My face must have showed my shock at the oversight. But the Maths teacher showed no compassion

As I lifted it, the statue’s hand moved again. This time I saw it was only because a pin holding it into the arm was rotating in its hole where it must have cracked at the wrist some time before. More than a little relieved, I gave Auntie Julie a final smile and turned to leave. Then as I reached the front door, I thought I heard a noise coming from the bedroom. I admit that I left without investigating further.

Back at Kemnay Gardens, I explained that my tardiness was on account of difficulty getting the lock on the front door to turn.

On July 20 1969, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin left the “Eagle” lunar module and walked on moon. Some said it was the most important moment in history and in truth it was at the very least highly significant.

Fifth year at Lawside turned out to be very significant too. For the first time in my school career, I had to work hard to keep pace and complete the work on time to an acceptable standard. It was the same for lots of my pals.

Vernacular

Doing “Highers” was very different, as would be summarised by my French teacher, the wonderful John Murphy. Mr Murphy was admired by teachers and pupils alike for his homespun Dundonian philosophy.

His conversation was punctuated with brilliant vernacular phrases for miscreants such as: “Any more o’ that and you’ll be eatin’ yer tea aff the mantelpiece” or, for late arrivals to his class: “Hey, what do you think this is, the night shift?”

So, on the first day of the Higher French class, as 30-odd of us sat waiting for Mr Murphy to arrive, all of us equally chuffed at having sailed through “O” grade French, I suppose we were looking for a brief “Well done, boys” at the very least.

Lawside wasn’t a place you could count on being congratulated all that often, no matter how well you’d done (unless you were in the football team), but we did at least expect a bit of recognition.

With familiar black cloak fluttering behind him, John Murphy burst turned to his audience of smug faces and said “O grades? Huh! They give them away wi’ Daz coupons!” He followed this with “Right, you lot. Get oot a jotter and a pencil. You’re gonna do some real work now.”

Within minutes we were struggling through a difficult Unseen prose passage, while Mr Murphy sat at his desk, preparing another even longer one for us to do as homework.

My other four Higher subjects were English, Maths, Latin and German. The latter two were to pass without incident, except for the Latin master Mr Burns being the subject of a cruel prank when our class decided to translate Virgil’s “Aeneid” using any English word that resembled the Latin one, even if we knew the correct answer.

“Equus” became “equal” and not “horse” and we all thought this was hilarious. After a few minutes of ludicrously wrong translations, Mr Burns held his bald pate in his hands in despair and turned his back on us. This reaction brought us back to our senses and we eventually relented. We liked a laugh but we weren’t in the business of causing him distress.

Higher English was a delight in the hands of the exceptional Tom Ferrie who opened our eyes to the wonder of William Shakespeare and in particular Macbeth.

Unexpected

When Burns’ Night came around in January 1970, my group of friends got together and decided to don full tartan dress for the evening at school.

However, we added an unexpected finale to the celebrations by suddenly leaving our seats and exiting the hall in procession, with right arms held aloft, mimicking a sketch from the ground-breaking comedy programme “Monty Python’s Flying Circus”.

In the forthcoming months we’d re-enact many of our favourite sketches in the playground, including the Ministry of Silly Walks.

This gave rise to the strange sight of phalanxes of senior pupils goose-stepping around the yard.

Higher Maths was not such a delight once we’d been introduced to the mystery of calculus, possibly the first thing I ever needed to understand but couldn’t. This challenge forced me to call on mental reserves I didn’t know I had.

Although I scored an “A” in the final exam, I was at my limit with this subject and was thankful to lay it to rest. I’d been a bit of a swot throughout my schooldays, always trying really hard and always doing my best, especially in Maths which was my strongest subject. But in the Higher class we got a new teacher who was not averse to using the belt to make a point.

I got on his wrong side when, for the first time ever, I forgot to do my Maths homework. Even I couldn’t believe it when I opened my jotter to show him I’d done them, only to discover I hadn’t.

My face must have showed my shock at the oversight. But the Maths teacher showed no compassion, marching me out onto the floor in front of all my classmates and giving me two hard whacks on the hands.

Me, a 17-year old top pupil with a perfect record in the Maths class up to then, belted by a man who barely knew me. For a single error in five years.

I hear many people say they were often belted at school and it did them no harm and indeed did them a lot of good. It taught them respect, justice and other laudable intangibles. Blah blah.

Unfairness

Yet that single punishment by my Maths teacher had the opposite effect on me. Physically it did me no harm, of course, but its unfairness left a scar that was hard to heal. I never forgave him for that.

Prelim exams acted as the intended wake-up call for most of us, a reminder that our focus was meant to be our studies and not the teenage pleasures we were revelling in.

It also marked the first time I ever failed an exam (47% in German) and that was just the kick in the pants I required. After the Christmas holidays I needed no further encouragement to apply myself and I plunged deeper into the “swot” category.

To alleviate the stress of intense studying all day, a group of us started taking the school bus into town at 4 o’clock but not immediately jumping on the 28 or 29 to travel back to Charleston.

Instead we’d wander down Reform Street and go into the Lite-Bite, a downstairs café in a baker’s shop, where we could spend an hour or so over a cuppa and the cake of our choice. I usually had a slice of Millionaire’s Shortbread but my favourite was really the Ayton sandwich.

(More tomorrow.)