High School Survey (UK) in Scottish Meanderings

I've doctored this a little to reflect school in the UK. I think high school in the USA is the equivalent of our secondary school where we go from around age 12 until 16/17/18 (depending on if you were taking Highers or going to college/university/work or whatever.)

I also added some photos just to liven it up a bit :)

What year did you graduate?
1975 - I was 16. And the word 'graduate' over here is used when someone finishes University - it's connected more with achieving a degree usually. We don't have any sort of ceremony when pupils leave secondary school.

Did you know your spouse?
No. That piece of joy wasn't to happen for another 9 years.

Did you car pool to school?
If anyone had brought a car to school in the UK in those days we would all have fainted with shock! Kids walked, bussed or were given a lift. I was lucky - I only lived round the corner from both primary and secondary schools so could walk. Or rather - crawl out of bed at the last minute and run before the bell stopped ringing! When we had a school reunion around 16 years ago, we had a tour of the school (used as a college then) as part of it during the day and I arrived a bit late. Hearing them in one particular part of the school I made my way there and as soon as I turned the corner I heard David - one of my school friends - say "Margaret Skinner! Late as usual! You were always late for school as well!!" :)

What kind of car did you have?
I didn't get my first car (a little green FIAT Uno) until I was around 19 I think. It was unthinkable for British kids to have cars in those days at school age.

What kind of car do you have now?
I have a Nissan Micra - what I call my Noddy car!! Except it's red not yellow :)

It is Friday night…where are you?
Either at home or babysitting or at my best friend's house. Up until around age 15, my best friend was Gyl who lived in the next street and her and I palled about together but never doing anything very exciting. I remember we were friends with a few guys who lived in neighbouring houses and sometimes we all got together in an old, disused car which was in a spare piece of land along from Gyl's house and mucked about there. Gyl contracted encephalitis suddenly when she was around 15 and had to move down south to various hospitals and spinal units. I then became friends with Shelagh at school (that sounds pretty heartless - I don't mean I abandoned Gyl - I still kept in touch with her and travelled down to see her occasionally!) Shelagh was much more gregarious and 'streetwise' and her and I began going to local dances on a Saturday night (I wasn't allowed to go on a Friday night because it was 'rowdier' and finished at 1 a.m.) Shelagh had really good rhythm and we used to do some kick-ass jive moves when we were dancing. We also made up our own dances - we'd get together on a Sunday night at her house to practise routines so's we could show off the following Saturday night!! Happy days.

What kind of job did you have in high school?
I mainly worked for my Dad in his bakery business. Both in the 2 shops and in the bakehouse. I was pretty shy so doing that really helped my confidence - I think Dad knew. I remember I had 'special' customers - favourites - who always waited until I was free to serve them. One of them was a very distinguished former naval captain who must have been in his sixties. He always wore his uniform, looked very dapper and was always polite and courteous - in fact I still have a Christmas card he sent to 'the lassie with the lovely smile'! Sad to think nowadays he probably would have been discouraged from all that - it was all very innocent in those days. I also had a babysitting job across town for a lovely couple who had a 3 year old and a 6 month old baby.

What kind of job do you have now?
I don't have a paid job now but my main career was Office Administrator - mostly working in charities or in the voluntary sector. My future career may well be as a person-centred counsellor (I currently do this on a voluntary basis) but it's early days yet - and I'm fascinated to realise it's only taken me over 40 years but I'm finally at University!! I'm not really sure why I never ended up there after secondary school - most kids who went to that school went on to University - it was pretty much a given but I honestly think I didn't consider myself bright enough.

Were you a party animal?
Nope.

Were you considered a jock?
No - I don't think I could ever consider myself as sporty although I loved volleyball and lacrosse at school. And when I think about it I was a member of the Orienteering Club and Outdoor Club so went walking and hillclimbing at weekends - Gyl and I were the youngest members so after she became ill I drifted away from it, not wanting to go on my own. I also quite liked hockey but was terrified I would get injured - my sister's friend used to play every Saturday morning and regularly came home covered in bruises!

