SmothPubs: Nicolson Institute

Showing posts with label Nicolson Institute. Show all posts

Saturday, 8 July 2017

Lives in the Lewis Landscape (and elsewhere): Book Review

Saints and Sinners: Tales of Lewis Lives, by Iain Smith with Joan Forrest. Stornoway, Acair, 2017. 180pp. £15. 25 illustrations.

'If there is a thread to the stories in “Saints and Sinners”, the authors have said, it is that they contribute something to an understanding of educational opportunity in late 19^th and early 20^th century Scotland.' Their method is to use stories, blended with analysis of developments and context based on thorough research in a variety of sources. The main title is not to be taken too literally; it would be stretching a point or two to ascribe either unblemished sanctity or lurid sinfulness to any of the protagonists, although they include examples of the devout – two who made religion their profession, and two who wished to - and the non-religious. The latter does not imply militant atheism but does extend to one ‘bleak description of Lewis religion’: "It regards art and beauty as lures of the devil or at best as profane pursuits unworthy of the seriousness of life."

Smith subverts one or two cherished myths, notably the one about a crofter's son having become Secretary of State for Scotland, which didn't happen, and makes good points about higher educational opportunities being more available to the better-off for a long time, as well as being unavailable to girls. The book is mostly about education (it is evident throughout that he knows this subject, and has a rooted knowledge of the island) with Chapter 4 relating the growth of the Nicolson Institute as a prestigious secondary school. Chapter 5, something of an exception – ‘An ordinary Shawbost family’ – uses family history to illustrate wider social changes across his parents' and grandparents' generations. These include: longevity; occupations; housing, domestic amenities; technology and utilities; the importance of fishing and crofting; and participation in the two world wars.

There are ten chapters, some co-written and revised from previously published versions, flanked by an introduction and conclusions (Ch.11), each ranging widely from its initial starting point, with many interconnections and by-ways. The stories and their sometimes surprising ramifications are, as the sub-title implies, about people. Individuals, most of whom may be characterised as outstanding beneficiaries, sometimes agents, of change in educational opportunity from the late 19^th through to the early decades of the 20^th century, take centre stage in turn, from a top civil servant and a headmaster, via academics and poets, a missionary, and an autodidact par excellence to a noted ‘Bohemian’ and friend of cultural celebrities. Inevitably the principal protagonists are male, a situation of which the authors are well aware. "The denial of opportunity to their female ancestors and indeed to many of their female contemporaries does not bear thinking about." (p.8)

Nevertheless the method of hunting up connections, including relations, means that if there was an index it would include several female names: the sister who first taught her autodidact brother his letters; the missionary’s mother-in-law (a daughter of explorer David Livingstone) who corresponded with Hans Christian Andersen; the single mother whose son became a Professor of Systematic Theology; the first Dux (Latin for 'leader', meaning top of the top class) of the Nicolson Institute who could not proceed to a degree, only to LLA (Lady Literate in Arts). Other benefits of the discursive but relevant style and collaborative method mean that, short though the book is, the reader is taken to different places, meets interesting people and learns something new about subjects that might not be expected from the overall theme.

At the same time, telling points are made and backed up by scrupulous research in a variety of sources, making this a real contribution to the history of Scottish education. ‘Formidable barriers of socio-economic status and gender’ were lowered thanks to innovations like bursaries and hostels, enabling ‘opportunities not afforded to earlier generations’. It was, however, ‘marginally wrong’ to assume ‘that such things would successively improve for each subsequent generation’. While ‘education as leading to social mobility can be overstated’ (p.169) it is taken to be undoubtedly a good thing, and its positive developments, while not unique to Lewis, are well exemplified there. Smith considers the Scottish school students of the 1950s and '60s ‘uniquely privileged’ but evidently sees hope in new online opportunities which mean that high achievers or the academically ambitious no longer need to go ‘away’ to have a chance of realising their potential.

Fraserburgh 1907:
The couple at the heart of the 'family' chapter

Golden Wedding:
Bain Square, Stornoway, 1957

P.S. This review should perhaps come with a declaration of interest. Not only has the Isle of Lewis been a recurrent theme on this blog*, so also has the writing of Calum Smith, author of Around the Peat-Fire (Edinburgh, Birlinn, 2001; 'Anthology' edition 2010) - a book mentioned in several footnotes and in the text by Iain Smith (Calum's nephew).

Wednesday, 22 March 2017

Stornoway schooldays: More on the Nicolson

Adapted from correspondence between two former pupils of the Nicolson Institute, Stornoway (Primary and Secondary), both born in 1920 (excerpts)

School 1925-34 [aged 5-14]

The old Nicolson Institute school provided education which was second to none in all of Scotland. {Origins etc.*}

The curriculum of the school would be the envy of many schools today. There was English, History, Geography, Maths (arithmetic, algebra, geometry), Languages (Latin, French and German – no Gaelic), Music, Wood- and Metalwork, Science, Domestic Science, Art and Gymnastics.
After the Qualifying Exam we were divided up into three groups for our Secondary Education – classes , B and C. The bright ones were in class A. Guess which class I was in. The only subjects I was interested in were woodwork and art. At that time I fancied being a woodwork teacher. The art teacher Mr Chalmers said I should get a job where I had to use my hands. Was there an implication there that I would be no use for anything intellectual?

Most of the female teachers got their title of “Miss” like Miss Black, Miss Cheyne or Miss Stobo (she was music teacher) but the men got names like Cloggy, Soup, Vecan, Big Uggie, Little Uggie etc. [Aeroplane story here too - see below]

Not all the pupils on the “C” classes were dunces. Many went on to very distinguished careers not only in this country but all over the world.

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Cloggy used to say – don’t use nice because it is not a nice word, and don’t use that word awful...

