Tom Hepburn School Days (Alan Glens)

In 1887 my father opened a retail shop for grain, flour, feed and all the goods handled by a grain merchant. This was in addition to his supply business in grain and machinery to the farmers in the south of Lanarkshire. There was fierce competition in the latter and so profits were meager and we gradually began to depend on the retail trade. The shop was on St. Georges Road at the corner of Carnarvon Street half way between Charing Cross and St. George’s Cross toward the west side of Glasgow.

My sister, Addie, left school at this time and decided to help her father in the shop. We decided to give up the flat on Dixon Ave. and move closer to the work. Our parents decided to rent a house at 10 Carrington Street off Great Western Road about two blocks from St. Georges Cross. This flat was on the ground floor with three rooms and bathroom above. There was a kitchen and a large store room or extra bedroom in the basement. Our parlour or sitting room was a large room with three windows looking on to a grassy patch enclosed with a fancy iron fence. This front lawn I had to keep cut in summer time with a pair of sheep shears since we did not own a lawn mower. It was a nice, handy site as I could sit at our parlour windows and watch the street cars and horse traffic passing on Great Western Road.

Between our house and the corner of Great Western Road was a licensed grocer’s shop which my mother avoided shopping at because of her strict temperance principles. She would have nothing to do with anyone who sold whiskey. They were publicans even though nothing was consumed on the premises. We lived in that flat for eight years (1887-1895). My father died there in 1894 at the age of 51.

Once we had moved to 10 Carrington St. and summer holidays were in full swing my parents made a decision with respect to my education. With Addie helping mother in the house and father in the shop it was decided that it was time that I was sent to a technical school to get a more useful education than that which I was getting at Hutchison’s Boys School. Now that we had moved, my old school was too far away anyway. We now lived on the north side of the Clyde near the west side of the city. We heard of

Allan Glen’s Technical School on Cathedral Street not far from the old Glasgow Cathedral. It was decided that I try and sit for a scholarship examination to get my schooling there for free. I sat for a day or two and answered written and oral questions. I then appeared with my mother before a board of trustees. They explained that I had passed with quite good credit but that scholarships were preferably given to boys of poor parents. My father being in business for himself seemingly excluded me from eligibility for a scholarship. In any case, my mother was equal to the occasion. She explained to the trustees that I had to work after school hours and all day Saturday as the message boy for the shop delivering heavy packages in message baskets and by helping my father move sacks of grain, etc.

I got the scholarship because when my mother set her mind to something she usually made good. So, I got my technical education at no cost. The scholarship was good for two years. By the end of the first year I heard that a bursary could be obtained for the three remaining years of the course. So, I sat for the bursary examination then and won it too. It came with a donation of ten pounds as a prize at the end of the first term as well as a free education until I completed the three-year course. It was a splendid school with a chemical laboratory and a manual training workshop. In the last two years there a physical laboratory was also added. Art, science, chemistry, electrical work, higher mathematics were among the many subjects taught. Many Allen Glen scholars made their mark in future years as they could go from this school direct to the Glasgow University for a complete college course in science. No distinction was ever made in the class rooms between those who got their education for free with a scholarship or bursary and those in the majority who had to pay for their tuition at fairly high fees.

One such famous alumni was Charles Rennie Mackintoish who attended Alan Glen's from 1880 till 1883. His 1880 class photograph is below.

During my first year there the school had a Mr. Dickson as headmaster, an old fashioned yet able dominie. He retired and then we had a wonderful chief who had all the latest knowledge of teaching and was a great teacher himself. He was John Kerr who carried on at Allen Glen’s School for many years. I can remember how efficient he was in the management of the many science teachers and their work. One session about ten students wanted to take a course in a new subject namely, the Science of Sound, Light and Heat, an advanced course. Kerr was the only one who could teach it. He gave us four lectures of two hours each after school hours and sometimes on a Saturday. Half the class passed the Science and Art examinations set by the government with first class honours. I was glad to be among those who did. Of course, we had a technical class book on the subject to study between lectures. However, I am away ahead of my story again!

