Eglinton Class Photo - around 1956-60

[Hughie]

Said to be Eglinton School, Ardrossan. Names and year wanted.

[Penny Tray]

It's definitely looks like the gable end of Eglinton School with the entrance to Mr Muir's sweetie shop in the background.

The boy on the extreme right in the back row reminds me of a young Bob Bryden?

[Hughie]

Agreed on the first one, Penny. I now recognised the spot where the photo was taken from, just round from the coal bing used to feed the furnace which heated our radiators at Eglinton. The photographer would have had his/her back to Fanny Water's music room with the coal bing on his/her left.

Need Bob in NZ to come in and see if you are right on the second count, which might give us a date of when the photo was taken.

Sorry for my quietness - got rellies out from Stinston.

[Penny Tray]

Hughie,

I'm being pedantic but the photographer would have had his/her back angled to the detached classroom block which included the gym hall. The coal pile, as you say, was along to the left with Fanny's music room, also a detached building, still further along in that direction.

I'm now going to have three 'wild' guesses at others in the photograph -

the boy second from the left in the back row - John Morrison;
the boy extreme left in the second back row - Harvey Smith;
the girl second from the left in the front row of eight - ? Muir.

I'm not confident but will be happy to be corrected!

[harrysteell]

hi there the boy third from right back row is Ian MaCKENZIE row and first on far right back row Robert brydon cant recall any more Sorry best wishes to you all.
regards Harry.

[Bob Bryden]

I agree that extreme right hand end of back row looks like me but can't remember when it was taken. I started at Winton School in 1956 when I was 5 but forget when I moved up to Eglinton. So if I started at Winton in 1956
when would I likely have moved to Eglinton? I'm afraid I don't recognise any of the others in the photo. I recognise myself in the Eglinton photo as I look the same as in my first N.Z. class photo.

Names I recall as Eglinton classmates are:- Tom Brookes, Betty Wilson, Anne McKinnon, Susan Farrer, Harvey Smith, Ian McKenzie, Robert Slessor, Moira Kerr, Jean McDougall, Hugo Harper & I think Angie Mills. Can't remember any more. I met up with Tom Brookes & Moira Kerr on my only visit back to Ardrossan in 1974. At that time Tom & his wife were living in either Seton or Winton St. & I met Moira & her husband at a relative of theirs just across from my old home in Churchill Drive. I've sinc e seen Hugo's name mentioned in connection with Winton Rovers - he & I sat next to each other in my last Eglinton class. Also several years ago I had a brief e-mail from Robert Slessor after he'd seen my name mentioned but that contact didn't continue. I seem to recall that at that time he was in Australia. I know Ian McKenzie's been in Victoria, B.C., Canada since 1979 but have lost touch with him too.

It's such a long time ago. After all it was 52 years on the 1st. of this month since we first set foot in N.Z. Originally 5 of us but now just me.

I left Eglinton on 22nd. or 23rd. May 1963 as we left Ardrossan on the first stage of our voyage to N.Z. on 24th. May 1963.

Bob

[Penny Tray]

Well done Bob for finally recognising yourself

Looks like I'm might be right too about Harvey Smith who played the slide guitar at our reunion event last year.

Angie Mills is five in from the left in the row three from the back; and the girl seventh in from the left in the same row could be Greaves?.

[down south]

The girl sitting right in the centre of the front row, with the diamond-patterned skirt, could well be Susan Farrer. Her younger sister Judith was in my class, and there seems quite a resemblance there.

Susan

[Penny Tray]

I'm thinking now that the girl second in from the right on the front row is McDougall, possibly Jean. She lived in Cunninghame Road in the 50s/60s.

[harrysteell]

I had a couple of class photographs from 1954 I can remember some of them there is I little girl with blond white hair and very small her name is ANN Ashmead and my cousin Jim steel David Mckenzie Philip Hannah I might be wrong but I think ANN IS tom Magrattan's wife then again I could be wrong. Finlay Cummine I have some of the photos in my files and my sister Ellen spirited away some down to her home in London david white another lived on Glasgow street John Shearer also Glasgow street just across the road from Hill street Gavin Robertson Billy Baird Sandy Marshal,
kind regards Harry

[Bob Bryden]

Referring back to an earlier question of mine - if I started at Winton School in 1956 when would I likely have moved up to Eglinton ?

I do recall that I'd sat & passed the 11+ exam & would have followed in Mum's footsteps & moved onto the Academy if we hadn't emigrated to N.Z.
Bob

[Penny Tray]

Bob,

My recollection is that we did Primaries 1 to 6 at Winton School, and then Primary 7 (the qualifying class) at Eglinton School alongside the secondary pupils. There were two 'qualifying' classrooms, both in the detached building immediately behind where the photograph was taken. The teachers around the time in question were Mrs Stirrat and Mr White.

All this would mean that you probably went to Eglinton in 1963, which probably dates the photograph, because, if I remember right again, that was the last year of Eglinton's existence, albeit the building remained for a few years after that.