Charles Bannerman

That would have been after the comprehensive reorganisation by which time Inverness had, and still has, five comprehensive secondary schools. Selection, which ended in 1970, had long since been scrapped by then.

The fee paying issue latterly became an Inverness urban myth. Fees were abolished in the upper school around 1908 and in the lower school after the 1944 Education Act which led to entry to the Royal Academy being purely on merit in the 11 plus (which wasn't all that accurate since a lot of future graduated etc went to the Tecky... despite the IHE windup which I knew was inevitable when I wrote the original post!) This also meant that you could get quite a few thick, rich kids at the Academy in the old days. I'm not sure if fees were still paid in the Royal Academy primary which was phased out between 1955 and 1961. However the school's fee paying past did mean that an aura of snobbishness continued, certainly into the 60s but I think it was well on its way out, for instance by the time I left in 1971. However, there were staff there who really thought that kids from the "G and T belt" in the Crown were a cut above the rest and similarly boys who played football were also looked on as som,ehow inferior to the rugby team who were "the chaps". Also, once you got into the Royal Academy, there was intellectual stratification even among the alleged "elite".... but I can't for the life of me remember which of these strata IHE aspired to. :015:

Various US Presidents have made a habit of "jogging with the plebs". For most heads of state, any constraint is normally imposed by security. With this lot at Buck House there's the additional, major factor that they think they are better than the rest of us so shouldn't even think of mingling apart from PR exercises and even then we are expected to bow, curtsey and scrape and address them by these ridiculous titles. What I object to is that these totally unelected people of questionable nationality and parentage should set themselves up as a sort of bunch of "SuperBrits" under the delusion that they are actually superior to the rest of us. If a country is going to have an ultimate authority then that individual has to be elected and there merely for the function... and there is no place for his/ her relatives sponging off the state as an additional liability. Oh, and by the way, my earlier query about the legitimacy of the Royals on the strength of who their female ancestors were having it away with applies equally to everyone whose status depends on heredity. In other words all your "aristocracy" (including Clan Chiefs with their boolinthegub accents) are of equally dubious foundation. And that's before you even begin to count the number of Dukes of this and that who owe their titles to the fact that they are simply the descendants of Royal ******** that we know about, because their "Royalty" came from the male side. (By the way, you've maybe followed that I'm not a great fan of inherited rank and privilege. :015:)

Inverness Royal Academy was founded in 1792, originally on Academy Street (in the building where Pivo is). It moved to the top of Stephen's Brae in 1895 and has been at Culduthel since 1977. In Olde Inverness there were other institutions such at Bells School and Heatherley but the Royal Academy is the oldest. It also has as its predecessors a Grammar School and a Monastic School which take its history right back to 1233. Inverness High School (Technical High School for many years... hence The Teckie) used to be based in the now Crown Primary but shared some accomodation at Midmills with the Royal Academy. It moved to its present site in the mid 1930s. After the 1944 Education Act, if you did well in your 11 plus you went to the Royal Academy, otherwise to the Teckie where you did either Technical or Commercial courses, or General. In 1961 Millburn Junior Secondary School (and I love reminding Millburners of that name!) was opened to accommodate those on the east side of the Ness who were designated General, ie did not make the Royal Academy nor the intermediate Technical or Commenrcial courses in the High School. During the 70s there was a steady transition towards comprehensive education which included the construction of Charleston and Culloden Academies and since about 1979 there have been five comprehensives in Inverness.

Outwith the day job, I'm not usually too publicly pedantic about spelling mistakes, but this one unfortunately conveys a meaning rather the opposite of what it should. I think Bob means "assent" rather than "ascent" although DESCENT would be more acceptable (and DECENT wouldn't!)

Are you taking the p!ss by simply regurgitating all the weary, hackneyed, apologist cr@p that you used to read in the Sunday Post before it broke into the second half of the 20th century (and still do read in the Telegraph!)? Most other countries seem to manage without this self perpetuating "elite" of dubious progeny and uncertain nationality who seem to expect to be referred to by ludicrous titles like "Your Majesty" and "Your Royal Highness". And even most of those countries which have still persevered with royalty will find theirs cycling about the place. Now could you imagine any of our lot mixing it with the plebs on a bike!? The problem is that, in addition to what I would suggest is a completely anachronistic function in modern society, our lot are among the most elitist in the world and in some strange way still seem to harbour delusions that they are better than the rest of us. To quote Harry Enfield.... "Oi.... Windsor..... NO!!!!"

