Glenbuchat Heritage

121 St Margaret's School at Glenbuchat

St Margaret’s School at Glenbuchat.

Pictures above

1. Advert in Press and Journal of 30th August 1939 for pupils to St Margaret’s school Aberdeen, noting possible move to Glenbuchat
2. & 3. Pictures with text below from article in the 1997-98 St Margaret’s School Chronicle.


Click for more details about St Margaret’s at Glenbuchat


Isobel Leach (nee Moir) boarded from 1930 to 1940 and now lives in New York. I was a boarder for ten years, first at Queens Gardens in 1930 to 1939 and then at Glenbuchat from 1939 to 1940.

My memories of Glenbuchat in the first year of the war were of the beauty of the hills of Donside but also of being very cold. It was a very snowy winter. I also had my Higher Leaving Certificate looming up. The teachers came out from Aberdeen once a week to give us lessons and homework and dear Miss Nicol looked after us with a loving hand. She was very lame from arthritis and the cold must have been a sore trial.

My friend at Glenbuchat was Betsy Radovich, the daughter of the Yugoslav Ambassador to St James (her mother was Scottish). We had a gramophone with two old records and some blunt needles and to keep warm and amuse ourselves, we danced together on Saturday evenings. Betsy would tell me about the ball she had been to at Buckingham Palace and how handsome Anthony Eden was!

Betsy and l were allowed to cycle to church, which was our only excitement until a RAF plane crashed into the hills behind the Lodge. The search parties were given tea and a few moments to get warm by the kitchen fire. The war suddenly became much closer. My friends from the beginning of school are still my friends, Betty Adam (nee Watt) and Sheila MacLean (nee Duffus). We all came to the 150th anniversary of St Margaret's two years ago. We were the oldest ex girls there - the class of 1940!


From Contribution in the Guestbook

The Airspeed Oxford that crashed in Glenbuchat in 1940 came down on the right-hand hill face at the top of Little Glen Nochty, looking on to the Ladder Hill which has a cairn on its summit.