Imagine leaving your family and remote Highland/island home at the age of twelve, or in some cases fifteen, to go and live in a hostel for the duration of each school term. That was what many of us had to endure in order to complete our high school education. Being uprooted from the quiet and the familiar, having to adapt to living together with over forty strange girls (and they didn’t get stranger than the hostel girls!) was for many a daunting prospect.
Looking back on our living conditions I realize that today’s youth would find such a scenario barely credible:
• Locked in every week night at around 5.30
• Two hours’ supervised study after tea
• Dormitory lights out at 10.30
• Compulsory church attendance every Sunday morning
• Moving one place daily round the vast refectory table so that each hostelite had the pleasure and privilege of sitting next to Matron, or Fousty, as she was endearingly called. (Woe betide you if such placement fell on a Sunday for you were interrogated as to which church you had attended, who of her acquaintances was in the congregation- and what hat she’d been sporting. The data thus obtained were, of course, double-checked. I guess, if triangulated, then that would make it…..a hat-trick!)
This all seems as of another existence, distant, to the point of perhaps seeming a figment of one’s imagination. But live there I did for three years. Last November I was intrigued to learn that two ex-Craigard Hostel ‘girls’ – and I quote the delightful Highland parlance – ‘had the notion’ to plan a get-together in Oban. Definitely not to be missed.
And so on the morning of Saturday 21st April I found myself waving goodbye to cousin, Fred, and Derek in Glasgow, and setting off in my Citylink-Tardis ready to draw back the mists of time and face the elements (Fousty would have said much precipitation was expected!). However, Loch Lomond was green and splendid in bright sunshine, Loch Fyne with spectacular reflections on its water as we sailed over the bridge and admired Inverary castle – flagstaff empty, so no family in residence, then. Loch Awe’s rugged terrain was offset by a more suffused sunlight as cloud cover accumulated. It was then I realised why H, though thoroughly enjoying our last September’s trip to Inverness, had not been so enthused by Loch Ness itself – there is little to compare with the Beauties of Argyll.
And here they are – courtesy of the Oban Times whose reporter honoured our get-together by reporting it and time-encapsulating our happy band who had travelled from London, Inverness, Islay, Fife, Spain…and Greece for our reunion.
Before meeting up I confess I had reservations – would there be a reversion to the retiring, teenage lass who had had to battle against her nature and background to become the more outgoing person she longed to be? Then the next, very natural question: would we remember each other? Hilda had anticipated that last query and had us all sporting ‘I survived Craigard’ name tags – an inspiration and a great help! I learned, too, that I was not alone in experiencing qualms as to what to expect. One or two had such bad memories of the hostel they declined to join us at the ‘crime-scene’, now made into residential flats. It remains the beautiful building it was, commanding a magnificent view of the bay and beyond. Some of us even did the walk to Oban High School – now no longer the impressive classical building, a stout metaphor for the inspiring grandeur of the old-school education offered there. The carbuncle that stands on its site deserves neither comment nor picture.
Meeting up initially at the well-named Tryst Lounge, we had dinner and returned to our private function room to party the night away. There was lots of reminiscing, renewing ties, catching up. I even presented a poem I penned for the occasion ….which shows how silly our ensemble got. But before we drifted off, the final event of that special evening was a spontaneous one – where several former members of the school choir began to sing traditional songs in Gaelic – totally beautiful, moving, eye-moistening. One of my regrets is that my grandmother’s native tongue did not pass down to our generation- but the sound of it still makes me feel at home! So here’s the poem and do, please, excuse what masquerades as Gaelic!
Craigard Ode
Eleanor asked for pictures and memories from the past
So here’s my contribution: ‘The Profile of a Craigard Lass’.
She lived far from home and family in conditions of extreme cohabitation
With 40-odd Highland/Islanders – the cost of higher education!
She bore a bag of heavy tomes so her biceps were not slight
From cross-country and Highland dancing she had calf-muscles of might….
….And from walking up Craigard Brae every single night!
Once a week on bath-night we’d troop off with our towels
Sometimes to break the monotony we’d arrange mass outbreaks
Of feigned looseness of the bowels!
Margaret MacLeod and Sandra Fjortoft, our own home-grown sopranos,
To the loos would go without fail
The acoustics there being just right to practise their portabhail
They’d gargle with Islay whisky to keep their vocal tones true
And sometimes the Laphroaig had a delicate blend of shampoo.
Just after five the bolts were drawn- a trial for anybody
No access either in or out then two hours’ supervised study
But the Craigard Lass sought opportunities to develop her proclivities
So she threw herself wholeheartedly into lots of extracurricular activities
Far beyond the Craigard locked door lay both excitement and dangers
Like shinty matches, operatic societies and the doughty Oban Sea Rangers
I remembering us feathering our oars and getting soaked to the skin
And the night Ethel McLachlan misconstrued the order to fall in!
On the way to school I learned Gaelic from Mary Macdonald of Coll
Now that all I recall is Hai fluch agus Hai dhialie fur is not her fault at all
Nor is it the case that my memory is in remission
The truth of the matter lies in the dreich meteorological conditions.
Those were the grand old days of yore and the memories they continue to send
When Katie rocked us with her buns and the extra pie was up Miss McLean’s end
So charge your glasses to the Craigard Gals from every Highland croft and howie
Let’s not wait another forty-five years and next time – why not invite the boys of Kilbowie?
To record our reunion in Oban, Saturday 21st April.
Next morning, still on Greek time, I was up and about before most had begun to stir. The waiter at dinner had had Sheena, Maime, Irene (thanks for the great company, girls!) and me in stitches with his antics. At breakfast he seemed to read I’m not a morning person and restricted communication to a sniff and a slightly disparaging, ‘No stilettos today, I see’. I smiled wanly, biting back my, ‘You wish!’ retort. Later I went to take a shot of ‘old muckers’, Margaret and Graham at breakfast – as you do! -and thanks, guys, for blog-following! And then it was that our waiter came into his own: behind their table assuming this amazing part-Nureyev- leap / part-Streisand-finale pose, a spontaneous response of his to a photo-op. And….I missed it. By the time my shutter had clicked, he’d flash-flitted off to another table. Shame!
So thank you, Eleanor and Jean for being the ace-organisers and making that entire event actually happen. Marion and Margaret, too, with their invaluable net-working skills, helped bring us all together.
Thank you, Alfie and Alec for joining us briefly and renewing some …. old school ties !!! And to Miss McGregor who fed us inmates in the past and whose joining us that evening came as a lovely surprise.
A few days were left in Glasgow: chilling out, catching up, going out with Fred to see her horses and enjoy the company of Lewis, her grandson – doesn’t he look cute?
Looking back on our reunion I can’t remember talking and laughing so much in a long time. I think three things stand out for me:
• that the sands of time may have eroded our skin textures, puffed out our profiles and slightly impaired our visual perception but the light in the eye of a smile and the laughter in good company cannot be dimmed
• that the mind is a highly selective mechanism: each one holds her own individual memory traces of shared experience; Hilda’s booklet, my poem, our delving together into our recollections of time spent together all constituted a means to creating a marvellous, mental mosaic - one we all hold dear
• that in the face of homesickness and what were sometimes alien, adverse conditions that band of 30+ individuals who reunited had forged strong bonds of friendship that still endure.
In fact, we’ve already been talking about our next reunion.
And with that thought, I leave you with Craigard …….… and a smile!
: )))