Surely not! You wouldn't be implying William Windsor and Harry Hewitt or anything like that would you? :018: I thought the recently concluded ITV drama series "The Palace" ran a wonderful storyline when the question was being asked if The King was actually the son of the previous King or of the Dowager Queen's erstwhile Bit on the Side? DNA testing ultimately showed that he was, but previous generations haven't had the benefit of DNA testing. Short of a mass "dig up" in the Windsor Mausoleum (which I don't think they would ever dare risk) we'll never know, will we! :003:

Spot on Scarlet. Quite simply they are there because their ancestors were more ruthless and unscrupulous thugs than their contemporaries. The whole concept of royalty is a fundamentally illogical one - that one set of people should have the entitlement to be called things like "Your Majesty" and "Your Royal Highness" (just think about how totally absurd these forms of address are!) simply on the grounds of the viciousness of their ancestors. And in fact the nonsense doesn't even stop there. Added to the ridiculous origins of their status, lets also examine the extremely dubious means by which it has been perpetuated. This is done on the hereditary principle - you get the job because your dad, or occasionally mum, had it (or sometimes, as is the case with the queen, because your uncle couldn't be @rsed and wanted to marry Mrs. Simpson instead.) But hang on a minute! The whole "logic" of this process kind of assumes that your "dad" really is your dad. Now, we all know how good your "royal" males are at putting it about and having several bits on the side. So why shouldn't the royal women be exactly the same? There is, in fact, a very serious question being asked about the legitimacy of Queen Victoria on the basis of the passing on of the haemophilia gene. In that case we have absolutely no guarantee that the current lot aren't really the progeny of the butler or the groom or the footman or the Page of the Backstairs? (well maybe not that last one duckie!) In fact, all you need is one single female "indiscretion" through history, and this lot degenerate into the products of a bit of illicit legover in the stables.

No I didn't! **** Campbell used to though!

It stood where the new Eastgate square is now, or a big part of it did. The Playhouse burnt down in 1972 or 1973. 72.

Good to see a Caley Thistle fan saying nice things about a girl from Dingwall! :004:

As a matter of policy, I do not make posts on current stories relating to Caley Thistle and only make very limited comment on football matters at all. To do otherwise would be inconsistent with the reporting role I have and, to put it as tactfully as I can, I would prefer not to become involved with threads where comment is in places perhaps some way wide of reality. :014: I made one exception last August when I realised that there was so much uninformed nonsense being spoken about Craig Brewster at a point when the deal had actually been done. Regular users of this site will notice that the vast majority of my posts provide users with factual material or are on matters in the past - especially on the "Memories" board. I often wonder whether I should be posting on this site at all. I certainly don't intend to become involved in this thread to any extent greater than this single post.

I thought the two were synonymous.

Yes, it was right next door to the Playhouse. Did it not disappear with the Playhouse burned down in 1972?

This is very hypothetical and to some extent depends on when the "non joining together" happened - ie whether the idea never occurred at all or whether it went so far and failed to materialise, which very nearly became the case in practice. In the first event, I think Caley or both would have gone for it on their own. Either Caley would have got in or, possibly less likely, the pro Inverness vote would have been split and they would both have failed. Then I believe Caley would have become another Arbroath or at best Alloa because I don't think they would have attracted the necessary level of financial or personal support in the community to do much better. Thistle would have continued in the Highland League and might well have struggled because it is well documented thqt Jags were on a dodgy wicket by the early 90s. The extent of Jags' and indeed Clach's woes might to a large extent have depended on how successful Caley were in the SFL and how much resources they drew away from the other two in the HFL. In the second event, if they had both failed to be elected in 1994, or if the merger had fallen apart after applications to the SFL had closed, I think Caley would have got in on one of the later opportunities (unless a second merger proposal carried the day), and you can then recycle the prognosis back to the start of the previous paragraph. It's especially difficult to make accurate estimates because it's difficult to assess secondary effects but certainly any single team bid for SFL status would never have done as well as the merged one did and certainly Inverness would never have sniffed SPL football. I know there is a sort of vestige of Telford Street romance that says that Caley would hqve done fine on their own. I don't think it stands scrutiny though. As a postscript, what if Caley's Carse scheme had materialised in 1990-91? I think a merger would still have been mooted but Caley would have thrown the idea out very quickly and gone alone etc etc etc...

