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Prince of Wales School - Dougal Gammie's Class 1953?
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Photogallery
Prince of Wales School - Dougal Gammie's Class 1953?
Photo + text by Ron Bullock
Dougal at the window. Prominent boy I remember well....think his name was D.T. Peal. Boy beyond him is
Mike Somen.
Someone out there must have taken much better classroom pictures than I, who lacked the courage to do full frontals!
Jitz Couperus recalls more of Dougal's classes:
We were not very kind to our teachers. There was Mr "Mac" Dugal who
attempted to teach us English. Due to his startlingly red nose and occasional
bloodshot eyes, he was accused, perhaps unfairly, of being over fond of a
wee dram. His classroom (architectural style WW2 barracks) was lit by
two rows of bulbs hanging by flex from the ceiling, each adorned by a
PWD-issue conical plastic shade. Some evil-minded brats connected each
row of light-sockets with a long sewing thread leading to a desk at the back
of the class. When this thread was pulled, that row of lights would swing in unison.
On the great day, Dugal disappeared briefly into the back room while
we penned our essays. On his return, he was met by a class where all
the pupils, wearing zombie-like expressions, were swaying side-to-side in unison
in their seats, while the two rows of lights swung backwards and forwards in
the same tempo. He stopped dead in his tracks. After a brief pause he muttered a
Gaelic oath and retreated back into his little storage room, where he stayed until
saved by the bell signifying the end of the period. He never mentioned it, and of
course none of his pupils ever brought it up. But we often wondered if he really
thought it was a case of the DT's or whether he understood it was our charitable
intent to frighten him off the bottle.
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