Exemption pleas rejected for high school teachers

Stirling board appeal on behalf of pair

Members of a Military Appeal Tribunal again considered the case of two Stirling High School teachers who had been refused exemption from call-up.

Stirling School Board appealed for a re-hearing of the cases of Mr Cameron, head of the English department, and teacher of history Mr Amess. Neither made an appeal on their own behalf.

Clerk to the Board Mr JC Muirhead said adverts to find replacements for the two masters had been advertised in the daily papers.

There had been a number of applications, all from ladies, but the board felt none was as good as the interim teachers currently employed at the school.

The tribunal’s chairman said: “We can’t always get the best these days, and have to be content with second best.”

However, Mr Muirhead said Mr Cameron’s services were vital to the education of the large number of junior students – the biggest from the school for some time – who were going forward to university.

The chief inspector thought Mr Cameron should be retained.

Without calling for comment from the military representative, tribunal chairman Mr James Younger, of Alloa, saw no reason to change the original decision and the appeal was dismissed.

In another case before the tribunal, 33-year-old single man Robert Stirling, a baker with Stirling Co-operative Society, asked to be excused military service on grounds of domestic hardship.

Mr Stirling lived with his mother and father who were suffering from ill health and a daughter looked after them.

He was the household’s sole support and if he was taken away, it would have to be broken up and his parents would have to go into hospital or an institution, the tribunal was told.

Mr Stirling was a baker, which was a certified occupation, and it was suggested by his lawyer that the military representative that the Co-op arrange for another person with a less strong claim for exemption to be taken in his client’s place.

Military representative Capt Motherwell accepted that bread making was valuable to the homefront but said the man was single and of the right age for the services.

He also did not think his hardship would be “so great as to warrant a substitution”.

The tribunal chairman disagreed and felt there would be “a great deal of personal hardship” and thought the Co-op should find another man to go instead of Mr Stirling.

His appeal was refused but the case was continued to allow a substitute to be found.

We can’t always get the best these days, and have to be content with second best