Bell baxter lives section I former Pupils Contents

Eileen W Scotland

Alexander R C Scott

BBS 1943-50

August 1943 - first impressions of Bell Baxter – classmates – overcrowded classrooms – unwanted learning [Latin and Algebra]. Death of Rector Farquharson, arrival of Dr J E Dunlop – return of some staff members from the armed services.

Highers – the last ‘group’ award – my Music studies delayed until S6;

Teachers from whom I learnt – Bessie Cape, Alex Johnson, Barclay Sheddon, George Liddle, Willie Lindsay, John [‘Weary Wullie’] Wilson and Rae Livingstone;

STUDENT YEARS – NATIONAL SERVICE

Angus Hood [or Gilliesfaulds] and the Edinburgh University Opera Society – our production of Merrie England [my first assignment as a conductor] – selection as one of twelve student conductors with the Yorkshire Symphony Orchestra in Leeds [summer, 1952].

Award of the Bucher Travelling Scholarship – it had gone the previous year to another BBHS pupil, Sandy Hood, from Leslie – two-years postgraduate study of conducting in Hamburg.

Cedric Thorpe Davie’s assistant at the EIF Assembly Hall production of The Highland Fair – reworking of a ballad opera of the 1730s – [I directed two performances - my first professional engagement as a conductor].

Award of a Bell Baxter Scholarship which allowed me to attend the International Summer Academy in Salzburg [with classmates Danny Barenboim, Herbert Blomstedt and Bryden Thomson].

National Servive at No 3 Army Education Centre, Catterick – my immediate superior was WO1 Jim Allan – another BBHS FP.

FURTHER STUDIES – TEACHER TRAINING – SECONDARY TEACHING

1957-9 – joined the first post-war Honours History of Music course at EU and trained as a teacher at Moray House – began work with local Music Societies [Dunfermline Orchestra].

1959-61, taught at Dunfermline High School - 1961-66, PT Music at St Andrew’s RC High, Kirkcaldy – became conductor of Anstruther Philharmonic and two Edinburgh music societies – ’64 was the first of what became 34 years working for SCEEB – began taking WEA classes for EU Dept of Extra-Mural Studies and Fife county.

MORAY HOUSE – IN-HOUSE, PART-TIME AND SECONDMENTS

April, 1966 – lectureship at Moray House – ’67 began PhD studies at EU.

January 1970 was appointed Principal Lecturer in Music at Moray House – began 23 years of work as consultant for the GTC – edited three operas [performed two – the third is Vol LXVII of the Musica Britannica series] – supervised refurbishment of Old Moray House as the college’s music department – ’73-7 conductor of Edinburgh Royal Choral Union – [late ‘80s] became National Development Officer for the Scottish Curriculum Development Service.

IN RETIREMENT FROM FULL-TIME WORK

1993 – retired from full-time work – became Principal Examiner for the Certificate of Sixth-Year Studies in Music.

Late ‘90s was recalled by the Scottish Office to resume work as NDO – wrote the Higher Still Music syllabus and edited teacher support materials.

For the past eight years I have been concert and opera reviewer for the Edinburgh Evening News.

Sandy rounded off his career in 1997 with a return to Bell Baxter, as he explains:

"With a 65th birthday in May of this year, I fell due to resign from SEB/SQA work Thirty-four years of service made me, so I was led to believe, senior examiner in terms of time - by a fair margin. It seemed a good idea to sign off in the establishment where I had been a pupil; and so, after pulling a string or two, I eventually found myself in Bell Baxter for the first time in about twenty-five years. Having visited quite literally hundreds of schools over many years of teacher training and examining, it felt more or less as the last one had - on the other side of Glasgow or wherever. There was, in other words, nothing familiar around me as I walked through the front door and introduced myself to secretarial staff.

It was when, in a spare moment, I looked out of the window of the examining room over towards St. John's and the Bonnygate churches that I began to feel more at home. Barclay Sheddon, to whose widow I have just written, used to be organist of the latter; and Georgina Gorrie, one of my father's ca. 1920 contemporaries, presided at the former.

He mentioned also that "the new BBHS car park encroaches on a berry field I used to gaffer over as a Gilliesfaulds employee of summer 1958."

MY FAMILY

Over a long career, my wife taught at Beath HS, Cranley School for Girls and George Heriot’s. She accompanied choral societies for many years in Dunfermline, Kirkcaldy and Anstruther, and she taught piano for Fife’s music diploma class.

Our daughter and her husband are obstetrician-gynaecologists. They work, among other hospitals, at Edinburgh Royal Infirmary. Our son is a GP. Having completed sixteen years in the RAMC, he works for a practice in Newton Aycliffe.