Riverside School c1963

May 2006, GlescaPal Liz Mellis (aka June MacWilliam), Sechelt, Bitish Columbia, Canada.
Hello Webmaister, I've now received another school photo from a long lost classmate...It's Riverside Senior Secondary School, Springfield Road, circa 1963, Boys' class. I have some of the names  Slainte, Liz Mellis (aka "June" MacWilliam)
PS. just met a classmate last weekend in Vancouver - had not seen each other for 40 years !!!!
      Thanks to this website I have been able to contact 7 or 8 former classmates. Thanks Webmaister!
Thanx a million for your efforts....we really do appreciate how fortunate we have been in having someone like yourself willing and interested in setting up and developing the website.    Cheerio from Sechelt,............Liz

The names above were provided by Mgt Berry /Gary Nolan / David Shaw.

Dec.2007, GlescaPal Sannyhaw, ( Alex Foster ), Glasgow
# Just came across this old Riverside school photo 1963 cc and found John Winchcole smiling as always right at the front. John worked with me for Glasgow Engineers at 22 Summer Street next to Brigton Public Halls and returned back to work one Monday morning after being off sick for a long time however he only managed to last about half an hour before feeling unwell again and had to go home.
I walked him to the bus and put him on the No 65 which was the last time I saw him. He died in hospital of meningitis later that night at the age of 19. I've often thought of him through the years and it was really strange coming across him accidentally like this as I went to John Street Senior Secondary and only met John through work. Small world this is.

Nov.2015, GlescaPal Colin Shortt, Age 66, Burlington, Canada,
In the school photo for Riverside Senior Secondary 1963 ,the missing names are, 2nd row #5 colin shortt and #1 david flockhart. Thank You for bringing back so many memories as I have no photos of those great times, I moved to the west end then to canada 46 years ago. Keep up the great work.

Mar.2016, Duncan Andrew,
I noticed the photograph at RIVERSIDE 1963 some time ago and just wanted to correct a slight mistake. One of the pupils shown is named as Duncan Andrews. That should actually be Duncan Andrew, my good self.

I really didn’t want to appear in this photograph, as another pupil there, Jim Wright, and myself had managed to get a transfer away from Riverside to Whitehill, and it was taken on our last day. We were joint first in the class at that time, and to mark the occasion I was given a beating, frankly. Sorry to spoil the syruppy nostalgia, but you can make out my sore eye, freshly bruised. How pleased I was to get away. Needless to say, I didn’t order a copy of this picture. What would I have wanted it for? So I didn’t see it until it appeared in this website.

I hadn’t thought about the people in the picture for years but do recall all the names, every single one, even the ones I would rather forget, such as Billy Young and George Smith. Sorry, chaps, but you have to admit that you were really foul. You seemed to take an insane pride in that. The teacher in the picture, Mr Dickson of the science department, I remember as a decent sort but rather floating above the grim and grimy realities of the school, which he was able to put behind him at the end of every day by escaping to his nice little bungalow in the suburbs while we all went home to our tenements.

I’m sorry to hear about the pupil who died from meningitis at the age of 19. Tragic. I can’t help remarking, nonetheless, that some of the individuals in the picture were the stuff of nightmares. Or so they seemed to me at the time. What a relief it was to get away from them and find peace and space in which to mend my fractured education in a more congenial environment. Not Whitehill, I’m pleased to say, as I didn’t have to stay there very long, my family managing to get out of Glasgow altogether in 1963. Had we not left, I doubt whether I would have gone on to get a couple of university degrees and a suitable occupation.

So did I like Glasgow? I remember Alasdair Gray (yes, the artist and author) idiotically asking me that question in front of these charming people when he was making one of his occasional chaotic appearances as a part-time art teacher at Rivvy in 1960-61. No, I replied, hoping that this would discourage him from finishing the sketch of me that he was insisting on doing, to my severe embarrassment. He carried on, though, and it has to be admitted that it was excellent. Too excellent, actually. An extravagant demonstration of an artist’s skill for the sake of filling in his time without actually teaching anything. A remarkable likeness, nevertheless, and quite as good if not better than other sketches of his from the period. A towering genius in a shit hole. Him, I mean, of course.

He actually asked me another indiscreetly disconcerting question, in front of this unsympathetic audience. It was about the music I was listening to, improbable though that may seem. This shook me, because the music which I was in the habit of listening to at that time in order to distract me from the unremitting grimness all around me was only in my head, and I hadn’t mentioned it to anybody. Vast crescendos and soothing diminuendos of orchestral music to keep my spirits up. Maybe he had music in his head too and recognized the signs. I don’t know. Uncanny. Quite an uncanny and disconcerting fellow. I wasn’t much interested in him, though, preoccupied as I was with plotting my escape, even in my first year at the school and even though I was interested in all the subjects, even the woodwork, the technical drawing and the metalwork, all of which were a total and utter waste of my time. I really wanted and indeed needed Latin, but Rivvy at that time didn’t provide that, although, perversely, it did introduce me to French and German, which I appreciate.

Anyway, be that as it may. I remember your contributors June MacWilliam and David Shaw. I really only knew David, though. Visited his home once. Pleased he got on but sad to hear he ended up in Sussex. I lived in Kent for a while and commuted to London, working for a hopelessly ineffectual UK government department. I also taught. Totally resisted the temptation to emigrate, as I knew I would only miss the rain. Truly. Terribly fair skin I have. Would have hated Australia and even Canada, not to mention the skin cancer. Have appreciated spending some time in France, though, but in the end there’s no place like home. For me that is the north of Scotland, from where I am never tempted to venture forth to the dear green place.

With every good wish to other survivors.
Duncan Andrew

PS. It wouldn’t do for me to fail to acknowledge my indebtedness to the English department for taking me to see my first live stage performance at the Citizens Theatre in 1962. A Midsummer Night’s Dream with Edward Fox, Peter Vaughan and Alec McAvoy. Fox became the biggest star, of course, in due course, but Vaughan was by far the most outstanding actor on the stage that day. Another towering genius, unexpectedly.

Oh yes, Rivvy had its good points in spite of everything. One thing that did impress me favourably was the reaction among pupils – most if not all of them – when one of the teachers died in harness, the music teacher, Miss Croft, in 1961, I think. A sweet old lady from the north of England who had spent her career teaching in Scotland because she had been engaged to marry a Scottish soldier who didn’t return from the Great War. Another world. The new intake was only just getting to know her when she disappeared. I miss her still.