Orkney Image Library

This record of the Dux medallists hung in the hall of KGS in School Place. Many a time we read the names as our minds wandered during a boring assembly!

This used to hang in the gym hall in the old Grammar school

I was taught French by both Kathleen Twatt and Brenda Mowat at KGS.

Another proof of the unenlightened times when doing well in school was considered worth rewarding and recording. I'll post the Stromness Academy equivalent, though being a smaller school it had a smaller board, and it ran out of space at an earlier date. Maybe someone has a pic of its successor?

Where is this board now? All my school days it hung in the gym hall in KGS. Why did the list of medallists end in 1968?

I recognise and knew quite a lot of people named here. I'll mention a few that comes to mind, Kathleen M. Twatt, fondly known as "Twitter", what a great name in the light of the Web Site and has been added to the Oxford Dictionary, William S.Watson, known by everyone as"Jumbo", Garson Shearer,known as "Gasser", son of John Shearer,sen.of the Garage and Coal store, Emma S.Peace and David K.Scott,both classmates of mine in the Higher Grades, Emma from Stronsay and David from North Ronaldsay, Elba Fotheringham and Brenda Mowat, both Teachers in later life. I could go on,but no!. Added by Phil Brough

What happened after 1968? Same year as I left "the Grammar"

Any idea why it was stopped?

In his Trust Settlement dated 31st October 1924, William Peace Drever, Solicitor, Kirkwall left, among other bequests, "To the Education Authority of the County of Orkney the sum of One hundred and fifty pounds to hold and invest the same and apply the revenue thereof (1) primo loco in providing annually a gold medal for the dux of the Kirkwall Burgh School upon the award of the Headmaster for the time being, and (2) to apply any residue of revenue in providing book prizes for the scholars of that school likewise upon the award of the Headmaster for the time being". I note that although Drever died in December 1924, the first medal was not awarded till 1928. Someone told me his will was challenged, so that may account for the delay. His other bequests included £500 to be held in trust with the income being used to provide annual Christmas presents for the needy fishermen and seamen of Kirkwall, and a like sum to provide university bursaries for needy scholars of the Kirkwall school.

Bruce, I suspect it succumbed to creeping 'political correctness'. Of course, I may be wrong, I've been wrong before (not quite sure when, possibly 1963).

Ian, why just because the Academy was a smaller school should the board be any smaller? Surely just as in KGS you would only have had one winner each year.

Ian's picture of the Stromness Academy board will appear on Thursday 9th, probably after teatime (lot of council meetings), and will perhaps suggest that even if he was wrong in 1963, he may have fared better in 1948...

Ah yes, Anonymous, but the winners would probably be smaller.

So, Steven, my dreadful secret is out! It was a matter of necessity. Mother had been 'dux' before they invented boards, and the guy two places up from me is my late brother. (Few alive today know how close I came to letting the side down.)

A belated additional comment. Two years ago a former schoolmate and I were on a Danube river cruise and for the first time in our lives we met Jim Stout, the 1949 dux on this board. On a boat somewhere upstream from Budapest seemed an unlikely place for Orkney folk to run into each other. (And almost exact contemporaries too.)

The 3 May comment wasn't meant to be anonymous - rather spoils the point of it. It was me. I'll take more care this time.

Rather a shame that a Drever never made it to the board.

Helen Bichan I think was my teacher at Grimness school about 1945.

My Dad was Hamish McGhie 1961

Hamish McGhie 1961 was my dad. He passed away in 2011.