Thank your teachers

In my teens and twenties, I was always in a rush to achieve whatever was next, so nobody was surprised when I chose to apply for university a year early by taking advantage of having moved back to Scotland and the Scottish system allowing that when taking “Highers” in what is called “5th year” (first year of the Sixth form in the English system). After sitting those exams, that summer of 1982 I then marched into the Australian consulate in Edinburgh to apply for whatever student visa I’d need to then spend a year in Australia on the sheep station of a distant relative, only to be told “you are still only 16, you are too young to be eligible”. Oops.

So, having applied for deferred entry to university and with my travel plans stymied, I decided to simply go back to Peebles Burgh High School for one more year. I could have been a nightmare for the teaching staff, a bright boy who didn’t need to pass any exams as he already had his university place, but one teacher in particular lit a spark in me that sat smouldering within me for many years before finally burning bright now and into the future.

That teacher was Mr Peter Waller, the head of History at Peebles High. For that “what shall I do now?” final year of school, I chose subjects that I thought would interest me, one of those being history. I loved that class so, so much and for three core reasons: