Reviving a tradition from a past time with news and stories for the present time
The first Fordyce Academy Magazine...
‘This was born in in 1912, the present writer being the paternal culprit. A vigorous if somewhat ragamuffin infant, glorying in the title of Our Annual Spasm, or Almus Pater, this caricature of a larger and equally unaugust model grew in dignity with the years. In 1922 the name sobered to Vivat Academia (In Arduis Fortis), with a cover drawing of the rector (?!) by Norah Dunbar; and in 1927 the present adequate title Fordyce Academy Magazine was adopted, with a cover drawing of the wing of the old Castle by Miss M’Kenzie, Cornhill.’
Douglas G McLean MA, The History of Fordyce Academy: Life at a Banffshire School, 1936.
1913: ‘FORDISE SKOOL’ by Smuth, Class V (on clean hands, punishment from the masters, and Latin lessons!)
“I hope I wisna at Fordise. They are most affa strick and hiv terrible hard Tags. at Sanine I didna care for skuds kis I kep my hans fine and fool, and didna fin them. At Fordise I hiv to wash them eence a week, an my neck eence a month. The worst thing in the skool is Simsin and his Tag, which is terrible nippy. Fahie sed it was a rinosseris skin but I think it is a bellybin. I’m feart at Simsin an his Tag an ae day he asked me fit was the Latin for “I come from the garden”. I began “hortus…”. Then he said thats appallng. I was feart but I tol him it wasna kis it was the subject. Oor mannie isna so bad as Simsin but sometimes hes terrible coorse to me and smaks me which is soar..”
1914 ‘HOWLERS’
From the junior classes: “The people of Fordyce like to give their children a good education; but if they prove no use at that, they give them another birth”.
From an essay on the poet, Robert Burns: “Although Burns was a poor man he rose to fame and was able to drink. Not long after his death his son died. Perhaps this was a good thing for him as he might have died old and lived a wicked life like his father.”
1922: 'FORDYCE PHILOSOPHERS'
They stood with eyes on a window glued,
With eyes made large by a hunger keen,
Where piled in tempting rows were seen
Some sweets, some fruit, some toothsome food.
The bigger boy looked scornfully sad,
His pockets were empty, his heart was sore,
And, pointing at all the window’s store,
He curled his lip and just said ‘Gyad’.
