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THE NEW LIBRARY
(We are indebted to the Commandant for the followingnote about the new School library)
The new library, which has been presented to the School by the MacRobert Trust, is now nearing completion. The Trustees of the MacRobert Trust have recently made a further generous gift to the School which will pay for the internal furnishings.
It is hoped during the next three years to increase the stock of books considerably, particularly in the specialist subject sections. The result will be a library of which the School will have every reason to
be proud, and which will provide a splendid recreational, cultural and study centre.
It is expected that the MacRobert library will be formerly opened by a representative of the MacRobert Trust on Grand Day 1966.
OLD BOYS
This time we have no shortage of news from Old Boys. The Commandant and Headmaster have had many letters. The news-letter which the Headmaster sends out at Christmas has been widely appreciated, and has stimulated a mass of correspondence, with many compliments to the Headmaster on his interesting news of Old Boys. We start with the usual apologies for any omissions or errors that may be noticed and for not getting everything into a nicely systematic order. We are not always sure of the periods in which Old Boys mentioned were at School here, and the research into school records needed to establish their dates would be a gigantic task, complicated by the fact that we nearly always find several people of the same name. It would be a help if Old Boys writing to the School would mention the years in which they were here, or give their numbers.
First we have to record that four sons of Old Boys will be joining the School next September. One of these is John Harrison, grandson of H. R. Harrison, and son of Warrant Officer H. F. Harrison, R.E.M.E., who is also an Old Boy. This must surely be the first time that we have had a third-generation Victorian, and is a milestone in the School's history. Two of the new entry are John and Peter Sayer, sons of C.S.M. Sayer, K.O.S.B. The other son of an Old Boy is Michael Ferrigan, son of Sgt. M. D. Ferrigan, R.A.F., who was here from 1938 to 1944.
The " People's Journal" last November had an interesting story about Mr George Fox of Leith. When he was serving as Pipe-Major with the 1st Battalion, Gordon Highlanders in the Khyber Pass in 1931, a portrait of him was made in pastel colours by the official artist of a French expedition to Afghanistan returning home through the Pass. Thirty-three years later Mr Fox heard that the portrait was still in existence and believed to be in the Bridge of Don Barracks, Aberdeen. He wrote there and learned that the picture was now hanging in the C.O.'s room at Redford Barracks, Edinburgh. The result was that Mr Fox was invited to Redford
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where he got a V.I.P. reception. The newspaper's correspondent quotes Mr Fox's recollection that when he joined the Army he was 14 years old and just under 4 feet in height. He thinks he must have been the youngest and smallest recruit ever to join the British Army. But at that height and age he was already a pipe-major, having been Boy Pipe-Major at Q.V.S. He was here from 1912 to 1919. In a recent letter to the Commandant, Mr Fox refers to another Old Boy who served with him, and whom he believes to have been killed in the second world war. The name is not on the School war memorial, and we do not mention it now till confirmation can be got.
One of the " First Hundred " Victorians, Mr W. Monaghan, School number 78, has written to the Headmaster from his home in Tucson, Arizona. He has been corresponding with Mr H. R. Harrison, and is now re-establishing his connection with the School by becoming a life member of the Old Boys' Association. He would love to visit the School, he says, but doubts if he could take our climate. Another Old Victorian living in the United States is mentioned in a letter from Mr G. Munro of Edinburgh. He is David Aiton, a contemporary of Mr Munro's, now living in California, who was Boy Drum-Major here, and then served with the Royal Scots. Mr Munro says that he became the youngest Drum-Major in the British Army, early in the second war, at the age of 20-21. A sad piece of news from the U.S.A., sent to us by Mr J. Grassick from London, is of the death on 26th March in a New York hospital of Roddie Smith (School number 526), who is buried in the Greenwood Cemetery, New York. Mr Grassick tells us that Mr Smith was one of five brothers, who were all Victorians in the years between 1917 and 1928. He went from School to the Merchant Navy.
At this point, we look at the letters and notes that remain to be mentioned here, and despair of putting them into order by seniority or time. So we have divided them into two groups : the " older " and the " younger," and have taken " younger " to include anyone who has been in the School within the last ten years, which happens to be the span of the editorial memory of Q.V.S. boys.
There is a letter to the Headmaster from Major W. C. Hawkins, ex-instructor of Q.V.S. and honorary Old Boy. He has, we are sorry to say, had a long period of illness since he visited the School last year, but was, when he wrote, getting back rapidly to
normal, though a reduction of two stones in weight has caused him what he describes as " an expensive problem with his tailor." Major Hawkins takes up Mr Harrison on the point of Regular Army and T.A. Long Service and Good Conduct Medals. To possess both, like John Mcllroy, is, says Major Hawkins, not so rare as Mr Harrison seemed to think. After World War 1, many who had been mobilised from the T.A. in 1914 found themselves in 1918 in possession of the T.A. medal because each year of their war service counted as two and the qualifying period was only twelve years. Many of these stayed
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