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Anyone know if they still keep lists of the school duces (duxes?) from the early 20th century? What other records do the have from that time?

I believe they would also have lists of the Proxime Accesserunt :laugh:

 

Inverness Royal Academy has a superb archive which has been built up by the former Head of Geography Robert Preece over the last 20 odd years. It includes extensive records going back to the 18th century including Directors' Minutes and Rectors' Log Books as a huge photographic archive.

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Cheers, I believe a great aunt of mine was the dux in the early 1900s, would like to follow up on that some day, she was from a working class family, later became a nun, always an enigma.

 

What year were you the dux CB? :smile:

I was never dux. :cry: In these days the duces :smile: were from Sixth Year by which time I had my unconditional for Edinburgh so spent much of my time joyriding about the town and the area. Might have been in with a shout in Fifth Year but entirely my own fault in S6.

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Cheers, I believe a great aunt of mine was the dux in the early 1900s, would like to follow up on that some day, she was from a working class family, later became a nun, always an enigma.

 

What year were you the dux CB? :smile:

I was never dux. :cry: In these days the duces :smile: were from Sixth Year by which time I had my unconditional for Edinburgh so spent much of my time joyriding about the town and the area. Might have been in with a shout in Fifth Year but entirely my own fault in S6.

 

 

Way too clever even back then. :smile:

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So your great Aunt was a Duxess ?  Dougie Danger.

 

Wow. Clearly there was NUN like her. :laugh:

Indeed, a Merkincher no less, couldn't have been many like her, spent a lot of her life in Africa.

 

In an earlier era (pre50s/60s) the many outstanding performances of Merkinchers apparently created an unwelcome challenge to the institutionalised snobbery which was a feature of the Royal Academy of old. Merkinchers were treated like second class citizens in a place where the Crown was regarded as trhe only part of Inverness worth a damn (suggests this Dalneigh boy!).

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So your great Aunt was a Duxess ?  Dougie Danger.

 

Wow. Clearly there was NUN like her. :laugh:

Indeed, a Merkincher no less, couldn't have been many like her, spent a lot of her life in Africa.

 

In an earlier era (pre50s/60s) the many outstanding performances of Merkinchers apparently created an unwelcome challenge to the institutionalised snobbery which was a feature of the Royal Academy of old. Merkinchers were treated like second class citizens in a place where the Crown was regarded as trhe only part of Inverness worth a damn (suggests this Dalneigh boy!).

 

 

That's what I like about her, it must have got it right up the Crown mob that a wee lassie from the Merkinch beat them all academically. I guess she didn't have too many options after school-what would a girl in her position have done job-wise? She must also have had some kind of faith/spiritual change to convert to Catholicism later. 

 

I mind we had to be on our best behaviour on the rare occasions she would come to visit her brother, my granda, in Dalneigh. 

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It was snobby in the fifties too....... :lol:

I think that by the second half of the 60s when I was there it was beginning to change but that snobbishness was still a pretty recent memory. There was also a bit of a perception that the "gentlemen" played in the rugby teams while the "oiks" played football.

As Dougie says, it was good to "get it right up them" and on at least two occasions in the 60s, Dalneigh kids took two of the top three places in class 2A and on one of these, all three of the top spots in English.

 

What have I just said.... Dalneigh kids expert at the Unglash longwudge :crazy:

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The only two boys in my class at the Academy who caused trouble were  two over steroidal nutters whose  sole reason for coming to school was , seemingly , to  drive Boosey the music teacher to total distraction. The poor guy was the genuine article and  he was driven to not only distraction but tears  and I felt really sorry for him. The name of one of these boys was Willie (Allen I think)and he was  the main culprit--there for the laughs only and  a perfect  little bugger from the Ferry.

 

Oh yes and both were bright too but a musical career was never high on their agenda, not compared to banging desk lids anyway.

I wonder if they ever looked back and have pangs of  guilt at how they drove the poor guy nearly mental.

 

For a detailed account of how a sane man was nearly turned into a quivering shadow,. for a reasonable sum of money, sent me a PM with a photo of a postal Order Postal to verify your solvency. Credit Reports will not be requested since you are an exalted member of this site. Warning--the  hidden video will contain acidic  inhumanity and will not be suitable for children under the age of 7 years whose names may be " Warbler" or "Spy" or " Moremore" :laugh:

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The only two boys in my class at the Academy who caused trouble were  two over steroidal nutters whose  sole reason for coming to school was , seemingly , to  drive Boosey the music teacher to total distraction. The poor guy was the genuine article and  he was driven to not only distraction but tears  and I felt really sorry for him. The name of one of these boys was Willie (Allen I think)and he was  the main culprit--there for the laughs only and  a perfect  little bugger from the Ferry.

 

 

By the time I got to the Academy, Boosey had retired but was back doing supply work. It was well known that the poor guy just had no control over classes and those of malevolent intent could run riot with impunity. He arrived in the school in the early 1940s after his predecessor as Head of Music dropped dead and, given the amount of stress he must have been under, I'm surprised he didn't meet the same fate.

Why on earth he came back to do supply, I'll never know but here he was, still with his famous bike, smoking his pipe and with the briefcase slung round the bar.

For the benefit of the uninitiated, he wasn't called Boosey for any reason related to drink - the link was the music publishers Boosey and Hawkes and his real name weas Lawrence Rodgers.

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It's like Hogwart's FFS.

Very true! The photo which IHE has produced is quite a well known one. It shows the Rector D.J. MacDonald taking "prayers" (aka assembly) in the 50s. The teachers, of whom I can recorgnise one or two, are sat round the walls. (Anybody of a certain age able to spot Hairy Hugh?)

Brian Denoon, ex Head of English at the High School, has a smashing anecdote about one of the First Year boys who in this photo can be seen standing to either side of the Rector. Apparently one boy simply fainted and was scraped up off the floor by the Janitor and removed from the Rectorial presence so the proceedings could continue.

In these days assembly was held in what later because the library, after the big extension, including a new hall, was added in the early 60s.

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It's like Hogwart's FFS.

Very true! The photo which IHE has produced is quite a well known one. It shows the Rector D.J. MacDonald taking "prayers" (aka assembly) in the 50s. The teachers, of whom I can recorgnise one or two, are sat round the walls. (Anybody of a certain age able to spot Hairy Hugh?)

Brian Denoon, ex Head of English at the High School, has a smashing anecdote about one of the First Year boys who in this photo can be seen standing to either side of the Rector. Apparently one boy simply fainted and was scraped up off the floor by the Janitor and removed from the Rectorial presence so the proceedings could continue.

In these days assembly was held in what later because the library, after the big extension, including a new hall, was added in the early 60s.

Mr Denoon was my English teacher in the High School. Brilliant teacher. Also taught in Fort Augustus I believe...Is there a similar thread on here for High School memories?

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Mr Denoon was my English teacher in the High School. Brilliant teacher. Also taught in Fort Augustus I believe...Is there a similar thread on here for High School memories?

 

If you start one there might be .......

  • Agree 1
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