Graham MacLean - Moray Sea School, Burghead Scotland, 1965

I attended Burghead on CourseM152 from 20th September to 16th October of 1965 at the behest of my would be employer Alfred Holt and co (who operated the Blue Funnel Line of Liverpool). I had been offered an apprenticeship with them however they wanted a "character report" from Outward Bound. The main characters were Major Richards, Sergeant Brettel, Mr Jeavons and Commander Gunn Cunningham. I still remember so much of it, the early morning runs ending with press-ups in the surf, pushing ourselves off rock faces to get "confidence in the rope" and more importantly your watch mate out of site further up but taking the strain following the shout of "climbing"-"aye aye" and off you went. A few days later it was free abseiling with 8 turns of small stuff around your waist and a carribena. One unlucky soul got the dubious pleasure of being lowered down the cliffs lashed into a stretcher. Our trip on the Prince Louis was restricted to the Moray firth as we went to Burghead and took on board Dr Kurt Hann via a bosuns chair and the yard arm. We then sailed around the firth with a film crew taking copious shots of the various onboard activities, we enjoyed watching the three volunteers being filmed numerous times demonstrating the morning exercise of throwing over a bucket and heaving line and pouring it over themselves. I thoroughly enjoyed the course and drake Watch worked well as a team. My own involvement got me the nickname smile and I was very fortunate to be invited to a special experimental course which I think was in 1968 when about 50 of us decanted from Burghead to set up camp near Cape Wrath where as well as expeditions around the area we took part in some work for the local community. This was an exceptionally good course and of course we all had our own stories having all gained employment throughout the country and further afield, one lad was from Malta. I have some photographs somewhere and will try to dig them out