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The Ken McLeod Interview
31/08/01
My name is Ken McLeod I was a teacher at Braehead for 10 years.
 I came to Buckhaven in 1962; I came through from Glasgow, the reason being to get a house. I had no real reason to come to Fife to teach but in Glasgow they did not give houses and of course since I was just getting married I was looking for a house.
The county at that time offered houses to teachers and that was one of the main reasons for coming through. I was offered two jobs one in Kelty and one in Buckhaven, Braehead. As my wife had come to Buckhaven for her summer holidays I thought well we will start of in Braehead. I thoroughly enjoyed myself, the teaching was different, because Mr. Mackenzie was a pioneer in the educational field. This drew me a wee bit too, as it was explained to me that the education I would be delivering might not be 'normal'. I of course was concerned about that but when I came through to Buckhaven I found that this abnormal teaching was in fact making dinghy's, taking boys out to sail the dinghy's and we in fact used to fish when we had the dinghy's out. I found that very, very interesting and I thought the boys found it satisfactory as they built the product, took it out, saw that it worked, in fact bring it back and do adjustments and so on.
That was one side that I really did like in my time there I started a fishing club and in doing so took the boys to Rannoch, where Bob Mackenzie had organised with the forestry a cottage which we leased for about a £1 a year. We took parties up every year, not only myself, Hamish Brown took parties and they did Chihalion and various Munroe's around Rannoch. To this day I still go up to Rannoch fishing.
Again this has been an eye opener for me in a place that is indeed very dear to my heart. I ran a fishing club and a football club, we had three football teams. I was given a Wednesday afternoon to do the three football teams, train them and I thought we had very good success with them. You especially had time to spend with the boys and of course I was playing senior football myself so it gave me a chance to put over my ideas and we had a lot of very good players that went on to play with East Fife, Dunfermline, Jim Scott is one that comes to mind.
I got the chance to use all my talents at Braehead and I certainly enjoyed that side of things. That wasn't to say that I didn't teach 'O' grades when the 'O' grades came in. When I first went to Braehead it was a Fife School Certificate and the pupils did reasonably well with that. But when the 'O' grades came in which I think was 1963, we had tremendous results. One of the reasons why I went to Buckhaven High was because all my lads passed their 'O' grades, 100% passes. Now I have to be fair and say that the school, did a lot of that because the children in the school, the pupils, said 'I want to sit my 'O' grades'. The teachers never said 'no you can't'. You got the chance to do it, if you couldn't cope after the first year you could opt out. You could say I don't want to do this, it's to hard for me, as some of the children did. But the ones who continued, they worked hard, because they wanted to do it, and consequently got their passes.
It's one of my beliefs that if any child wants to do something, they will apply themselves and consequently they will do it. The normal school, I'm saying normal in so far as Bob Mackenzie came in with this innovative education when you were at a normal school it was a question of you will do that, not a question of 'do you want to do that'. You had to do it whether you wanted to or not. So sometimes, pupils would say that they did not fancy that and would not put the effort in. I felt I did that myself when I was at school.
It's when you are interested, you will put that little bit extra effort in. I think that most pupils doing 'O' grades were doing them because they wanted to do them, therefore they put that extra effort in and that is why the results were so good. From that aspect I found it was good.
I also thought that all teachers had the chance to talk to their pupils, which nowadays, teachers are that busy pushing for stuff that you have no time to really get to know the pupils. Now when your concentrating on reaching a certain standard, you must get that and if you don't, this is going to affect you or the school. So there are different pressures today.
When I went to the High School this was the case. They weren't so interested in how the pupils were. An old teacher said to me that you are trying to produce good citizens not to produce academics, if you can do both then that's a bonus, but you are trying to produce good citizens first.
Why did you choose Braehead? Did you know what Braehead was doing?
When I came through, Mr. Macintosh was the teacher in charge of technical education at that time, he was the county organiser. He actually took me on, he said there is a job here for you and we have accepted you for it. It was the funniest interview I ever went to because the job was there. It was not a question of you or him, it was a question, do you want it. He said there is another job in Kelty if you fancy it. I said where's Kelty and he said West Fife. That was in the middle of the mining communities and I felt I would rather be near the coast rather than inland.
He said then, that he had to let me know that Mr. Mackenzie has his own ideas of education, they are innovative and some people will question him. It really is a very practical school, so it should be good for me. I was playing football at the time and he said that I would be able to do the football, as there is only one gym teacher. It was a very attractive package to me in fact.
Which teams did you play for?
I played for Queens Park, Stranraer, Brechin, Forfar and Montrose but never for East Fife. I have played with Methilhill Strollers for 15/16 years.
Looking back was the move 'good for you?
I loved my time at Braehead, and spent about another 20 years at the High School. The High School always thought what a wonderful staff that they had. But the Braehead staff were the best staff, to me. I have been in about 5 schools in my career. The Braehead staff were totally together. They did not always agree with Bob Mackenzie, and we had a lot of run-ins with Bob, but to be fair to the man when he new the body of opinion was against him he was big enough to say, well if that's your opinion then that's the way it will be. I am the figurehead but you are doing the work and I will run with your opinions.
We did have one occasion when the children were more or less doing what they liked and it was like a real big disaster area. At this time he had said no belting and we said OK, fine. We had a fortnight with some unpleasant incidents. We wanted to reintroduce belting. He said you will not do that because I am the headmaster. Everybody signed a document for belting to be reintroduced. This was sent to the director, who came out met the staff and said to Mr. Mackenzie you will have to do what your staff tells you, because we are talking about the majority here. We reintroduced belting and the incidents stopped. Mr. Mackenzie was big enough to accept that, I admired the man for that.
