Ardrossan Academy sports and other group photos session 1971-72

[down south]

Moving on again, we come to session 1971-72. And it's with regret that I have to tell you that new brooms at the magazine decided that year in their wisdom not to print any names of the people in the sports team photos; and indeed they didn't have many such photos anyway. So we're limited here to those where I can identify people myself.

That comprises hockey and tennis. Hockey first:

Back row : Catherine Brooks; Sandra McMillan; Lyn Robertson; Lillian Montgomery; Fiona Maclean; Moira Gibson.

Front row: Betty McKay; Alison MacDonald; Joyce Barbour; June Halliday; Janet Dunlop.

And the same faces appear again in the tennis team; specifically, this is the girls' doubles team, which were joint winners with Wellington School of the Ayrshire League Cup Tournament.

Back: June Halliday; Catherine Brooks.

Front: Lyn Robertson; Joyce Barbour; Alison MacDonald.

Absent: M MacDonald.

Susan

[down south]

There may be no more sports photos, but nil desperandum; there are a number of other group photos from this session where I can identify a good proportion of the participants, beginning here with the Classics contest.

This year the organisers had come up with a scheme to prevent what happened the last time, when the Academy won the Senior Trophy purely on the strength of their Greek entries; they would have a new separate trophy just for Greek, retaining the old one for Latin performances. It mattered little; the Academy won both of them.

Curiously there are two different photos of the winners, one taken indoors which appeared in the school magazine, the other taken outdoors and accompanying an article in the A&S Herald; yet looking very much from the clothes and footwear of the participants as though they were taken on the same day. It seems a bit superfluous to post them both, but I might just as well:

Left to right here: Elaine Murchie; Cynthia Duff; ???; Janice Millar; Elizabeth Meney; June McCallum; ???; Sandra Hair; Alistair Campbell; Helen MacPherson; Elizabeth Hendry; Ailsa Wardrop; Irene Elder; John Johnston; Sheila Curwen. The two unknowns are Robert Muir and Allan Aitken, but unfortunately I don't know which is which.

And left to right for this slightly different arrangement of the group:

Elaine Murchie; ???; Irene Elder; ???; Sheila Curwen; Cynthia Duff; June McCallum; Helen MacPherson; Sandra Hair; Ailsa Wardrop; Elizabeth Hendry; Alistair Campbell; Janice Millar; John Johnston; Elizabeth Meney.

And here's the article which went with it, which features a trenchant defence by Dr Nisbet of the value of a classical education:

This year the annual classics competition in reading and speaking Latin and Greek was held in the new arts theatre complex at Glasgow University. Twenty-five schools from Glasgow and the West of Scotland took part, and for the final session the building was packed to capacity.

Ardrossan Academy retained the Senior Latin trophy for the fifth year in succession, and also won custody for this year of the very handsome trophy - a small bust of Pericles, the famous Athenian statesman of the fifth century BC - awarded for the first time for spoken Greek.

These two trophies were awarded on the aggregate of marks scored by the following pupils for their individual performances:

Latin: Prize winners: Intermediate section, repetition; 1 Irene Elder, 2 Helen MacPherson. Senior section, reading and repetition; 1 Sandra Hair.

Certificate winners: Intermediate section, reading; Alistair Campbell, Sheila Curwen, Ailsa Wardrop. Senior section, reading and repetition; Elizabeth Meney.

Greek: Prize winners: Beginners' section, reading; 1 Elaine Murchie. Intermediate section, reading; 1 Elizabeth Hendry. Senior section, reading and repetition; 1 June McCallum.

Certificate winners: Intermediate section, reading: John Johnston, Janice Millar.

Awards for written translation, submitted a few weeks ago for final adjudication by a member of Glasgow University staff, were also announced on Saturday, at the closing session of the festival, and once again Ardrossan Academy pupils were successful. Cynthia Duff and Helen MacPherson were placed first equal in the Latin intermediate section, while Sheila Curwen won a certificate. Robert Muir won first prize in the senior section and Allan Aitken received a certificate.