Yes, I know Adolf, started life as an Austrian but the German analogy was just too tempting.

Caley D... although I would insist that I was never a pupil at the Royal Academy when it was in Academy Street :015: I certainly don't remember it ever being the Royal Hotel. For as long as I can recollect, the Royal was always on the corner of Academy St. and Union St. until it became the Clydesdale.

Yes, Bankers are still on the go. Every year they launch an appeal so they can buy new, larger strips, a full set of zimmers and a couple of bags of fresh incontinence pads! :015: One other former bank is where Bar Pivo is now in Academy Street. That building is the original home of Inverness Royal Academy (hence Academy Street) which housed the school from when it was formed in 1792 until its move up to Midmills in 1895. It has been various things over the years since then, but became the Royal Bank, I think in the 60s or 70s before becoming Pivo. The Royal Bank, and before it took it over, the National Commercial Bank used to be on the corner of Fraser Street and Church Street. It's now Hootanannys. The British Linen Bank used to be on High Street. I forget exactly which building it was but it was round about where Bakoo is now. And of course most people will remember the Bank of Scotland's recent move out of High Street and its replacement by the Caledonian Bar.

Which then invites the possible scenario of the SPL title, Europan qualification or top six places possibly being decided on goal difference, which in turn could be determined by who puts how many past Gretna at varoius statges of their decline.

On a separate issue, can I risk ruffling feathers down Grant Street way by suggesting that one of the problems with Clach for years has been that the Merkinch community seem to have expected a football club to be provided for them for sentimental reasons and appear to see no reason to do anything active themselfes to sustain it? With any luck their embyonic Supporters' Trust will start to shift such a mindset.

I agree completely. As far as crowds are concerned, Gretna v Dundee United attracted 501 last Thursday although competition from the televised Rangers game was cited in mitigation. However two nights previously,l Ross County had a crowd of 1511 in the Second Division against competition from Barcelona v Celtic. On now to Scarlet's last post. My remarks are certainly not in hindsight - it has been my view right from the start that the Gretna tale would end in tears and for just the reasons that it has. Gretna FC, since Brooks Mileson took it over has, in effect, been a mirage. It never had any of the essentials on which other clubs which are bankrolled to a greater or lesser extent depend in addition to their funds from a benefactor. If the cash is there, which with Mileson it was for a time, it really is not very difficult to throw enough of it at a club to buy in players who are far better than the division you're in and move up the leagues. This is what happened with Gretna but it was inevitable that the bandwagon would be derailed sooner or later for at least three reasons. 1) Unlike most other clubs, Gretna's fundamental profile as a club is not much more than what we see in the Highland League. It is a cash inflated minnow. 2) Sooner or later the money was going to run out, either gradually or, as happened in this case, suddenly and catastrophically, leaving the Emperor exposed as having no clothes at all. 3) Eventually they were going to reach a level of competition which cannot be bankrolled in the way their passage through the lower leagues was. That was the SPL. I also very much agree with what Maimie has said about Brooks' apparent resentment of the "suits" who run football. That is possibly why he sat with the fans, wore jeans and an old shirt and craved a high profile for his unhealthy lifestyle whilst, by his way of things "bucking the system" by what he thought was beating them at their own game. It failed spectacularly, as it was always doomed to do. Caley Thistle cannot in any way be compared with Gretna. From Highland League origins, ICT developed steadily in Division 3 and financially just got away with the construction of a necessary stadium in 1996. After that, expansion was steady but even at that they very nearly over reached themselves in 99-00 and were saved by the formation of the ICT Trust. Since then it has been a case of steady and careful expansion in all respects such as crowd base, turnover, commercial income, facilities etc whilst exercising prudent increases with player wages. That is an important point, by the way. ICT have done an excellent job in balancing affordable wages with progress up the leagues. All of this has been helped by the involvement of some very good managers, directors and chairmen. Yes, there has been a major benefactor in the form of David Sutherland and Tullochs but their assistance has been in proportion to and in balance with the fundamental substance of the club and to whatever the level of activity has been at any time. Crucially with Gretna, that has not been the case. Here, megabucks were thrown at a structure which was totally inadequate to accommodate that and in particular to sustain what had been going on. It is the glaringly obvious lack of sustainability from the start of everything Gretna have done that seems to have evaded a lot of people. Mileson, as Scarlet says, did indeed try to make a name for himself with a big pile of money but what he did was obviously unsustainable, was clearly going to end in tears and has done no good at all for football in Scotland.