The walk to Allen Glen’s School from Carrington St. was quite a long one. It took a full twenty minutes to do it at a fast pace and half an hour at a more comfortable pace. It was down St. Georges Road to Charing Cross and then along Sauchiehall St. to Renfield St. Then down Renfield St. a block to the end of Cathedral St. and along Cathedral a good half mile to the school.

The great shopping center from end to end of Sauchiehall St. could not be taken in a hurry as a rule. There was just too much to see in the big shop windows. The candy stores along Sauchiehall St. were numerous. The proper Glasgow name was “sweetie shop” but a penniless young man could only admire them from the outside. Occasionally I had a few pence saved up and I had to make it go as far as possible, usually something made from sugar and treacle. Chocolates were beyond my means. Skinner’s Bakery Shop near Charing Cross with wonderful exhibits of cakes, buns and pastries was worth stopping to admire. But that was all I could do as I seldom had any coppers in my pocket.

There was a shop window half way along the same street that had laboratory items and scientific toys on display. That interested us often. There were fancy magnetic needles on little stands and pocket compasses in great numbers alongside them. One of my companions happened to mention that a magnet could make these compasses move. So I told him I had a magnet at home. Next day we stopped and tried the magnet by moving it on the outside along the glass of the shop window. To our surprise we saw all the magnetic needles and compasses quiver and turn with their North ends following the magnet’s motion. We got them spinning by waving the magnet in time with their rotations. Some of them turned so fast that they jerked off their center pins and fell onto the shelf in the shop window. We waited a day or two until the owner put them back again. Then we tried it again with the same result. Finally, one day I was alone at the window and had just pulled out my magnet to have some fun with the needles when a voice from the door stopped me. “So, that’s the cause of the magnetic needles misbehaving. Young fellow, my lad, I’ll give you a compass for yourself if you will just keep that magnet at home. How about it?” My face turned a bit red and I promised to leave his possessions alone. I took a little compass home in my pocket. I had that little toy for many years and carried it when I went for walks in the country so I would know the direction of North and South. Even while walking through unknown Glasgow streets, it was useful to tell which way I was going.

I traveled to and from that school for four years (1887-1891). I don’t recall getting a ride on a street car but they did not go all the way I wanted to travel anyway. On Sauchiehall St. the horse traffic was too busy to get good chances to jump on the back steps of the cars. I was getting too big to sneak free rides and there were more police in this area. Many were the accidents to poor horses slipping on the granite sets of the roadways in Glasgow. Many a horse had to be helped up after the shafts of the cart or lorry had been pushed from it.

During my second year at school I had a bicycle which shortened the time going and returning from school quite a bit. I bought the safety bicycle with the ten-pound bursary money and a pound that my father added to that. Eleven pounds was the price. It was a fairly heavy vehicle compared to the lightweights now in use and had solid rubber tires. I learned to ride on the streets of a crescent of well-to-do houses off Great Western Road. The crescent had a park in the center with a high iron fence all around. That fence took some skin off my knuckles every time I barged into it. After a few trials I managed to find my balance on the bike and all was well after that. Many a long run I had on country roads mainly to the north and west of Glasgow on Saturdays after delivering the day’s goods from the shop. It was not long before I got clear of that job as my homework became more necessary to do in the evenings. So, my father had to get a messenger boy to do the work.

I was at Allen Glen’s School from 1887 to 1890. My first teacher at Allen Glen’s was a Mr. Struthers, known throughout the class as ‘Sandy’. He was a tall, ungainly man with a pointed beard. He had a class of about seventy to handle and so discipline was a bit lax at times. Sandy could not be at two places at once and the room was long and narrow but he was an efficient teacher and we made progress in mathematics, science and general technical training. An addition to the school was being built that year to add more class rooms. The top flat was turned into a splendid studio for art classes with roof lighting and many models for drawing from objects in front of the class.  Mr. Crosskey, an Englishman was the art teacher and I got on well with him. In the last year there he taught me etching on copper and I believe had I followed that I might have made a success.