The other two major awards were also won by Ayrshire schools, the junior trophy by St Michael's Academy, Kilwinning, and the silver bowl, open to competition by schools with a small classical department, went to Girvan Academy.

The principal of Ardrossan Academy's Classics Department commented: " In view of the widespread misconception that the study of the classical languages in school is only for those pupils intending themselves to become teachers of classics, it may be of interest to parents to learn that June McCallum, the first prize-winner in the Senior Greek section, hopes to take a degree in medicine, having studied Greek, in preference to Latin, as an optional extra to her science-based course.

" It should perhaps also be emphasised that for pupils wishing to enter the arts faculty of a university the study of Latin and Greek at school leaves the door open to as wide a variety of arts courses as does the study in school of any other arts subjects; and that the selection of a classical course at university does not unduly limit the choice of subsequent career which need not be that of teaching. The ministry, librarianship, the civil service, the law, administration , the Scottish Education Department and journalism are just some of the sectors in which classical graduates have found employment. "

Ardrossan and Saltcoats Herald, 17th March 1972.

Susan

[canfactory]

Susan

Many thanks for your regular posting of the school pics. I enjoy all of them, recognising faces and, more so, appreciating it when you can give us names too. Forgetting those has always been my problem

Campbell

[down south]

Thanks for the appreciation, Campbell. I only wish for your benefit that I knew more of the names from your and Meg's year group.

Susan

[down south]

Moving on now to matters musical, here is the Ardrossan Academy orchestra pictured in March 1972. They had just won the Brand Orchestral Trophy at the Ayrshire Music Festival, while the strings also won in their category.

Names are as follows: Back row, standing: Brian Jolley; Janice Galloway; Grant Alexander; Catherine Brooks; Christopher Lyon; June McCallum; ???; Janice Millar; Christopher Seabury; Marysia Sagan; Kenneth Aitken; Susan McLellan ? ; Peter Armstrong; Ian McCallum; ???; ???

Middle row, seated: Josephine Drake; Nicola McKinnon; Fiona Macdonald; Lucy Robertson; Alexis Millar; Sheena Gordon; ???; ???

Front row, standing: Sandra Hair; Lorna McDougall; Susan Broadfoot; Valerie Gregg; ???; ???

Little Lorna's cello is almost as big as she is; she was the daughter of our music teacher Mrs McDougall, a chip off the old block. She took second place in Division C for cello solos at the Festival, one of many individual successes there ( of which more next time ).

Susan

[down south]

Pictures of some of the individual winners now , and first the singers, already named in the caption:

Lyn Robertson and Catherine Brooks won the under-18 vocal duets class; Sheena Gordon and Fiona Macdonald won the open class. Sheena also won both the open folk songs and open Scots songs prizes, and as a result of her successes was awarded the Howard de Walden trophy for best vocal performance of the Festival.

Now some of the prize-winning musicians; this group won four first prizes and two seconds between them.

From left to right: Grant Alexander; Janice Millar; Lucy Robertson; Fiona Macdonald; Alexis Millar; Ian McCallum.

Grant won the John Chalmers trophy for brass solos; Ian came first in Div B of viola solos, while Alexis was second in the open viola class. Her sister Janice won the open violin solo class, while the trio of Janice, Alexis and Fiona were first in the under-18 class for two violins and piano . ( Another Academy team came second: Josephine Drake, Susan Broadfoot and Catherine Brooks ). And Lucy was second in Div B of woodwind solos.

These weren't the only first places won by Academy instrumentalists; Christine Cairns also won the under-15 violin class, and with Susan Young the under-15 violin duets. And there were several more second and third places as well.

Susan

[down south]

Also winners at the Festival were the Senior Boys' Choir.

