Mr James Downie - Pictures and Words from Geoff Inglis

Click on the small pictures to see a larger version

	Photo 1 - It just says Tullibody Presentation on the back - its the retirement of Abercromby School Headmaster, Mr James Downie on 9th July 1965. My father (Mr. S.S. Inglis) is at top left. Miss Helen Dewar, infant Mistress at the school, presented Mr. Downie with a typewriter and Mrs Downie recieved a magnificent bouquet from Mrs Christine Hunter, the most recent member of Staff. John Stevens is in the centre (owner of Tullibody PO and a Councillor), while the Minister on the right is Rev George Charlton. Note that the finger that Mr. Downie lost in the Great War is prominent in its absence (the hand on the package).
	Photo 2 - Abercromby teachers in front of Abercromby School. Early-mid fifties? Miss Dewar and Mr Downie are visible at the front. Andrew Easton looks very dapper at the back left. My dad is centre back. I thought for a moment that it was my step-mother beside him, but I've never seen her hair in that style. Could it be Edna Pow? The resolution of the picture isn't quite good enough.
	Photo 3 - Abercromby 'Wee Team' in the public park. These were the red and white strips (and they look pretty new - probably early fifties). Why should I have kept that picture if I wasn't in it, I wonder. Maybe I am the wee fellow in the centre - or one of the those half hidden - or I might be the other character in the picture at the rear right. Or none of these things. The things you end up keeping seem to be a combination of sentimentality and pure luck.Evenntually you can't remember the reason why. Notice Dumyat nicely visible in background and my house (the schoolhouse) in the middle ground, with bits of Abercromby School also visible.
	Photo 4 - Dounans Camp. Early fifties, cos Downie has rather more hair and my dad looks to be wearing an ex RAF pullover (those can't have lasted for more than a few years after the war).. I don't know the other teachers. A lot of them were usually young teachers from the Commonwealth who did a circuit of camps in different counties. They liked doing the camps cos they got paid for 7 days a week. Ordinary Scottish teachers just got their 5 days pay.
	Photo 5 - A dog and his boy.. Wait a minute, it's my Labrador dog, Sandy - and I appear to be encouraging him to have a swim in the pond at the War Memorial in Park Terrace. You can see the plaque on the big stone there. The whole place looks very well kept. (The water's gone now and most of the trees, is that right?) Sandy the dog looks young and full of life. I look very small- perhaps 7 or 8. I would guess this is around 1951-3.