Charles Bannerman

There may be a slight problem here with any change in the numbering system after 1961 when the "new" block was opened, but certainly from when I started in 1965 until the place ceased to be the Royal Academy in 1979, you were looking at (with occupants at that time):- Ground floor (L-R) - R2 Maths (Patsy "Froggy" Forbes), R3 usually Maths (various, but frequently Ma Hardie) R4 Classics (Jess Thomson) First floor - R11 Maths (Allan Wilson), R12 Maths (Murdo MacDonald then Ian "Skeenuck" MacDonald), R13 Maths (Janet Banks) and round the corner R23 Music (Ian Bowman and previously "Boosey") The corresponding rooms on the far side of the building were Ground - R36 English but the Library pre-1961 - (Alan Dougherty), R6 English (Eddie Hutcheon then Isolyn Urquhart), R5 Modern Languages (Kenny Campbell) Upper R7 English (Fritz aka Jacob Mowat, then Eddie Hutcheon) R16 Modern Languages Ellis "Curly" Stuart) R15 Modern Languages (Leonella Longmore) R14 often Latin (various but frequently Sheena Osler/Matheson).

Young St?

I think it was Sylvia.

Do you possibly mean Miss Eva MacKenzie? This is well before my time and based on a couple of the books Second Row spoke about. I've looked at a staff photo from 1956 where unfortunately the quality is very bad because it was a poor original done with 1995 reproduction technology. Certainly both Misses MacKenzie and Goodsir are in it and, although not a good photo, it does sort of seem that Miss Goodsir is (as John Inverdale famously said!) "not all that much of a looker". ( - PC alert!!!) The other book does indeed confirm that Miss Goodsir emigrated to NZ.

The second one is the East Church in Academy St. Is the first one the old Royal Academy at Midmills? If it is, then the photo is probably of my old English class Room 7. On the other hand, there's also something saying "Crown School" to me.

That was Hector Powe wasn't it?

"John Collier, John Collier...the window to watch." Anyone remember that TV advert? When I was a kid, the manager there was Peter MacGregor, Boys' Brigade captain of the 1st Company whose sons were also BB boys.... sorry Boys... it was always with a capital letter!

The manager gave a very full, 3 minute plus, interview to Charlie Mann of BBC Scotland after the Hamilton game. This is also quoted on BBC online and in addition he spoke to the written press. Having on very many occasions interviewed football managers just minutes after very painful, damaging and indeed career-threatening defeats, I have to say that, in the vast majority of cases, I only have the greatest of regard and respect for what they come out and do. OK, they are contractually obliged to do much of it but it really must be so hard on many occasions since they are severely hurting not only from a sporting/competitive point of view, but often with respect to their professional futures..

I think I'm going to keep out of this having been to..... well you can't really say "Damascus" these days... for my holidays, so let me just describe myself as having had a moment of Epiphany! In order to perform an administrative function with an organisation I'm involved with, I've had to join Facebook - with the collateral effect of having become aware of comments on the Facebook pages of the likes of the SNP, Nicola Sturgeon, Humza Yousaf and the National "newspaper". So, having taken a few scans through that lot, all I can say to the people on here is - sorry folks... I have probably been far too scathing of a lot you have said on here about the nationalist question, now I have seen the emanations of some of these other pages! I am actually being quite serious here by saying that. Compared with what I have now seen elsewhere from far more SNP supporters than you would ever find on here, the Nats on CTO present well argued, literate (especially literate!), polite cases with not an expletive, term of abuse or outburst of paranoia in sight. So with the genuine observation that Oddquine is actually a relative moderate, I will bid you all good night again and return to a much happier hunting ground for winding up nationalists!