I was sent out one Saturday to make a sketch of the beautifully carved pillars in the crypt of Glasgow Cathedral. An etching was made from the sketch when I got back to the studio. I got a prize at end of session for that etching. I was so puffed up that I thought I could make some money for myself if I could get a number of copies of this etching sold to the art shops in Glasgow. So I took one in to a shop that sold pictures on Sauchiehall St. to get a price on it. The fellow behind the counter, a tall man with a swallowtail coat, looked at it then he barked, “Who is it by?” I could not name any famous etcher so I said, “I did it.” “Ha!” he said throwing the etching on the counter towards me, “Take it away. No sale for trash.” It was trash because it was done by a school boy. I was so disheartened, I walked out with my etching stuffed in a pocket and gave up all thought of making any money at art work. If my reception had been different, I might have taken a different course.

Mr. Crosskey was a brilliant teacher. He had made a name for himself as a teacher of art in Manchester but he had eloped with one of his young female students. He came to Glasgow to elude some troublesome relatives. I met his wife once. She was a very fine, young woman but I think she had a hard time with Mr. Crosskey’s bad temper. He used to blow up and get into a towering rage when things in the art class did not go right. His language was a tremulous delight to those pupils who were not the cause of the explosion.

Our teacher of machine drawing, geometry and engineering subjects was a Mr. McIntyre. He also had charge of the manual training class with an experienced mechanic under him who illustrated the handicraft at the benches by hand work in wood and metals. On my first trial at metal work, I was given a brick shaped piece of cast iron and was shown how to remove a quarter inch layer off one side with a diamond pointed chisel that cut grooves from end to end. I then smoothed down the ridges with flat chisels. Then the surface had to be filed smooth with a coarse file and then a smooth file. It took me many hours of work to do the job satisfactorily over a week or two. Getting the smooth flat surface by filing took the longest time. Woodwork was also taught. We learned the use of saws, planes and wood chisels. It was a class that had useful results as it taught boys how to use tools and I found the experience very worthwhile when I started my apprenticeship later in an engineering shop. I was well ahead of other newly engaged apprentices who had not the benefit of a technical training. In fact, I got ahead of them too well for an old journeyman fitter in the shops took a fancy to my work and kept me as his assistant constantly that first year. His nickname was ‘Jimmy the Crank’. He was a red-haired, old deep-sea engineer with a terrible tongue in keeping with the red hair. I have forgotten his real name. I learnt something from him in spite of all this. I learned how to create machinery to plans prepared by draughtsmen in the office and fitting machine parts together.

I had a companion in a back seat named Arthur Muirhead from Bridge of Weir. He had been born and brought up at a small estate near Lochwinnoch called Meikle Cloak that belonged to his father. Arthur and I found out that we were related. His mother was a Reid, a sister of a Mrs. Wm. Holmes of Irvine whose husband was a cousin of my mother. We tried to figure out whether we could be considered cousins, 2^nd cousins or what our relationship was but gave it up as we could not agree. Arthur went to some other school after that year and so I lost touch with him until we went to live in Lochwinnoch after my father died. We met several times then until the year I came to Canada.

I had another companion, Robert Thompson, who usually sat next to me in the back seat of the class for a year or two. We were only separated when eventually my teacher discovered that I had become shortsighted and could not see what was on the blackboard. I was ordered forward to a front seat much against my will. We considered that the front seats were reserved for the slow pokes. Luckily it was near the end of the school year because I did not get on well at that front seat. The boy I now sat beside turned out to be a queer fellow. He was full of dirty stories and was forever drawing obscene sketches on his slate. He would then push them in front of his neighbours when the teacher’s back was turned to see their reaction. He did it overmuch one day and I got disgusted. I waited for him outside the classroom door as the class was coming out. When he appeared I told him what I thought. As I did so I got angry and smacked him in the face. He was so astonished that he just rubbed his cheek and gaped at me. The others coming out separated us and told us to settle the matter on the playground. Several of us went down to the playground and waited around but the other fellow had had enough and shut himself into a lavatory. One lad shouted to me, “It’s no use Heppy. He’s scared of you.” After that I heard more than one speak of ‘Heppy’ as a terror but I got no more foul sketches shown to me. The spotty artist moved himself to the far end of the seats with several other lads between us.