Were you in band, orchestra, or choir?
Yes I was in the school orchestra playing second violin. Loved it. Couldn't play the violin very well but we had a fantastic conductor - Fred Short - and he put on some brilliant performances. I remember Mum coming to one where we played Bridge Over Troubled Water and she said she was moved to tears!

Were you a nerd?
Definitely not! Not swotty enough.

Did you get suspended or expelled?
No - got detention a couple of times for skipping school (Gyl put me up to it) but that was as bad as it got!

Can you sing the fight song?
No idea what this is but I know we didn't have one!

Who was/were your favourite high school teachers?
Mr. Wilson (Maths); Mr. Hutcheon (English); Mrs. Grainger (English); Mrs. Grant (French). All fair teachers who got their points across really well, could detect when someone wasn't picking something up properly but really tried to help and never made an example of you. Unfortunately they weren't all like that more's the pity. On the whole though I got along with most of the teachers apart from my Italian one - Mr. Campbell - despite loving the subject, him and I always seemed to rub each other up the wrong way for some reason!

Where did you sit at lunch?
I only lived round the corner so went home for lunch but I can remember feeling really 'out of it' and knowing I was missing something so I started taking a packed lunch at one point and having that with my friends instead! I was missing out on some serious gossip!

What was your school’s full name?
Inverness Royal Academy. It was in a beautiful old building built in 1895 and started its life as a grammar school in a smaller building elsewhere in the town as far back as 1668. This is what it looked like when I went there:



It was literally at the bottom of my street. My sister used to wait until the first bell went then rolled out of bed and got dressed in record time and still made it there before the second bell had stopped ringing!

This is a drawing our lovely Art Teacher, Gordon Harvey, did of the school in 1972. I love the little touches like the bike and the cat!


What was your school mascot?
I don't think we had such a thing as far as I know.

If you could go back and do it again, would you?
I wouldn't mind - I quite enjoyed being there.

Did you have fun at the Prom/disco?
No proms over here (or at least there weren't in those days) but we did have an end of year school disco. They were good fun - innocent good fun I might add!

Do you still talk to the person you went to the Prom/disco with?
No although this prompted me to go and look for him on Facebook! Couldn't find him though.

Are you planning on going to your next class reunion?
I'm not sure if there will be one. We had one in 2000 - photo below - I'm the one on the left-hand side in the second row from the back leaning forward to speak to my friend Anne who is hidden and Gyl is furthest over in a white jacket on the right-hand side of the second row from the front looking up at someone. She had come all the way over from Australia for it. In fact I remember feeling very guilty because I had a cold at the time, felt a bit miserable and seriously wondered about going. Decided to at the last minute then heard about all these folk who had travelled from Australia, New Zealand, the States, Canada and there was I moaning about having to drive 100 miles up the road!


There was another one after that which I missed. There was talk of one next year funnily enough but I don't think anyone picked up the gauntlet - I totally get that because it's a lot of work! I'm glad I went to the 2000 one we had - it was good to catch up with folk and I really enjoyed it.

Are you still in contact with people from school?
I have several as friends on Facebook and we have a Facebook 'Reunion Page' for our year where we occasionally message each other so for example, one of us has recently had a book published and someone told the rest of us. It's nice to know stuff like that and hear how folk are doing.

What are/were your school’s colours?
Blue and yellow which sounds disgusting but actually worked well. Yesterday when I was doing this I thought I'd look for a pic of the uniform online - easy peasy thought I. Wrooooooong. 2 hours later I was tearing my hair out! My school still exists in a completely different building but they've added a gold braid lining to the uniform now and it looks quite different. And there are a wealth of old photos but they're all in black and white of course! Then I remembered I had some photos of a school cruise we all went on in 1972 so dug them out but this was the best I could come up with. We had to wear skirts in school but on the cruise we could wear trousers as long as we wore our blazers all the time.

These are my friends Morna & Alison in Helsinki - little did Alison know that 28 years later she would be completely stressed out trying to organise all of us together for our first reunion!