Outstanding teacher’s 43 years at school
A total of 280 staff employed by Stirling Hotels Limited held their annual dance at Millars’Rooms, the Observer of
Warm tributes were paid to a teacher who had served for 43 years at Bannockburn Public School.
Miss Isabella Muirhead was described by director of education for Stirlingshire Mr WJ Goldie as one of the area’s most outstanding teachers.
A native of Bannockburn, Miss Muirhead was a dux of the public school before going to the High School of Stirling. She returned to the public school as a pupil teacher then moved to Glasgow United Free Church Training College for Teachers, winning a bursary for Bible knowledge and later qualifying as a first class certified teacher.
She returned as a teacher to Bannockburn School in 1907 and spent her entire teaching career there, serving under headmasters Mr Saunders, Mr Henry Hogg, Mr John Blyth and Mr Donald Macintosh who held the post at the time of her retirement.
Miss Muirhead taught almost all classes from infants to the highest junior and she also served as secretary of her branch of the teachers’ union EIS.
To mark her retirement and on behalf of colleagues, Mr Macintosh presented Miss Muirhead with an electric standard lamp. And pupil Shirley Hamilton presented her with an umbrella as a `thank you’ from the children.
Speaking at the handover of gifts, Councillor James Vallance, a former pupil, said it was a pity Miss Muirhead was leaving before she had the opportunity of teaching in the by the Bohemian Dance Band. Some of those present are pictured `long overdue new public school for Bannockburn’.
Mr Macintosh said Miss Muirhead was a helpful and capable teacher, adding: `Size off class had never worried her for there had been many occasions when she had classes of 30 boys and 30 girls.’
In reply to the tributes, Miss Muirhead told how on the first day she stood before a class as a teacher at the school, her younger sister Margaret was one of the pupils and Mr Saunders was head teacher.
He was, she said, an unforgettable figure in his black skull cap - the old dominie type, stern but kindly. She also traced the development of the school from the one-building set-up of her youth. And she recalled `The Hut’ building in which she taught for many years.
Miss Muirhead had a long connection with Murrayfield Church and she was specially interested in music, training choirs from Bannockburn Primary to victory in several festivals for Stirlingshire schoolchildren.
She was also a member of the former Stirling Ladies Choir and the Lyric Choir and during World War One she promoted concerts, featuring a children’s choir, to raise money for war charities.
During World War Two, she was secretary, treasurer and later president of the area’s branch of the Women’s Voluntary Services, assisting ARP and evacuation work.