Today’s memory comes from Rev Alastair Symington, 1965 DSC leaver for whom the approaching anniversary of VE Day is bringing back memories of the school war memorial:
“Maybe as we approach the 75th anniversary of VE Day, a memory from school days immediately post-war. I began as a 5 year old in 1952, with memories of the war still very fresh in so many minds. I have an abiding recollection of the attitude we, as pupils from P1 and upwards through the whole school, were to adopt towards the war memorial in front of the school, There was to be no going up the steps – there was a requirement that no boy should run past the memorial, even if you could see your bus coming along Queensferry Road, and every time you passed there was an instruction that we had to walk and to salute as we passed. And I remember, some years into my time at school, that Dr Robbie was very keen for the boys to have read the entry for that day in the memorial book outside the chapel – sometimes asking you in the afternoon who it was who was featured that day. Maybe these were instructions that wouldn’t be lost on boys to this day. And as a PS we were strictly forbidden from playing in the air raid shelters to the west of the front lawn!”
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