply and I remember having an ex-army sergeant-major, accustomed to drilling soldiers. After issuing instructions he would say –“ got it now boys? Well, keep a hold of it!”
In the war we had to carry our gasmask and occasionally check that it fitted and worked. In an Air-raid, children living near had to take more distant pupils home till the All-Clear siren sounded. One day 2 planes collided and one crashed at Dencallie Farm; we evaded the policeman and recovered some pieces of twisted aluminium, smelling of petrol. When Evacuees arrived by train one day, they all had to be housed by village people. Anyone with spare space was expected to have them. Coming from the Glasgow area they spoke with a dialect quite alien to we country loons. As there were now too many children for the school, we had classes in the morning one week and afternoon next.
The final primary classes were in the Old School (now gone). Yours was always called the New School.
Then we were in Higher Grade with different teachers for each class. The science teacher did dangerous and smelly experiments. When he made Rotten Egg Gas, the whole school would be full of it.
Towards the end of my stay, a School Magazine was proposed and with it a motto made up by the headmaster –“ Susceptum Perfice Munus”, Latin for “Finish well whatever you start.” I don`t know if the school remembers this bit of its history, but it seems to me not bad advice.Most pupils were reluctant to write for the magazine, but I suppose it was commendable that such a small school had one at all. I recall one poem transcribed directly from a book, but the English teacher, presumably familiar with poetry, could never have noticed and it was accepted as the pupil`s own work.
We were apprehensive about the move to Fraserburgh, so much bigger than Strichen, but had no need to worry, for our performance was in no way inferior. In fact I was school dux, so Strichen came out of the comparison very well. Of course Strichen School`s glory days were long since past. With the autocratic headmaster Benjamin Skinner at the helm it was considered as fine a country school as any in the land – but that`s another story.
I went on to Aberdeen University to study medicine, worked largely in Edinburgh and am now retired in East Lothian. Although it is now difficult to get a place to study medicine, Strichen had a remarkable record in the 1950s & 60s producing far more doctors than expected for its population. Although only a small and insignificant village, Strichen, I always felt was well serviced with secondary school, railway, river, hill, big house, 3 banks, 2 pharmacies,2 butchers, 3 bakers, a doctor, vet, 2 tailors, 2 cobblers, 2 bus services, hospital, cattle mart and many shops. They must have needed very little trade to survive – I still wonder how they did.
I hope you and your pupils will find all this of interest. My memory for these far – off events is good and I can easily write more in the same vein if it seems appropriate
Best Wishes
Duncan Cummine