1968: 1970: Andrew Pyle: Kilquhanity Pupil
Author and Administrator of the Aitkenhead Archives
I remember visiting Kilquhanity in Spring of 1968. My father drove my mum and myself down from Glasgow where we were living.
My memory is that they said we were going to visit a school that mum’s social work student friend had told her about. A school run by her parents. She was Val Aitkenhead. Just another day out – or so I thought!
On arrival I do remember parking up on the gravel in front of the main house; kids running about, some playing football, others on a giant see-saw made from a single tree trunk. All dressed casually. All ignoring us and getting about their own activity.
I think John appeared on the front steps and welcomed us. He invited my parents upstairs to the Top Landing flat – John and Morag’s home and suggested I join in with the kids. He asked a lad with Beatles haircut called Danny if we would look after me, ‘show him around please, Danny. Danny dressed in T-shirt and grey-checked Bermuda shorts took ‘charge’. He was American from San Francisco.
Danny showed me round the school ‘estate’; the places kids played, had lessons, the ‘farm’, his hut, we met other kids and generally joined in. So easy, so relaxed, so welcoming.
After some time – I think it was John appeared and said to come upstairs where Mum and Dad were in John and Morag’s sitting room, chatting, drinking tea. I don’t remember the conversation but no doubt they asked me what I thought.
On returning to Glasgow, Mum and Dad asked if I would like to go to Kilquhanity. Yes.
But why?
I was born in 1953, the youngest of 4 children. My father had been a mathematics and science teacher before the War but during the course of the war, in which he was a conscientious objector, and following a colleague’s suicide he turned further towards the Christian faith. On cessation of war, he returned to study at Cambridge University and later was ordained as a minister in the Congregational Church.
In 1952 he took up a position as Lecturer in Religious Study at the University of Accra in the, then, Gold Coast, of Africa. For the next five years the family would spend the academic year in Africa and return to England for the summer vacation.
I was born in the Manse at Tidworth Hampshire, where my maternal Grandfather was the village, Minister. In 1957 Gold Coast was the first African country to gain independence from Great Britain becoming the new nation of Ghana. My parents decided to leave the University and my father took up the position of Tutor at Cheshunt college in Cambridge where we stayed until 1965.
I attended Newnham Croft Primary School (as well as some other Kilquhanity students at a later date!) which I enjoyed making several good friends and doing well in my studies. Passing the 11-Plus exam I proceeded to attend the County high School for Boys in Cambridge in 1964. All my friends from Newnham Croft went to other schools. That year I was unsuccessful in academic study and remember being slippered by a particularly authoritarian Science Master – for presenting untidy homework.
In 1965 with my parents, I moved to Glasgow following my father’s appointment as a senior lecturer in Principles of Religion. My two brothers and sister remained in Cambridge. In Scotland children start secondary school one year later than children south of the border. This meant that in all subjects I was repeating the study from my first year in Cambridge. This resulted in me doing very well academically but becoming resented by my fellow first year kids for being not only English but a ‘swot’.
Second and third year at Jordanhill College School resulted in a significant downturn in my achievements both with friends and with study. I took comfort in swimming almost everyday at the University Swimming Baths to which we had free access.
My parents, aware of my lack of enthusiasm for study were quite concerned. My mother at that time had taken up study for a Diploma in Social Work at the University of Glasgow. It was here that she met and became friends with Val Aitkenhead.
Oddly enough, in later years, returning to Glasgow with long hair and bell-bottom trousers I became a bit of a ‘celebrity’ at school parties.
