Nostalgic visitors from across the UK have said goodbye to an Angus comprehensive that taught thousands of pupils over more than five decades.
The former Forfar Academy is now empty after pupils and staff moved wholesale to the new community campus last week.
Staff organised a “final fling” for the Taylor Street building, which backs on to the new £39 million facility, after the dust had settled.
For the majority of the hundreds who came, the visit was an emotional farewell to the scene of many teenage triumphs.
Carol Wilson, 52, said she came from Wales to see friends in Monifieth, and was happy to see the school on its last day.
“It hasn’t changed much since I was here, for good and bad,” she said.
“It’s had its day and I’m pleased to see so much money being spent on the kids with their new school.”
The academy opened in 1965 and took in pupils from four town primaries — the South School now known as Strathmore PS, the East School or latter-day Montrose Road Centre, the West School now Langlands PS, and the North School or former Wellbrae PS, which was destroyed by fire last year.
The previous comprehensive, which later became Chapelpark PS, is in the later stages of redevelopment as affordable housing by Angus Council.
Head teacher Melvyn Lynch said turning the keys at the academy represented “the end of an era”.
“The new campus provides us with excellent opportunities for learning, and the pupils are getting on great with the transition,” he said.
“But it is always going to be sad for people to leave behind a bit of history.
“It’s served the town well for many years.”
The community campus opened to the public on Monday, following a weekend of tours.
A former pupil’s account
Picking through the bones of an old building, so soon after people have gone, can give rise to an unsettling feeling.
German has a suitable word for it — unheimlich — where something once homely becomes unfamiliar.
And it’s hard for a building to lose its place in public consciousness after more than 50 years of teeming with life.
Hundreds of former pupils and teachers swarmed the school with their children and grandkids, future generations who’ll mill around a new community campus with very of-the-moment touchpads and open classrooms.
And I think the turnout was surprising to those who turned the keys in the early afternoon, as pupil guides were quickly swamped by a wave of nostalgia.
But speaking to some older ex-pupils, any misty-eyed 1960s recollections are haunted by the spectre of old-style discipline and teachers who weren’t that into education — a feature of any era.
Even friends who attended after “the belt” have stories about how the long walk along Taylor Street made their hearts sink, because kids can be so cruel.
It’s time for another two generations to begin their own stories, and I hope everyone gets to tell them the way it should be, free from bullying and the lash.