I've had quite strong views from the start about Gretna which I've largely kept to myself until now. I well remember the 93-94 election for the SFL in which CT and Ross County were successful by a long way. Gretna polled a miserable 2 votes which must be at least a strong pointer towards their lack of substance as a club pre Mileson. Brooks Mileson poured money into what was in effect a football entity of no substance, with little support, in a tiny community and with no fundamental infrastructure. He cannot be compared with eg Eddie Thomson, David Murray etc becaue they have bankrolled clubs which have fundamental viability and are substantial entities etc - all of which Gretna has never been. It was also clear that Gretna was the plaything of a highly unorthodox man - a maverick with a personal mission, possibly a personal agenda having been knocked back previously by Carlisle? I believe. Brooks Mileson said it all as far as I was concerned when an interviewer put it to him that they would need a major stadium in Gretna. He said he would quite simply build one and when challenged about how full it would be he said he didn't care in the least. The SPL wanted a stadium so they would get one. (Which of course they didn't anyway.) He made it quite clear that he was going to keep pouring money in until they reached the SPL with no heed at all to prudence. It's a bit difficult to criticise someone who is very ill, but you have to take a very critical look at the apparently attention seeking mindset of someone who transforms his dreadful lifestyle into a public virtue and writes columns for the Sun, boasting about how he smokes 100 cigarettes a day and lives on Lucozade. Gretna came to a Faustian arrangement with Brooks but it seems they got nothing like 24 extra years of life. Now it seems they are going to the Devil. It was painfully obvious from the very start that a club like Gretna, lacking all the fundamentals that it did, would only have a limited lifespan which would terminate rapidly at the first significant difficulty on the part of a benefactor who simply bought their way for them up the leagues. I could never understand why there was so much awe at Gretna's "rise". With the kind of money that was thrown at them, it would have been stange if this had not happened. This was clearly a house of cards right from the start and it has now suffered what was always its inevitable fate. I just don't understand how so many people were conned for so long.

I was on a different floor of the book depository with a different rifle. My friend from the Cuba section of the CIA was on the grassy knoll. The next day I grabbed the gun from Jack Ruby and shot Lee Harvey Oswald. :015: Seriously, though, I was swimming in a Life Boys gala at the old baths. I finished my race and walked round to my mother who told me "President Kennedy has been shot and killed." I heard that Bobby Kennedy had been assasinated when I was drinking a 1/3 pint bottle of free school milk in the quad at Inverness Royal Academy at interval. I learned that Teddy Kennedy had driven his car off the bridge at Chappaquidick with Mary Jo Kopechne on board whilst watching TV in my parents' house in Dores Avenue......

The whole thing is nonsense although I would tend to support some kind of obligation from non Brits who want to come and benefit from living here to make a genuine commitment to the country. Anyone remember Norman Tebbitt's "cricket test" where the criterion of Britishness was which country UK residents supported when England were playing Pakistan, India etc at cricket? Norman clearly forgot that north of the border there are 5 million people who p!ss themselves laughing every time England lose! But it's the part about the oath to the Queen that I find hilarious. Why should any youngster want to swear an oath of loyalty to this wee wifie with a bull-in-the-gub accent who has got her very well paid job because her ancestors were simply more unscrupulous thugs than their contemporaries? I also find supremely ironic the notion of Brits of many generations' standing swearing an oath of Britishness to this woman who is a mongrel mix of just about every nationality on the planet! And on the subject of swearing oaths of personal allegiance to a wee German wifie... think of what happened 70 years ago when a whole nation got itself involved in swearing such an oath to a wee German mannie....

"Donnerwetter"... "Gott in Himmel".... "Achtung, Spitfeuer!" I'd forgotten about these additional gems of Germanic idiom.