I am not even going to express an opinion on the original question, but I really can't allow this nonsense about Scott Kellacher and Brian Rice to go unremarked. I am fully in agreement with Old Caley Girl's question a few posts ago - where is the evidence? Quite frankly Cable Guy's subsequent attempt to provide some is totally laughable. Would Cable Guy blame the Archbishop of Canterbury for the Great Train Robbery because he happened to be staying at a hotel nearby? Then you get the justification prefaced by "I quite often pass by Fort George and see the players playing...." which plumbs completely new depths of absurdity. This whole notion is straight out of a "Depute Heads Will Roll" storyline from Yes Minister. In fact as I write, Row S has just posted, giving me the inspiration to come up with the somewhat more credible notion of blaming the vanilla top! The situation:- Inverness Caledonian Thistle sits three points adrift at the bottom of the Premiership and five points adrift of 10th place (both plus goal difference). To reach the kind of points total that will avoid finishing bottom, the team needs to take more or less as many points from its last 15 games as it has so far from its first 23... and more than that to avoid a relegation play-off, most probably against Dundee United. The reason?: There is no single reason and I believe that what is happening at the moment is the kind of perfect storm of several adverse circumstances, some long term, some short term, which very often accompanies extreme situations like this. To remain consistent with my opening sentence, I will refrain from confirming or denying what I believe these circumstances to be.

I have a lot of sympathy for Mantis' payoff line about Sky. Wage levels are absurdly high in the EPL and are in turn forcing other clubs to live very dangerously. To be realistic, wage levels across the game are unrealistically high in relation to true market value and performamce levels. Even if you look at a stadium near you, does working productively once a fortnight in front of 3-4000 people and every alternate week to allow another club's players to do the same justify being paid a ballpark £1K a week? And you can possibly extend that question even further when applied to a stadium not quite so near you. Then there's the Highland League where some can get hundreds a week and four figure signing on fees for not being very good, training once or twice a week and playing in front of a few hundred. This is nonsense. DD makes a couple of very interesting points and I am going to have to think long and hard about the proposotion that smaller clubs can't afford decent players in relation to the question - where, then, are these decent players going if the rich clubs are already full of more decent ones? Then there's the question of compensation for having your game televised. Is that not, in effect, what the broadcasters already pay the leagues for through their contract fees?

More or less as I remember it from the thousands of times I traversed it going to or from school. Changed days now.

It's only a 2.2!

The first car I bought, in 1976, was a second hand Simca 1300 NJS 829 K. All I can say is that after that, the only way was up!

Trouble is that Elginloon now faces a Breach of Copyright action from across the Beauly Firth for applying terminology specific to "another place" to the wrong football club.

Doubt it. IHE, mouth open and beyond redemption, was probably at the end of the gully!

That's sort of ringing a bell with me too. Later we had the Hilton Mental Crew (HMC) although I was never sure who they were individually. By the way, that first photo is reminding me of the mental blank I seem to have about what happened to Hamilton street, as discussed in another thread. Even though I now see Hamilton St in that photo as having a boundary of the Eastgate Car Park along its bottom half or so, I just don't have that in my mind's eye from that period in the 70s and early 80s. Obviously I can visualise the current end wall of Marks and I can also visualise the original Washington Court building before it was demolished. But that edge of the car park being there in between seems to be a bit of a blank.

Was it the Palombos?

I suppose that may depend on how vital the home point ultimately turns out to be to the effort to avoid relegation.

On OAM, Martin Dowden did raise the possibility that the sun may have got in OFW's eyes at Elgin. This led Chic Young to ask how this could be the case if Barry Wilson was reporting thick fog at County v DU in Dingwall?

The game (Feb 11 or 12) will be 17 years almost to the day after the Ballistic Night To Remember.

Scarlet... crowd figures in BBC match reports aren't perhaps in the most prominent place. You need to go down to the bottom of the main report and shift the black panel from "Match Stats" to "Line Ups" on the left by clicking on the latter. You will then find the attendance at the very bottom, below the referee's name.

Is this what S Montrose.... Cowdenbeath.... East Stirling.... Clyde......

Do you not mean "Against All Odds Vol 2 - The Beating Of Elgin City"? (Please note that this intentionally frivolous comment was made 4 hours before KO at Borough Briggs!)