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Stuart
Sutcliffe and I were contemporaries and
experienced five years of Grammar School
life together. Stuart was born in
Edinburgh also in 1940. I understood that
his father was a seaman and was away from
home quite a lot. He was slight of build
and wore glasses. He made up for his
stature by being quite assertive in his
attitudes and opinions, which sometimes
made him a target for the bigger boys in
the class. This scenario would sometimes
be acted out in the back rows of the
classrooms, when the teacher's back was
turned or in the playgrounds during
morning or afternoon recess. His defence
against this mild form of bullying was to
befriend myself and my best friend at the
time, David Aikman. David and I set next
to each other in class and saw quite a
lot of each other after school. Our
personalities clicked and we always saw
the funny side of life. We did not have
any trouble with the bigger boys - since
we tended to get out of scrapes with our
humour - whereas Stuart always tended to
take up the argument. He befriended David
and I from the beginning and looked upon
us as his protectors. There was safety in
numbers! He became so grateful one year
that he gave each of us a present at the
end of term. I can't remember what David
received but I was given a book on golf
titled 'Homes of Sport - Golf' which I
still have. Stuart knew that I was
becoming keen on the game. [Norman Allanson] |
