Inverness - Above street level.

[Second Row]

8 minutes ago, Scarlet Pimple said:

 

walk up the front steps of the school and enter the main hall. Keeping to the left side of the hall she was in either the first or second left side room just past D.J's lectern.

 

 

 

Well......just to add to the confusion.......my Goodsir/Matheson meeting took place in the last classroom, also on the left side of the Main Hall. Yes, I think I remember Miss Cuthbert's room being next door and closer to the main entrance.

@C.B......What was Miss Goodsir's first name?

 

[Scarlet Pimple]

Not Godiva by any chance was it?

[Charles Bannerman]

50 minutes ago, Second Row said:

Well......just to add to the confusion.......my Goodsir/Matheson meeting took place in the last classroom, also on the left side of the Main Hall. Yes, I think I remember Miss Cuthbert's room being next door and closer to the main entrance.

@C.B......What was Miss Goodsir's first name?

 

I think it was Sylvia.

[Second Row]

6 minutes ago, Charles Bannerman said:

I think it was Sylvia.

Thanks, but doesn't ring a bell.

[Scarlet Pimple]

The ladies may not be "Lookers", Chas, but It's the boys who are the real  lookers. The mere fact that the girls have developed into young women is enough to keep the laddies' interest.

[IBM]

9 hours ago, Second Row said:

Getting back on track after Miss Goodsir putting you guys way off topic   That is the top front corner of the Station Hotel on Academy Street where I thought you had taken the photo of the Rose Window from.

[IBM]

3 hours ago, Scarlet Pimple said:

And, IBM , yes that's a long ladder all right  up against the front of that building. I would say at least 30 feet in length. I've been up that height but I did not feel comfortable at all.The foot seems to be awfully close to the curb and, if it slipped off, the laddie on it would be a gonner. You need to maintain the feet about 3 feet of distance from the wall for every ten feet of height.

There you go, another little bit of back talk from the Workers Compensation Board.

I was never very comfortable working of a ladder at a lesser height than that, it was ok up a telephone pole as your ladder was tied to the pole and you had your safety belt on so you could work with both hands.  Laterely before I retired you had a full body harness with safety rope that would take you about 15 minutes to get set up before you climbed!

[Second Row]

IBM..you certainly know your way round the Town.

[Second Row]

[IBM]

1 hour ago, Second Row said:

High Street above what is now Superdrug although I can't remember what was there before, always very observant and memory quite good at the moment 

[Second Row]

That's right!

I'll have to sort out a really difficult one tomorrow.

[Second Row]

 

[IBM]

Easy one for me today St Michaels Church Abban Street, I will give others a chance for the next one!

[Second Row]

Phew!!

[Second Row]

[Charles Bannerman]

Young St?

[Second Row]

Well done,C.B.

Corner of Young Street and Alexander Place.

[+DoofersDad]

That's easy for Charles.  He's got Turrets syndrome.  

[Second Row]

@C.B. 

How about identifying all the classrooms, top and bottom floors, for us olde Caddy Rats?

[Charles Bannerman]

49 minutes ago, Second Row said:

@C.B. 

How about identifying all the classrooms, top and bottom floors, for us olde Caddy Rats?

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).

[Charles Bannerman]

1 hour ago, DoofersDad said:

That's easy for Charles.  He's got Turrets syndrome.  

F**k off!.... Sh**e!!!.... Bo***cks!!!!

[+snorbens_caleyman]

2 minutes ago, Charles Bannerman said:

Ground floor (L-R) - R2 Maths (Patsy "Froggy" Forbes), R3 usually Maths (various, but frequently Ma Hardie) R4 Classics (Jess Thomson)

I started at bottom right.  Room 4 - Jess - Latin.  I then became too traumatised to continue.

In my days (68-74), Jess - a dux of the school in the mid-1920s, IIRC - was about or beyond retirement age. She was (or seemed to be) over 6 feet tall - would have been taller if she didn't have a stoop. She had a fierce and formidable manner, and she could often be seen having a lively natter with herself whilst walking through town.

I still have the bruises from the day I mispronounced something.  "BOY!!!", she screamed.  "That is NOT how you say that. They would have laughed at you in the Forum in Rome!".  All the while she was punching me on the arm.   "Mind you, with your colour of hair [red] they would have recognised that you were a barbarian from the outer reaches of the Empire. So they might have forgiven you. But I'm not going to!!".

At this point it's customary to go dewy-eyed and nostalgic, and to say what a character she was, but the truth is that I loathed every minute of it.  Apart from in summer, when I was taking medication for hay fever, and had to tell her that I was quite likely to fall asleep during double Latin

[Second Row]

2 hours ago, Charles Bannerman said:

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).

@C.B.

Thanks for such a detailed reply. It brings life to the photo.

If I remember correctly, I think Pop Frewin's retreat was on the ground floor under Boosey's room. (To the left of that entrance.)

 

[Charles Bannerman]

1 hour ago, Second Row said:

@C.B.

Thanks for such a detailed reply. It brings life to the photo.

If I remember correctly, I think Pop Frewin's retreat was on the ground floor under Boosey's room. (To the left of that entrance.)

 

That was before my time Second Row but under Boosey's room in my day you had the boys' toilets and prefects' room. On the other hand by then the Depute (aka Second Master and by then David Thom) had a room in the new extension which wasn't there in your time. I am therefore following that the Depute's room was previously round about the boys' cloakroons.

[Scarlet Pimple]

Ah yes--the boys' cloakrooms. Where I deposited my brand new sparkling blue jumper (sweater) on a peg one fine day and found it gone by closing time and replaced by the scruffiest worn-out one that you could possibly imagine. Pity for the miscreant and indignation for the theft  battled within me until I got home and sheepishly reported the vicious act. Ma took it all in her stride and I then relaxed. Phew! 

Boosey, the music teacher,  was up one flight of stairs wasn't he? A couple of boys from the ferry drove him nuts and it actually was quite sad watching him go totally off his rocker. He nearly took Willie's head off once with the back of his hand and there were tears in the poor man's eyes. But Willie was tough and recovered very quickly. John, his buddy, was somewhat more circumspect and didn't push it by banging his wooden desk etc. as Willie was wont to do. However, both of them were told to stand outside the classroom door on more than one occasion. Mozart had never been their  flaming interest it seems. More like the Devil's Hymnal in B Flat would have been more appropriate for these two lads.

Anybody remember Mrs. MacDonald who taught Latin on the ground floor level off the great hall on the right side coming in the front door? Lived out Dores way with Donny, her lovely aging hubby. Friends with my mother and father and so I kept very quiet in the class and behaved myself until she asked me a question then I relaxed.  Phew! Them were the days.

Curly Stuart was a sarcastic SOB. If you were the Dux of the school in his French class he fawned over you but, according to him, I was not quite up to his standards. There was 4 of us in his once per week class and he lent over to me once and sneeringly said "You will never get your Lower French."  Must have been a surprise to him when I did.

Mr Frewin - wasn't he a math's teacher? And David Thom had the room at the top of the Hall stairs on the left in  my day.