Back row: Stephen Carter; Paul Corney; ???; Brian Jolley; Trevor Jones; ???; Nelson Lee; ??? ( hiding behind Nelson ); Peter Armstrong; ???; Christopher Seabury; Kenneth Aitken;Richard Darroch ? ; James Smith; Christopher Lyon; ???

Front row: Jimmy Gilmore; Mark Chalmers; Glenn Rodger; Humphrey Robertson; Leslie Duncan; John Lyon; Jimmy Gossman; ???

Susan

[down south]

This under-13 country dance team were winners too, and luckily the Herald printed their names alongside the photo.

Back row: Jane Finnie; Silvia McEwan; Sheena Strachan; Lorna Whitehead; Sheila Partridge.

Front row: Georgina McAlpine; Jane Denver; Yvonne Barclay.

Susan

[down south]

The school put on a concert at the end of March to showcase all this musical talent, and here are some of the participants.

Left to right: Jane Ramage; Gillian Staddon; Alexis Millar; Linda Reid; ???; Lesley Cuthill; Grant Alexander; Fiona Macdonald; Christopher Seabury; Janice Millar; Brian Jolley; Lucy Robertson; and then the young boy in front of her, and the two following, are unknown.

Susan

[down south]

The Ayrshire Music Festival wasn't the only place where the Academy was winning prizes in 1971-2. Here we have the senior pupils drama group, who won the Ayrshire schools drama trophy at their first ever entry into the competition. They performed a one-act play by Thornton Wilder, " The Happy Journey from Trenton to Camden."

Back row: Colin Archibald; Gillian Anderson; Margaret Grant; Evelyn Watson; Stephen Carter.

Front row: Allan Cowan; Alison McDuffie.

And the school magazine of 1972 was one of six prize-winners in a national school magazine competition. This picture shows those members of the magazine committee who were still at the school in the next session when the results were announced.

The other members of the committee were John Blair, Catherine Brooks, Philip Darbyshire, Christopher Lyon, June McCallum, Peter Nellany, Jennifer Reid and Arthur Rodman ( who were all involved with the previous year's magazine and can be seen in this picture.)

The teacher pictured, Mrs Kirk, was also a veteran of the school magazine, having been on the committee back in the days when she was pupil Elsa Harris.Although she began her teaching career back at her old school, she'll be better known to ex-pupils of Auchenharvie Academy, where she taught for many years.

In a brief accompanying article, the judges' praise of the magazine was cited. They described the six award-winning entries as making a great effort, not merely to be different, but to be" fresh and vital and relevant. "

Specifically to the Academy's magazine, special mention was made of the photographic talent of Brian Snead, whose action pictures of sports achieved excellence. The awareness and sensitivity of Brian's photography was noted by the judges as one of the winning aspects of the magazine. Also meriting special attention from the judges was George Macintyre's poem " Snowdrop ". ( This was our sadly missed member Geomacintyre . )

Susan

[down south]

Finally in this session, we come to the Ayrshire French summer school, a student exchange scheme in which pupils from Ayrshire schools visited France, and vice versa. It was celebrating its 25th anniversary that July of 1972, and there were some pictures and an article in the A&S Herald.

This first picture shows some Ardrossan Academy pupils ( and one who from his blazer badge looks as though he might be from Auchenharvie ) meeting their French counterparts at the local venue for the scheme, Cumnock Academy.

From left to right the Ardrossan Academy pupils are Peter Hutchison; Ailsa Wardrop; Irene Elder; and Agnes Wilson, having her blazer badge inspected....

There was also a second picture and though it only includes one Academy pupil ( and he's not in uniform ) I might as well show it to you.

Here among a gathering of the great and good of Ayrshire education in general and the summer school in particular, are Robert Tedford and a French girl cutting a celebratory birthday cake.

Susan

[morag]

What a difference between Catholic and non- catholic schools. Think we had triangles and maybe those things you banged that had jingly things. Tambourine?