The Robert Thompson I mentioned used to travel home with me along Sauchiehall St. for a year or two. We often were at loggerheads on various subjects for he was a little, pushy fellow. But I usually had the better of him when it came to a tussle. R.T. left and got a job somewhere that year but I carried on.

I was so well trained in geometry, geometrical drawing and machine drawing and allied subjects that I was fitted many years later to teach evening classes in Glasgow and Govan. That was useful in keeping me out of trouble when I was young and unsettled.

The last year at Allen Glen’s was a strenuous one. The classes covered the Advanced and Honours stages of technical training: Advanced Electricity, Steam and Steam Engine Theory, Advanced Mechanics, Advanced Mathematics, etc. Then at end of session, we had to sit many Science & Art Examinations set by the Education Department in London. These were always in the evenings at certain large schools in Glasgow after the schools had closed for the holidays. These were three-hour sessions usually spent answering questions from an examination paper handed to each scholar. Complete silence had to be observed in a room holding 80 to 100 competitors. Seven or eight of these exams in as many evenings was a trying time. The rules of the department had to be read solemnly by one of those in charge. Sometimes we could not resist a rattle of feet on the floor when the reader came to a finish. At one exam an old fellow in charge held up his hand and then in an eloquent voice recited some verse of Shakespeare ending up with, “Now lads, begin the good work. As the sun moves serenely over the tall trees of the forest, let your minds move quietly to the tasks before you.” We gave him an extra clap for that before dipping our pens in the ink. I found that he was Harry Long a sort of public man in Glasgow municipal politics then, a great speaker at public meetings and on street corners.

My passes at the last session of Allen Glen’s and the results of the last Science and Art Examinations were better than even I had expected. I took home a bundle of eight or nine scientific books I had been presented with. My teacher of Advanced Electricity had told me before sitting for the exam in that subject that he didn’t have much hope of me doing anything creditable. However, he was rather surprised when I met him at the giving out of the prizes and was told that I had managed to pass with Honours. He could scarcely believe it until I showed him the list of passes. Then I got such a whack on the shoulder and, “Well done, Heppy! There’s more in that head piece of yours than one would think.”

I celebrated the start of that summer’s holiday with a long cycle ride north of Glasgow through the villages of Milngavie, Strathblane, Killearn, Drymen,, Balloch, Dumbarton and back to Glasgow by Bowling and Old Kilpatrick. A forty-mile run, except I overdid it a bit and had to rest for a day or two and was teased for a long time after by my sister Addie. Every time I got the bike out, she would ask, “Going another forty-mile run?” I did have another run round by Milngavie not long after that and did come to grief. My tires were solid rubber in round section glued to the steel rims with some composition. On long hills the brake which was a spoon shaped piece of metal bearing flat on the rubber tire warmed the tire by friction. This heat seemed to melt the glue holding the tire onto the rim. On one long hill between Milngavie and Old Kilpatrick I braked too much, the tire loosened on the rim and then tangled in a bunch. I went over the handlebars in a flying leap. Unfortunately, my head struck the road and it was some time before I picked myself up. I looked for the bike which I found upside down in a ditch at the foot of the hill. I had to walk most of the ten miles home pushing the bike. The tire had broken right through at one place and would not stay on the rim. Solid tires had their troubles in these days but there was no bother from punctures nor flat tires. Neither was there the hard work with tire pumps.