My good friend from Aberdeen, Colleen, sent me the above photograph which, initially, induced a fair degree of sadness in my heart. Colleen and I attended Linksfield Academy in Aberdeen in the mid 1970s. The school was built in 1974 but, typically of the council, it wasn't fully ready for the influx of unruly pupils until the summer of 1975. This meant spending my first year at secondary school travelling to a much older building, the now long since departed Middle School - so called because it was situated in the heart of the Granite City.
When we eventually headed to the newly built Linksfield in 1975 it still wasn't finished, meaning we had to trek about half a mile to Old Aberdeen school for certain activities such as physical education. The swimming pool still hadn't been completed by the time I left school altogether in 1978.
Despite the shambolic organisation of Grampian Regional Council (as it was at the time), I spent some happy days at Linksfield - as well as some not so happy ones but I won't dwell on those. However, the only school chums I still keep in touch with are Graham Baxter, who I still share a few beers with on the occasions I'm in Aberdeen to watch the famous Heart of Midlothian, Gary Adams, who was best man at my wedding but who I haven't seen in over 20 years (but Facebook has meant we are still in touch) and the lovely Colleen. Oh, and someone called Patricia Williamson who still gives me grief on a regular basis. Mind you, she's been doing that since we got married in 1982...
It's nearly 22 years since I left Aberdeen for the magnificence that is Edinburgh and I had no idea my old school was being pulled down. Some people say your schooldays are the happiest of your life. I don't particularly subscribe to that theory but nevertheless it's still sad to see part of my childhood disappear for good. All that is left is memories. Of the maths teacher throwing chalk at me as I gazed out the window; of the French teacher not particularly bothered if I learnt a foreign language; of a physical education teacher who looked at me in a strange and quite unnerving way; of dancing to dreadful cheesy 70s music at the infamous school discos; of falling in love for the first time...
...aye, go on then, flatten the place!
8 comments:
THAT FRIKKEN SUCKS!!! Don't they realise what they're doing, they're tearing apart your childhood.
Don't they know you're gonna need therapy after this?
Therapy is expensive, demmit.
They knocked down my secondary school recently and I was in tears.
I wanted to do it!!!!!
I can't remember the last time I saw a school torn down. I went to the same school my parents went to and my nieces and nephews still walk to each day.... Oh if those walls could talk.
jj
Funny how we miss things that we haven't thought about for years, when we are told they are no longer there.
Very strange creatures.....human beings!!
Peg xxxxx
My High School was finished in 1969. I started going there in 1975 and for the three years I attended they put a new roof on each year. My senior year the leaking was so bad the cafeteria was condemned and we ate in the gym. I drove by it a few months ago and noticed they'd added on. I'm guessing they got the roof problem worked out.
I’m sending the same note to al 3 of you. A definite theme going on!
http://adullamite.blogspot.com/2011/10/monday-evening.html
http://bigrab.wordpress.com/2011/10/28/goodbye-hermi/
http://auldreekierants.blogspot.com/2011/10/school-daze.html
Linksfield Academy, eh! Best days of your life, aye. I left, got a job at the Co-op (job for life, bankrupt 15 years later) and got an affro (cost me £32 in 1978, had to get my Mum to pay me into the football, only got paid £28).
I went to one school reunion for my sister's year's 50 birthday spending hours trying and, I believe succeeding, in making sure I was the youngest, best looking ex-pupil there by plastering a hemorrhoid preparation all over the face (honestly, try it, cheaper and safer than the Botox).
I don't remember learning anything, although I must have. Myself and my maths teacher's joint loathing of each other made sure that mathematical conundrums have never been sorted without the use of a calculator.
Funnily enough I found myself incredibly good at base numbers, a skill that, as I come close to picking up my free bus pass, I have, sadly, never had to put into practice.
Sitting at the back of most of my classes daydreaming, and in some of my classes joking with Mr Mike Smith is all I really remember about Linksfield, in between the bullying and what would now be classed as homophobia but was just something the introverted and shy kids had to endure in the 70s.
If it wasn't for the laughs I had with Mike, the bell going at ten past four, the weekends, summer holidays and the sure knowledge that, yes, I was by far the most beautiful boy in the school I don't know how I would have got through it. Apart from Abba that is.
So, seeing the photograph of Linksfield Academy half demolished on Facebook didn't make me sad at all. It would have been nice if they erected in it's place a rainbow colours totum pole with carvings of Saint George Michael, Marc Almond, Graham Norton, Oscar Wilde, Aberdeen's own Lord Byron, Sir Cliff Richard (don't worry, he won't be reading this) and Jimmy Spankie with speakers atop blaring Dancing Queen across Seaton. But the fact that it is now just a pile of rubble makes smile.
By the way that affro in today's money would cost me £185, bargain.
Mr Adams! What a wonderful comment and so good to hear from you again. And thanks for your very kind words, that means a lot during what is a particularly difficult time right now. Next time I'm in Aberdeen I'll give you a shout and we can catch up (and there's a lot to catch up on!)
Awrabest!
Mike
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