Mentioning Cloggy brings to mind a picture of him cycling from Seaforth Road to school on a wet and windy morning wearing leggings cut from an old boiler suit or dungarees, one was brown and the other was blue. The poor soul did his best but he was never able to teach me to spell properly…

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I found some more bits you might be interested in as well. I hope you've got plenty of room in your paper recycling bin. I blame Cloggy because I've been writing doggerel for years.

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How lucky we were to have a good Nicolson Institute education… The NI of course taught languages – English, French and Latin but not Gaelic, it was very taboo at that time. Do you remember the pseudo Latin verse about Cloggy,

Amo Amas Amat, Cloggy wears a hat

Amamus Amatis Amant, he wears it on a slant.

There’s another language (or should I say lingo) in which only those within walking distance of Perceval Square were conversant, called SY as she is spoke.

Examples of "old SY" (Stornoway), the "lingo" of street and playground

[... which is, being interpreted (more or less): Cove = mate, man; "a place in Inverness" refers to the (former) asylum, Craigdunain, as in "There's a place in Inverness for the likes of you!"; the hoil = harbour (water); okrach (spelling varies) = municipal rubbish dump]

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Did you see the picture of the seaplane that was wrecked in Stornoway harbour? I remember I was in Vegan's class [aged 10, c1930, probably Primary 6] when we heard the sound of the planes. The whole of the clock school rushed outside and there was what looked like two model planes in the sky. Of course we had never seen an aeroplane before so we didn't know how big a plane was. I still have a souvenir from that plane, a bit of one of the aerolens which I made into a paper knife which I use almost every day.
{AC told this story more than once, in slightly different words]:
Do you remember the first time aeroplanes came to Stornoway? We were in Vecan’s class so with a little mental computing that would make it about 1930. We heard the noise of the engines and the whole class ran out en masse and we saw what looked like two model planes overhead. We had never seen an aeroplane before, so we did not know size they were. One of them came to grief, its outer right float was knocked off and it finished up on the beach between the Battery and Lower Sandwick (that’s where the ocroch was in those days. It was a Write-off. I still have a souvenir from it which I use almost every day, a bit of an aileron which I made into a paper knife/letter-opener.
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You will remember Vegan of course. I have a copy of a book he wrote called Peat Fire Memories ([ISBN given] by Kenneth MacDonald). He also wrote poems and Gaelic plays. I remember one of the songs he wrote called “An Cabar Suidhe” which means “sooty rafters”, a derogatory term used to describe an old thatched house with the fire in the middle of the floor… I wonder if you know how Vegan got his nickname (quite sure he was not a strict vegetarian)... Another thing about V-Kan; if it is from the Gaelic, there is no V and no K in the Gaelic alphabet…

"Veecan" (spelling varies) from his book as above.

(In Calum Smith's book, Around the Peat-Fire, "Kenneth Macdonald, Sandwick" is on the list of "Names that spring to mind" from among the "goodly band of socialist propagandists operating in and around Stornoway" in the interwar years (p.111 in 2001 edition).

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One incident I remember was when I tried to follow (big brother) Calum to school. I was of course chased back…

In spite of my early abortive attempt I did eventually go to school.

With everyone else I had my eyes tested by the school optician, but when Miss Reid, primary one, called me out to collect them [glasses] I told her just to keep them herself because she needed them more than me.

The next attempt at getting me to wear glasses was a couple of years later in Miss Montgomery’s class. She said [AC] Collect these glasses at the end of class. Then the wee clipe (tell-tale) next to me put his hand up and said, “Please Miss, AC says he is just going to break the glasses.” She sent them round to Miss Bell Morrison’s for Calum to take them home. They did live for a while but I remember using the lenses for windows of a model boat I made. I had a bad squint in my left eye in those days but it seems to have cured itself without glasses.

The Clock School: some primary classes were still being taught there in the 1950s

* AC's version of the old school's origin and ethos, as carried in memory and conveyed in his memoirs, runs thus:
The school was instituted and founded by the five Nicolson brothers, hence the name. The school badge is in the shape of a shield depicting five entwined burning torches and underneath the legend "Sequamur" which is Latin for "Let us follow". This to imply that we should go forth into the world and make a success of life as they did. The school colours and tie are dark blue and yellow.

A survivor from the Nicolson in the 1930s
(owned by AC's friend and correspondent),

And certificates (1929 and 1934) showing subjects studied at Junior Secondary level:

English, History, Geography, Mathematics, Science and French

English, History, Geography, Mathematics, Science, Latin

Friday, 20 January 2017

Alternative Burns Night in Stornoway

Stornoway Historical Society Lecture

The Nicolson Institute: Myth and Reality

"The third in the Society's 2016/17 winter series of lectures will be held on Wednesday 25 January 2017 at 7.00 p.m. in the Council Chambers, Sandwick Road. Our guest speaker will be Iain RM Smith who will presenting a talk on the subject of 'The Nicolson Institute: Myth and Reality'.

"Iain Smith was born on the Island of Lewis in 1947 and educated at Lionel School, at The Nicolson Institute, and at the University of Glasgow. He spent some 40 years as a school teacher and then higher education lecturer, initially in secondary schooling and then extensively in teaching teachers, latterly as Dean of Education (2001-2007) at the University of Strathclyde.

"Iain Smith has researched and written about school teaching and - more recently and more interestingly - about Hebridean educational history. He and his wife Joan Forrest are currently working on a book. It is about early 20th century secondary schooling and university access, notably in the Hebrides.

"Entry is by donation at the door. All welcome."

(Of course this would not preclude attendance at a traditional supper too!)

A snippet from 1959:-

First impressions of science lessons on 1A in the Nicolson, August 1959
(from a letter written by a contemporary of the speaker).