Linking the Past with the Present
Over the past two weeks the Senior School has come together to mark two important occasions. The first was the Remembrance Day service where the names of Old Boys and teaching staff that gave the extreme sacrifice in World War I were read. While this list of names is read each year at the School's Remembrance Day service, for P.C. Anderson (Headmaster 1904 - 1945) the task of reading the names of Old Scotch boys and staff lost at war was, sadly, performed all too regularly at school assemblies. It was the Headmaster's role to announce the deaths of old-boys as news came back from the war. As the Headmaster during two World Wars, the lists of names became longer as time went by with each name being felt deeply by P.C. Anderson, none more so than the death of his own son, C.D. Anderson. At our recent Senior School assembly we reflected on the loss of our old boys and staff and imagined the assembly where P.C. Anderson stood before the School and announced the death of his own son, amongst the other old-boys who had been killed.
Boys and visitors to the School are encouraged to take time to stop and read the names of those listed on the honour board hanging in the front reception of Collegians' House and those old-boys killed at war whose names appear on the boards displayed in the foyer of the Memorial Hall.
In the week of Remembrance Day, it was fitting that the second whole school event, Founders' Day Assembly, was conducted on the Memorial Field and welcomed back Old Scotch Collegians. Founders' Day was conceived in the first year of operation of the Memorial Hall (1958) as a way of linking the past with the present. To witness the old boys return to march and perform with the College Pipe Band highlighted the importance of tradition and community that exists at Scotch. As I watched our current boys marching in their Houses to the sounds of pipes and drums, it was not difficult to imagine the same scene 55 years ago at the inaugural Founders' Day assembly.
Dr Rob McEwan
Head of Senior School
