Ronnie Greenwood, Our Man in Tokyo...
Ronnie went to Holmston from 1965 to 1971, in the same class as Stuart Tod.
He wrote to us from Tokyo in 2000 to tell us of his shock at seeing himself,
31 years ago, in Stuart's photo.
We hope he doesn't mind us quoting a little from his interesting e-mail -
"My name is Ronnie Greenwood and Holmston was my Primary School.
I am in a state of shock, I suppose, as I have just accessed your
site for the first time and saw my class photo from 31 years ago.
I am second from the right on the top row - I loved seeing all the
old faces and names.
"I left Scotland many years ago to live firstly in England
and then in the Czech Republic. I lived in Prague for four
years up until January of this year when I moved to Tokyo. I
work with Mars, as a marketing manager for their petfoods.
"I have three kids, aged 7, 5 and 3, all of them at
international schools here.
"I met my wife, Carol, at the Darlington Hotel in Ayr, and
incredibly, last night was the twentieth anniversary of
the night we met.
"We all will be back in Ayr to visit our family in the summer.
In fact that is how I got to know of the website as I asked my
mother to check out whether she could try to set up (two of Ronnie's children)
with Holmston Primary kids' penpals , with a view to them making
friends in Ayr when they get back - they will be around Ayr, on and off, for six weeks.
"The list of former pupils who wrote in threw up a number of names
that I reckon were brothers and sisters of my classmates.
"Lesley Bloomer is the younger sister of Graeme Bloomer. Jimmy
McIlveen is the brother of Robert McIlveen, I think. Whilst John
Mitchell could be the brother of Arleen Mitchell. ...I spent quite a lot of time with both Robert and Graeme - in fact as I recall the
three of us, with Alan McGhee, used to go off on cycling trips
which invariably took us to the Heads of Ayr. It's amazing that
two of this group's siblings are in the list of former pupils
that have contacted you.
"Thanks for bringing back the memories - I hope that my kids
eventually make contact with some kids their ages currently at
Holmston. For the record I was at Holmston for the same time
period as Stuart Tod. I was in the superior 'Belmont' !!"