Arthur Bannister
Airdrie Academy has been a very big part of my life for over 30 years. I went there as a pupil in 1979, with Mr Charles Smith as the rector. I was placed in Cleddans house. Mr Archie Fallow and Mr Alex Shanks were my housemasters. Together, they were the best support system anyone could ask for.
I remember my first assembly with my housemaster when we got our Gideon bibles. Back then, everyone in the school kept it in the top pocket of our blazer. For some unknown reason, Mr Fallow brought out a camping stove and cooked an egg. We were all confused at the time but question him. I asked him about this years later and he just laughed saying they just made things up to pass some time!
I loved the house system. When I was at Airdrie Academy, there were six house groups. Each had their own colours, canteen, games area, common room and seating area in the newly constructed ‘house block’. Cleddans dark blue, Faskine yellow, Glentore was purple/lilac ,Monklands red, Rochsoles white and Woodhall light blue.
There were numerous inter house competitions and I always out helped when I could. In third year, I was made a monitor. In this role, I helped look after our house's canteen, games room and tuck shop in the House Block. All six houses had the same layout. In fourth year, I was a Prefect meaning I gave more help for my house. In fifth year, I became Vice Captain helping the housemasters. My friend Stuart Currie became House Captain in sixth Year, but he was then promoted to School Captain (Boys) so I stepped up to House Captain. Yes, there were boys’ captains and girls’ captains back then.
My Mum has kept my blazer. It was still in my old wardrobe and has been hanging there since 1985! Mum also has my sister Rae’s blazer; Rae was one year above me 1978 to 1984 and I had two cousins there also at the time. You can see all my school badges still proudly attached to the lapel.
We all got timetabled classes in a wide range of subjects. This included the usual suspects like Maths, Arithmetic, English, Science, French, Geography, History, Modern Studies, Speech & Drama, RE and Music. I remember that Mr Stuart Mitchell the Latin teacher taught the first years Classical Studies. Things have changed a bit since then!
In second year, we were split into three educational grades. The top academic classes were following the Latin course, second was German and third was French.
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In third and fourth year we were preparing to sit our O Grades; most people did seven subjects. Again, these were split into the A course, very academic and the B Course very hands on subjects.
Mr Bill ‘Paw’ Brown was head of middle School. He could remove some non-certificate classes from your timetable so you could do more O Grades. I think the maximum was ten. I got to do eight O Grades in total which was hard enough! English, Maths, Arithmetic, Geography, Chemistry, Physics, French and Music. S5 was Highers and S6 was Sixth Year Studies.
In the early 1980s, we still had separate classes for boys and girls. Boys could only do technical subjects. It seems strange looking back that no girls were admitted to the technical block. It was the same with the no boys allowed into Carrisbrook House or huts to do Home Economics.
PE was also separate classes, well apart from the traditional social dancing getting everyone ready for Christmas dances! I still love a good ceilidh dance to this day.
Music was a great experience at Airdrie Academy with my now good friend Mrs Elizabeth Pearson. At one point during S1 I remember she called me into the book store telling me she was talking to a local primary headteacher,called Mrs Margaret Jack, who was my Airdrie Junior choir mistress. I had no choice, that was me ingrained into the music department.
Usually, the lower school were not involved in the annual school shows, but as there were two performances planned that year: ‘The Me Nobody Knows’ and ‘Orpheus in the Underworld’ they needed younger students. This started me off on thirty years and counting career in Amateur Operatics. These pictures show my first and last school shows ‘The Me Nobody Knows’ in 1980 and ‘HMS Pinafore’ in 1985:
After leaving school in 1985 with a good handful of certificates, I thought my time at Airdrie Academy was over. After graduating from University, I was working as an industrial chemist at British Steel. In 1991 we closed, and I was made redundant. I became a science technician at Hamilton Grammar as a temporary measure. By coincidence, Mr Stuart Mitchell (my S1 classical studies teacher) was the principal. It was a long drive to Hamilton every morning so when a 13-week temporary contract as a science technician became available at Airdrie Academy I applied and got the job.
I started on 16th of December 1991 and on my first day, Maths teacher, Mr James Rodger visited the technician's room. He immediately recognised me from his Higher maths classes and helping out with the school shows. He sent me over to room A1. Unbeknownst to me, Mrs Pearson had returned to the Academy after working for ten years in East Kilbride. It was lovely catching up and before I knew it, I was helping Mr Jim Logan with the chairs and stands for the school orchestra and singing with the choir at the Christmas concert at West Parish Church in Airdrie. Jim and I shared a ring binder with all the set ups for all the groups, junior and senior bands for many years. Called ‘Jim’s Bible’, he passed it to me when he retired. In turn, I passed to Daun Ferguson when I moved to St Andrews, now Greenfaulds.
