George Moonie
 

 At the time Walter Henderson was headmaster of Airdrie Academy.  Most teachers at the time had nicknames and his was ‘Flush’ due to his initials. You wouldn’t dare call him that to his face though!

 

I remember getting my smart blazer and satchel for starting the Academy. To me, it was whole other world. I had no idea what I was in for at the Academy. It was a school for the elite, the academics. Everybody studied Latin and classes were organised in order of merit 1A, 1B, 1C so on.

 

Airdrie Academy at the time I attended had around 600 pupils. The school was very much a community. As new first years, we very quickly got to know the other pupils and we got to know the teachers who looked out for us. They were very strict but always encouraged us to do our best and take our studies seriously.

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 My very first lesson was with the English teacher Miss Sneddon also known as ‘Bunty’.  She was my registration teacher. She was very ladylike. I remember the way she worked and the kind way she treated her pupils who were from mainly working-class backgrounds.

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 I also remember the head of Modern Languages, a teacher called Miss Johnston with the nickname ‘Annabelle’. You didn’t want to cross her!

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Our class French teacher was a lady called Miss Lana Turner. She was tiny, only around 4ft10”. She was a very funny lady who would tell us of her holidays in France but of course, at the time, we monsters couldn’t even tell you where France was on a map! In first year, there was a boy in my class called Henry Knox. He was very tall for his age.  As with most young boys, as a group we were quite boisterous and quite cheeky. There was a day Miss Turner  wanted to give Henry the belt but he was so tall she could not reach. She swung the belt so high that she literally jumped off of her feet! She still managed to strike him though and it was sore. You didn’t really get the belt unless it was deserved and on that occasion it really was.

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A big influence on me during my time at Airdrie Academy was a PE teacher called Bill ‘Paw’ Brown who encouraged me to pursue different sports. At first, he seemed to be scary, strict and huge but was actually a very kind and helpful teacher.

 

My memories of the teachers I encountered at the Academy are overall very positive. Of course, there were some characters and some who didn’t do their best by the pupils. The teachers were always dressed very smartly, and a number still wore their traditional black gowns when in classes. They all set exacting standards. They all had high expectations and they maintained discipline extremely well.

 

Uniform was a big thing. I remember the rector, Walter Henderson, standing at the school gates telling pupils that if they had no blazer they had to go home. Standards of uniform throughout my time at Airdrie Academy were extremely high. Thinking back now, many years later, I know that the discipline instilled in me at school prepared me for life beyond the gates.

 

A big influence on me was a mathematics teacher called Miss Jessie Richie. She was very kind and encouraged me to do my best. I learned the important skill of mental arithmetic which stayed with me throughout all my years in business in the furniture industry. I will always be grateful to Jessie Richie for this. She was a lovely lady.

 

Other teachers from my time at school include John ‘Daddy’ Allan, Roy ‘Might Joe’ Young, Stuart Ross who taught Physics and Bill ‘Paw’ Brown the PE teacher who greatly influenced me. I remember a music teacher called Willie ‘Claude’ Gibson. For music, we would go to a prefabricated ‘hut’ building. One time Claude was retrieving singing books from a cupboard and some of the boys in my class decided to lock him in. Some got the belt for that!

 

Next door to music was the domestic science teacher Miss Marie Henderson, nicknamed ‘Lollylegs’. In 1957 she had organised an event something to do with the United Nations in the assembly hall. It was a special exhibition with displays from all over the world. They had invited distinguished guests and offered samples of foreign cuisines that were brand new to us. My memory of that day concerns a young and very beautiful French language assistant who came to Airdrie from the island of Martinique in the Caribbean. She was dressed up in traditional costume. I'm sure her name was Dominique. She was truly fascinating. I had never seen a person of colour before. She was beautiful. As a young lad of 13, I spent all my time chatting to her. I don't recall the spaghetti eating competition however that may have happened that day and I was unaware.

 

When I was at Airdrie Academy, there was a real sense of camaraderie. We were all in it together. The school was relatively small with around 600 pupils.  I remember PE or gym lessons vividly. At the time, there was an open grassy space in between the cloisters that we called the quadrangle. We had many sports lessons there. There were also separate indoor gym halls for boys and for girls. There was a PE teacher called Sheila Marshall. She wore a blue Olympic gym slip and was very popular with the boys. One time we were getting Scottish country dancing lessons I remember the numbers were uneven SO she made me dance with Henry Knox. Remember, Henry was over 6 foot tall so that was no mean feat!