Those, were the best days of my life

ABC of Troon... M is for Charles Kerr Marr.

Charles Kerr Marr was a Troon boy made good.  A Coal Merchant in London,  on his death, as a childless widower, he bequeathed a fantastic amount of money to be used for the education and benefit of the children in the town he was born and brought up in .  He wanted a classless education system where the children of dustbin men would be educated and given the same opportunities as children of millionaire, and they were. 

Marr College was opened in 1936, and this year 79 years after its doors opened for it's first intake - it's having a bit of an update. 

Nunk, as a young lad of 14 was among the first intake.  I still have a copy of the first school photo.  

Dad attended, mum attended, my sister, and because we moved back to Troon so that they could, so did Boy and Tooli. 

The purple and gold blazer made us stand out.  Our equally purple and gold hockey strips, rugby strips, and other sporting attire did too.  Other schools hated us.  Most sporting fixtures turned into class wars.   We cared not a jot they thought us snobs; our blazers and our green domed school told us we were. 

When I was there teachers wore gowns, and floated along corridors, screaming instructions at us.  Belts were used daily in classrooms; there was no mollycoddling of pupils - everyone was expected to do their best, and if they didn't they would with no hesitation call you stupid.  (oooh sharp intake of breath now a days). 

Boys did woodwork and girls did home economics.  Boys stayed to one end of the school, the girls the other.  There were a few meetings of sexes at the half way point - but in the main everyone stayed to their end. 

Of course there were rebels.  There was a smokers corner, there was a hole in the hedge were you could escape in between classes to skip a class. There were kids who walked out. Kids who shouted out, kids who didn't fit the mould; and couldn't be made to fit. 

But for the rest of us.  What a grounding.  What a start in life. 

And even today - both of mine having left now - they still benefit from the generosity of the Coal Merchant from Troon;   A lump sum every December to assist with their continuing education; I think he must have known that Student Grants wouldn't cover Christmas holidays. 



Is very difficult to get a good shot when the wind is howling 45 mph and rain is horizontal.  - the ones I took of the plaque on his birth place was absolutely pathetic.