He gave me a row once in my teaching career. He came in when I had a class and I had decided to leave the class to go to the toilet. He was waiting when I came back. He said 'why are you not in your class?' I said I had had to go to the toilet. Mr. Mackenzie said well you should be in your class, now he could not give me an alternative to going to the toilet. About 10 minutes later he came back down and said that he was very sorry for getting on to me. I said you were quite right; there was no one to attend to the class, you were quite right to have a go so I don't do it on a regular basis. In other words go to the toilet before going into my class.
I felt that was his weakness, that even when he was right, he apologised. You should not apologise when you are right, or that's what I think.
I thought it was really a nice time, I spent 10 years at the school and was one of the last teachers to leave Braehead.
Three of us left and went up to the High School.
Mrs. Springer (Religious Education), Bill McFarlaine (Modern Studies) and myself went onto the High School this would have been around 1969/70 and Braehead closed in June. I started at the High School immediately after the holidays and remained there until 1999.
Was it a difficult time in the school after Bob moved onto Aberdeen?
Was his philosophy carried on?
Yes, Hamish Roger ran the school using the same boundaries. What we had always done he wanted that to continue. Right up to the very end it was the same sort of routine. Even when I went up to the High School at first they were going to work with pupils in how to make boats, but then they said well you've got certificates although at Braehead we did both.
I used to get the lads in the metal work room and we used to fry sausages and things on a cold winter day. We would be standing round the forge, freezing, and would have a whip round to buy some sausages. We would fry them and use toasting forks that we had made earlier. This was only if they had behaved themselves. You could not do that today, they would not allow you to that these days. The boys also realised that this was a privilege if they were working hard. The whole school was done in that kind of business.
At Braehead everyone had their ideas, but Bob gave people boundaries that they could go to. Bill Rintoul was my boss, so I would go to him and say I would like to do this, if he thought it was a good idea then he would say yes. He might no be sure what you were trying to do, but would say, go on, try it then. But if it didn't work you were soon told to forget that. You worked through a process, and through to something that became established, you new it worked, it certainly worked with the majority of children. That was important. Most of the people that I have met at Braehead have turned out super, they really have. I am very proud of them.
Any funny moments?
I have two stories about John Dawson. One day John went to Mr. Mackenzie and told him that someone had stolen his coat from the staff room. RF. laid into the pupils about thieves in our midst, and the person would be punished severely. When he was finished, John came up to him and said 'I've just remembered headmaster that I had left my coat in the house'. This after Bob had gathered all the school together to give a lecture on trust etc., Another time I came out and he could not get his car to start. I said do you want a push, and he said if you don't mind. I pushed him for quite a distance and he suddenly put the brakes on, I nearly ran into the car. He said 'I've just remembered that I have not yet put the battery back in the car'. He had put the battery in the tech room to charge it up and had forgot about it.
Bill Rintoul was a terrific man, pupils would not know this but he always had a joke when he came into the school. He was captain of the golf club and he would hear loads of jokes at the club and every day he had a new one for the staff at the school.
The staff all enjoyed themselves, they really did enjoy themselves, and I think that that passes on to the pupils.
The space ship saga (first told by Allan Dingwall). I think it was one of the Tindals, two brothers from the Wemyss, they were nearly identical, maybe twins and one of them was one of the guys who came out of the space ship. It looked good, on the night it came down on its pulley. With the music and the lights that were on it, it was like it was just appearing over the audiences heads, and right onto the stage. The pupils then came round the back of it as if they had just come out of the space ship. These were things that we were good at. You don't meet any Braehead teachers that don't mention something to remember from their time at the school.
I used to have some photographs from the East Fife Mail with Dave Scott and myself building skis. Were the skis any good? Yes people used them, they were fairly heavy but they did get a lot of use and they worked. They were made out of ash, which made them quite heavy.
Car driving lessons, were part of our work with the pupils. These things were good because it showed kids how with good behaviour you got experiences. This was quite out of time, kids at school get driving lessons but from outside instructors not from the teachers. The pupils at Braehead at that time were deemed to young to get driving lessons, but we were giving them in the school playground. It was quite an advancement.
I would take pupils fishing while Hamish took other pupils rock climbing at Inverlair. I was petrified to watch the pupils hanging on by their toe nails. Again Hamish was very competent with them although I never went climbing it was not for me. I think that if you want a view of something I would buy a postcard! I only climb hills when I have to reach a loch to fish.
Lasting memories of Bob Mackenzie?
I liked bob Mackenzie and I thought that he had a lot of good ideas. One thing that him and I disagreed on was that he thought that all kids were nice kids. Now, I believe that all kids are nice kids but all kids need discipline, and by discipline I don't mean knocking seven bells out of them. They have got to have some sort of structure that you work under and I have found in my teaching career that if the kids new exactly where they stood, when they can do that or cant do that then its so much better for them and for me. Bob felt that you could just let the kids do what they want. Another teacher from the High School had said that you can't allow the kids to do what they want all the time, because 9 times out of 10 they are not doing what you want. At the end of the day you are the teacher, you've got the targets to attain, whatever those may be, good citizenship, getting a certificate or whatever. So, you have got to be in charge, it has got to be within that structure.
If I had felt as strongly about Braehead as Bob did then I would have made sure that my kids went to that school. His kids didn't, they went to the High School. When you look back and see how many of the kids did well going through Braehead why could his kids not have done well too by attending Braehead.
Whats your fondest memory of Braehead?
The staff. There was no one on the staff that you did not want to meet. Everyone of them had something to offer.
To me you don't value people with what they have you value people for what they are and what they can bring to society.
View Ken's photographs here
Read Ken's interview for the Braehead News
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