Gordonstoun not only trained me in athletics and sport and educated me academically; it also covered the importance of helping the local population, overcoming problems, bearing occasional hardship and altogether discovering how much truth there was in the school motto 'there is more in you' (Plus est en vous), which is still right, even at my age.
Ian Farmer 1941-47
During the time when the school was evacuated to Wales, I joined the school fire service which started off using a small Austin Seven purchased by one of the boys but developed into a recognised branch of the national fire service with professional equipment and uniforms. There were frequent call outs: mainly to small fires in chimney and haystacks, but in my final term there was a really large warehouse blaze in Newtown. Adult villagers from Llandinam were also enrolled in the service, which meant that we were paid for our turnouts – not large sums but enough to buy the occasional cake from Ma Davies's shop by Plas Dinam gates.
Michael Brownson 1941–44
Some of my fondest memories of Gordonstoun are associated with the Watchers. Long stormy nights in the coastguard lookout, watching for a light anywhere at sea, were rewarding in that you knew that you were an accepted part of a pattern of lookouts that covered the whole coastline. On a clear night there were often shooting stars to occupy the attention. There was camaraderie in the Watcher's Hut, where those not on lookout kept warm at the often-glowing stove, made hot chocolate, heated beans or, ignoring the storm, slept until called for watch.
Gordon Shiach 1948–54
I have fond memories of Hahn's kindness and many eccentricities. I still have his note to me when I was captain of the undefeated hockey team. He urged me to pick a rather troubled boy for the school team, not because he was good enough, but because it would be good for him. How many other headmasters saw that as more important than winning?
Humphrey Taylor 1948–53
I was responsible for seeing that the grounds were tidied before the visit of Prince Philip to open a school fete in 1951. We went over the terrain so minutely that not a spec of cotton wool, let alone a slither of paper, could be found. When the Duke arrived, he headed straight for the pigsties, which he had helped to build. To his evident delight, he found them in precisely the same primordial state as when he had left.
Andrew Hoellering 1946–52
My fondest memories are of late-night brews of hot toast and butter with mugs of tea or hot chocolate. During my last summer term, in 1979, Sue Barnard and some fellow 6A Hopemanites found an abandoned baby jackdaw that we named Winston (some of the girls had obviously been busy revising their WWII history!), and, amazingly, we were allowed to keep him in the Hopeman 6th Form Common Room. We fed him worms and cleaned out the room every day and, after what I recall to have been several weeks, he learned to fly and we released him back into the wild! He helped to keep us all sane throughout the stressful exam weeks!
Jane Hewitt (nee Green) 1975–79
