Early Life
Grew up on my father’s croft at Balmeanach, a small crofting township half way between Struan and Dunvegan on the Isle of Skye. Educated at Vatten Bridge Primary School and Portree High School where I had to stay during the week in the Elgin Hostel for boys which at that time accommodated boys from Harris and Uist as well as from those areas of Skye that were not served by a daily bus service. The bonds of friendship forged in the hostel environment have been strong and long lasting. I am still in regular touch with a number of my fellow hostel pupils. My secondary education was a pleasant experience and I cannot begin to measure the influence the teachers I came into contact with had on my development as a person – Ian Murray who was rector at the time, John Steel, Farquhar Maclean, Calum MacLeod, George Hodson, Robin Murray etc etc.
Little did I realise then that Portree High School was to play such a big part in my later life.
After secondary school I went on to Glasgow University and eventually graduated with a B. Sc. in Physics and Mathematics.
Working Life
Joined the City of Glasgow Police on Boxing Day 1961 and was posted to Maryhill Division where I spent two years on the beat – day shift and night shift with one day off per week. You certainly saw life in the raw in Maryhill on Friday & Saturday nights and on Glasgow Fair Friday which was our busiest night of the year. There were a lot of Highlanders in the Glasgow Police at that time and it was not unusual to have a conversation with colleagues in Gaelic.
In 1964 I went to the Forensic Science Dept. which was part of the Identification Bureau at Force Headquarters at that time. Although it took me away from the hurly burly of street policing it did have the attraction of a steady day shift (8.30 till 5.30) with one week in four on call during the night, once you had gained sufficient experience. Forensic Science today has seen huge advances in methodology and technology and is a long way from what it was in these early days, but ours was the only forensic laboratory in the West of Scotland which meant that we worked on cases from all areas ranging from Dumfries up to Orkney and Shetland and we frequently had to attend courts all over Scotland to give evidence. I think I must have given evidence in most of the courts in Scotland at some time or other.
We were inevitably involved in almost all the high profile cases that hit the headlines at that time – probably the most notable that I was associated with was the murder of Rachel Ross in Ayr which resulted in the arrest and conviction of a well known Glasgow criminal Patrick Connelly Meehan. His accomplice at that time was a man called James Griffiths who was killed by police in a shoot out that started when they went to arrest him in his flat in Great Western Road. Paddy was sentenced to life imprisonment but was later given a free pardon and released after serving seven years – this was after a long campaign on his behalf by the celebrated lawyers Joe Beltrami, Sir Nicholas Fairbairn Q.C. and the author and broadcaster Ludovic Kennedy. The whole story is told most graphically in Kennedy’s book “A Presumption of Innocence”. His research for this book was just astonishing – I remember him coming to Skye three times to interview me on the forensic evidence in that case, particularly the pieces of paper that had been found in Griffiths’ jacket pocket.
I also remember giving evidence in the High Court in Inverness in connection with a murder that had taken place in Barvas in Lewis – our evidence concerned burned papers found in the accused’s house, but if memory serves me right a verdict of “Not Proven” was returned by the jury.
I also remember being a witness in the last case brought against the famous safeblower Johnny Ramensky, who during the war had been taken out of Barlinnie prison and parachuted behind enemy lines to blow a safe in a German military base and steal secret papers. I was fascinated by this stocky little placid looking man who seemed to be addicted to a criminal lifestyle and who had gained such notoriety by escaping from all the prisons in which he had been incarcerated. He was the subject of Matt McGinn’s famous song “Open up your prison gates and let Ramensky go”.
Johnny died, a broken and embittered man in Peterhead prison.
After almost ten years in the police service I resigned, went to Jordanhill College of Education and set out on my second career – teaching.
My first teaching post was in a small rural East African village called Machakos, about 40 miles from Nairobi, where I did a two year contract with the Ministry of Overseas Development as a teacher of Physics and General Science. These two years in Kenya were idyllic, doing a job that enjoyed such status and was so much appreciated by pupils and by my African colleagues. The climate, the way of life, the wildlife, the holidays at the beaches of Mombasa will all live with me forever, but the abiding memory will be of a poor but happy and resourceful people.
At the end of our contract we came home and I eventually secured a post as a teacher of Physics and Warden of the hostel at my old school, Portree High. Going back as a member of staff and meeting as colleagues some of my former teachers was a strange experience but they made me feel most welcome. A number of my fellow pupils were also on the staff then, Alister Ross who was Depute Head, Janet MacLeod Asst Head, Stanley Robertson, Head of Chemistry, D R MacDonald, Head of Gaelic, later joined by others such as Ian George MacDonald, Robert MacDonald, Murdina Stewart, Shona Cormack etc etc. That must be one of the great strengths of schools like Portree – the large percentage of teachers from the ranks of former pupils.
I took early retirement in 1991 just as Gaelic Medium pupils were beginning to feed through from the GM primaries, and, after a few years doing other things I was eventually lured back as a part time teacher of Gaelic Medium Science and Maths. Thus began the most enjoyable and most fulfilling part of my entire teaching career. Because I was part time I was not burdened with the overwhelming bureaucracy which is the bane of teachers’ lives today – I simply taught my classes, wrote their annual reports and met with their parents on parents’ evenings. That was so enjoyable – small classes, really nice well motivated pupils and supportive parents, and being part of that great success story, Gaelic Medium education.
I finally retired a few years ago but I am kept busy translating Science teaching materials into Gaelic. I am also involved in the course for Gaelic Medium subject teachers delivered by Sabhal Mor Ostaig and Aberdeen University – the “Cùrsa Streap”. This is an excellent course, not just for Gaelic Medium subject teachers, but also for Gaelic speaking teachers who at present do not teach their subjects through the medium of Gaelic but who may be interested in doing so in the future.
After retiral from teaching I became involved in Sir Iain Noble’s Gaelic charity “Urras an Eilein” and among many other projects we have arranged a number of visits to the great war sites of the Western Front where so many young Highlanders perished. We held remembrance services in Gaelic at all the places we visited and on our second trip we had the great pleasure of visiting St Valery-en-Caux along with two ex-Seaforths who had been captured there in June 1940. It was very moving to see how the people of St Valery honoured these two men – they even had a civic reception in the town hall where the two veterans were taken on stage and introduced to the Mayor who presented them with special medals. I consider myself especially privileged to have had the opportunity to meet, talk with and get to know such men.
These visits, along with other visits accompanying school groups and holidays with my wife when we have walked round the battlefields, have had a lasting impression on me – the horrors of the great battles fought around the town of Ypres where 100,000 who have no known grave are remembered by name on the great memorials to the missing, especially the Menin Gate where an act of remembrance is held every evening at 8pm, every night of the year. The Somme – scene of that blood-soaked massacre forever etched on the British psyche and whose very name conjures up all the horror of the Western Front – is another unforgettable area where you find so many Highlanders in the cemeteries and on the memorials that pepper the countryside. A television crew followed us on our first visit resulting in the acclaimed programme “Na Laoich”.
Latterly, however, my main pre-occupation has been my three grandsons who have brought such joy into my life and of whom I am so immensely proud.
ANNUAL OUTING 2017
The Gaelic Society's annual outing this year was to Sabhal Mòr Ostaig.
College staff, past and present, led by Professor Hugh Cheape (our Chief in 2016/17) described its history and future plans, and members were able to explore the original buildings and the new campus.
