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Ashford in Kent, whose address he wanted to trace. We could not help him with this, but perhaps some reader will know where Mr Morris now is.
Coming north again, Mr Joe McLeod of the
Glasgow Branch, Old Victorians, is still hoping for more support from Old Boys in his area. The only seven old faithfuls are J. Harvey, M. Anderson, J. Henderson, G. Maitland, W. Cosgrove, R. Stewart, and Joe McLeod himself. He notes that Brian Fitzpatrick is now working in Glasgow and hopes Brian will bring in some younger members to give the branch new life. It seems that distance makes the heart grow fonder, for while Old Victorians get together in London, Mr J. M. Anderson a Perth Old Boy, who was here from 1930 to 1936 regrets that there now seem to be few interested Old Boys in his district.
A few other notes about what we classed as the " older " group. Miss P. Shand of Slough, Bucks has written to inform us of the death of her father Andrew Gordon Shand. School records show that he was here from 1926 to 1932, but we have unfor- tunately no details of his later career. A recent visitor to the School, after many years was Mr W. B. MacKay, now with North East Motor Factors in Aberdeen. We are able to record his visit because he left his card with us. To many other Old Victorian visitors of the older generation we
apologise for not taking notice of them by name. Many do sign the Old Victorians' Visitors book, not always as legibly as we would wish. Finally it may be of interest to the earliest Victorians that there recently came into our possession a vintage postcard photograph. A friend of Mr Robertson, our Senior Maths Master, had this and passed it to him. It is of the School pipe band and was taken at the Royal Naval and Military Tournament at Olympia in 1913. What Old Victorians can recall that they were in this group ?
The younger generation of Old Boys are more frequently visitors than correspondents, and we have been pleased to see many of them here during the past two terms. We start with a bit of news from Canada. The " Rutherglen Reformer " early this year reported the ceremony in Toronto at which Craig Walker received the Duke of Edinburgh's Gold Award, won by him while he was at Q.V.S. The presentation was made by Sir Percy Wyn-Harris of the London office of the Duke of Edinburgh's Award Scheme. Among the distinguished people present was General Sir Neil Ritchie, formerly Vice-President of the Commissioners of the School. In April the Headmaster had a letter from Rodney Maxwell, just about to begin his final term at Sandhurst, and hoping to be commissioned into the Royal Corps of Transport, and to go on to Shrivenham. He is a Junior Under-Officer and plays in his college Rugby team. Murdoch Gillespie, Michael Nixon and Michael Armstrong are all in the same college, but not in the same company, so that Maxwell has not been able to see much of them. But Gillespie and he went on the college Rugby tour together. All Victorians at Sandhurst seem to be doing well, from
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the accounts we hear from them. Armstrong's Company Sergeant-Major is C.S.M. Langlands, " a terrific character ", who has two sons in the School. Maxwell also tells us that his company " The Somme
Company " has had a talk on the battle of the Somme from Colonel White, who won the V.C. there. The cadets had, he says, naturally covered the military side of the battle before, but found it a fascinating change to listen to the account of someone who had actually been there. At Cranwell, Neil Burrows is also in his final term, and should be passing out within a day of his 21st birthday.
A distressing piece of news is that John Bell, serving with the R.E. at Ripon was badly injured by the explosion of a mortar-bomb fuse. The most serious damage was to his hand, and there were fears that he might have to lose it. He is undergoing a long process of plastic surgery, the full result of which cannot yet be predicted. What astonished people was the extent of his physical toughness, courage and cheerfulness. He has been making a fighting recovery, and is able to get up and about. The accident is particularly bad luck on John Bell, for he
had won his colours in the Junior Army Rugby team, and was already marked as a likely candidate for senior representative Rugby. There is happier news of his elder brother Cameron, also in the R.E. Cameron's son is to be christened in the school chapel
on 4th July and there are hopes that John will be able to attend the ceremony. Cameron is on leave after service in Aden and Cyprus, and is going next to Germany. The Bell family seem to make their home in Glasgow a kind of second home for many Victorians, and keep up a great interest in the School. They find Victorians everywhere. When Mr Bell went to see John in Catterick Military Hospital, he at once recognised an orderly in the ward, Roderick McKenzie of the R.A.M.C.
Many Victorians of recent years are in boys' units of the Army or R.A.F. A year or two ago we did try to get a complete list, by writing to units through out Britain. We got many replies, but could never be sure the list was complete. We know when boys go straight to the services from here, but not always when they join afterwards. Any Victorian in a boys' unit, or any other unit for that matter, who writes with news of Victorians serving along with him is giving us material that will interest some of our readers. But please give full names, and say when the people were at School. This applies particularly to those with common Scottish names. W. J. Logue has written from the Carlisle Army Apprentice School. He mentions the names of W. McFarquhar, P. Barbour and I. Johnston, in their second or third years at Carlisle, of two new recruits, A. Aitkenhead and G. Cassells, and of J. H. Walters and the brothers McLaughlin, Terry and Barry. Terry gained his first stripe at the end of last term. He has boxed several times for the school and won all his fights. His younger brother is also making his mark as a boxer. Malcolm Arnett writes from Malaya, where he is with the R.A.F. detachment at Kuantan, and has not recently come across any Victorians. The
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