Back in 1991, I got three contract extensions while Mrs Clark was off sick. Eventually I got the permanent job. I got to work with Alex Keegan as my senior technician. Annette Laird was the other Science Technician, David Brown the Technical Technician, and Ian Dalton the ICT Technician, or as we said ‘The Dream Team’. We worked so closely together for 22 years until David retired in June 2013. I loved all aspects of my job. This is me in my happy place, the old science lecture theatre.
You always keep in with the other support staff, from Liam, Big Ian and Wee Ian the janitorial team. Mrs Fallow, Helen Baker, Myra Kelly, Jackie Kerr (Her and I started Golfhill Primary the same day in 1972 so we go back a long way), Teressa Carr, Margaret Mathieson, Margaret Matthews, Janey Johnston and all the office staff. I remember working with a team of wonderful hardworking cleaners. Kate Seery was ours in Science and Helen Muldoon ran the tuck shop.
The school shows got bigger and better. You would never recognise the old assembly hall. We erected a tent inside it with all the stage lighting and artwork from Mr Alan Thomson from the Art Department. We got choreography lessons from Mrs Irene McMillan from Hamilton Operatic. I even joined them in shows in Hamilton.
These were some of my favourite times at Airdrie Academy.We always had an after-show party in A1 after the last performance of a show. We would have so much fun singing all the songs again. We made sure to keep in with Mr Bill Mair, the senior janitor and he let us stay for hours!
I seem to remember that he could be tempted with a bottle of red wine and an offer of a lift home. I remember once when we were singing excerpts from ‘Les Misérables’ at the after-show party. Chris Towndrow and I were outside in the playground waving our big red flags and singing at the top of our voices. Awesome memories!
We had a night like Mr Holland’s Opus when Betty Pearson retired with memories, songs and musical excerpts from years of school shows. Lots of former pupils and staff returned to say goodbye. It was fantastic!
That was not the end of the Airdrie Academy school show productions. We got much more adventurous in our new school building. Apart from school shows, I was also involved in running school trips. We went to our local observatory as I was curator. We went to talks with Charlie Duke from Apollo Program, a real-life astronaut and moonwalker! I also got a grant of £10,000 from the national lottery to start an Astronomy group in the school, telescopes are not cheap. We worked closely with Airdrie Astronomical Association as I was chairman at the time.
We went on school trips to Lightwater Valley and Alton Towers regularly. We had a trip to the Harry Potter studios in London and a favourite of mine, Trips to Eurodisney. I was always invited to the Geography department trips as a trained first aider and with other departments, music trips to London.
Every year when the PE department organised sports day, I oversaw the fun day held on the ash pitch. Every department manned one of the stalls. We had traditional games like ‘Roll the Penny’, ‘Bat the Rat’ and ‘Roll the Ball’, which all made by the technical department. There was an ice cream stall, burgers and hotdogs, and many others.
In the years I worked at Airdrie Academy, we had a very good social committee. They organised lunches, quizzes, Christmas activities and summer nights out. Mrs Wilma Gilluley was in charge, and I was soon her second in command. After a very gruesome HMIE inspection I was nominated by the headmaster Hugh McCallum to go to the Queen’s Garden Party in Holyrood. This is an experience I and my mum will never forget. Wilma got a CBE, with both of us nominated for services to education.
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We had a wonderful time when the school turned 150 in the year 1999. We had a Victorian day where we all dressed up and tried out old fashioned lessons. We then gathered everyone together up in the ash pitch to get a full school panoramic photo.
We then prepared for transferring to our new building in 2006. It was strange going from a school consisting of four separate buildings: the A block, House Block, Technical and Science buildings to just the one. Ultimately, this experience brought all the staff closer together. To my delight, the atmosphere and comradeship got even better. It was nonetheless sad watching the old school being torn down. It was a huge part of my life for so many years.
The new building offered us a proper stage to put-on full-scale musicals, pantomimes, concerts, plays, talent shows, and staff shows. Highlights for me from that time are ‘Les Misérables’, ‘We Will Rock You’ and ‘Beauty and the Beast’. This picture shows me at the set up of the stage props for ‘Les Misérables’. What an experience!
It feels very strange writing something for Airdrie Academy’s 175th Anniversary and not being a part of the school staff. In September 2013, there was a big shake up of the school technician service and they decided that Airdrie Academy needed only two science technicians. With a heavy heart, I moved on. However, with the friendships I had built up after so many years I still feel very close to my old school. I did help at school shows on a few occasions after I left but as the years went by, my friends at the school slowly retired, Mrs Baird is the “Master of the House” longest serving member of staff now, strangely her and I started at the same time. There are still a few friends from my time still there and that’s why I’m helping Gail with the 175.
The ‘dream team’ still meet up every now and then. In 2024, I am the last one still working the rest are enjoying retirement.
I will always look back on my days at the Academy fondly either as a pupil or a member of staff and now friend of the school.
I hope you have enjoyed reading my stories!
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