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Holmston Pages

23 June 2000

1915 - Miss Ramsay's Class

At the height of the First World War, Miss Ramsay's class of girls look out at the camera from the yard at Holmston Primary, or Smith's Institution as it was called then.

We have this from Mrs Jean Harrison, formerly Jean Hamilton, who lives in Ayr. That's her on the back row, furthest along on the right.

There are no boys in the photograph, there were separate classes for boys and girls, and Jean's class was all girls.

Mrs Harrison, like many other pupils, remembers the names of all her teachers. There was Mr McMaster, Miss Anderson, Miss Wilson, Miss Knox, and Mr Jock Hair. The Janitor was Mr Davidson.

As Jean Hamilton, she stayed at "Smith's Institution", as most people did, until she was 14.

She still has her "Merit" Certificate, from the examinations when she left school in 1921. We'll maybe print it with other school awards, when we can get time.

Mrs Harrison tells us that the teacher in the photograph, Miss Ramsay, married a Mr Murray who owned a refrigeration company in Mill Street. This may be the same Mr Murray who welcomed a "massive" school trip of pupils from Holmston, who travelled by train to his farm, when Jim Fairlie was a pupil at the school twenty years later. See the history section for details, near the bottom of the page on how different school used to be.

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