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Michael Hanna - Moray Sea School, Burghead Scotland, 1968
I attended Moray Outward Bound Sea School in the summer of 1968, aged 18, between leaving school and entering university. I was the only Irish boy on the course so naturally I was called ‘Paddy’, the only time in my life I have been so called. My father served in the Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers in the North Africa campaign during WW2 and he believed Outward Bound would ‘make a man of me’. I remember a rough journey over on the old Burns and Laird steamer, and my determination not to throw up the only food I had had money to buy. I arrived in Glasgow on a Sunday and attended a small Methodist church. The Minister took pity on me and invited me to lunch in his home. A fine, generous Christian man. I remember he had rather an attractive daughter. It was to be my last contact with the fair sex for a month; a long train journey from Glasgow brought me to Burghead, alone, chugging through sunlit Scottish countryside, an adventure in itself.
I was in Churchill Watch. As the only Paddy in the course, I think I was elected some kind of watch leader. We had a wonderful, generous, instructor attached to our watch, without an ounce of anti-Irish prejudice in his body. Some of the other instructors were less blessed. What surprised me though was the wide social spectrum of my watch-mates; we came from all walks of life, some, like me, sent by their fathers to be made men of and others by their employers for I guess many reasons. ‘Worzel Gummidge’, so named, came from Cornwall and had an ancient Austin which I nearly bought after the course was over. Worzel was somewhat older than the rest of us, and a true gent. Our four day trek in the Cairngorms was one of many highlights. I saw my role, like Father O’Flynn, as ‘coaxing the aisy ones, checking the crazy ones, and lifting the lazy ones on with a stick!’ It was my first experience of leadership! Then we had a boat race with another Watch in a pair of old Luggers which we called Lower and Dips because of the necessity to lower and raise the whole sail each time they went about. I took the inside channel where I thought the current would be slacker and so it proved. As we passed the other boat, there on the floor of the craft, hidden from view, was the vice-principal! That was a sweet victory!
On the final day, we had ‘the five mile run’. It was a great month and I remember proudly wearing a silver Outward Bound lapel pin for a long time afterwards. That, and my father glowing with pride as he shared my report with his pals. Clearly I had passed his test. Some months later, a letter arrived inviting me to take part in a winter mountain expedition but by that time I was already in Trinity College in the middle of my Junior Freshman year. I sometimes think if I had left College and gone on that course, I might have ended up in the Falklands War!
Michael Hanna
I was in Churchill Watch. As the only Paddy in the course, I think I was elected some kind of watch leader. We had a wonderful, generous, instructor attached to our watch, without an ounce of anti-Irish prejudice in his body. Some of the other instructors were less blessed. What surprised me though was the wide social spectrum of my watch-mates; we came from all walks of life, some, like me, sent by their fathers to be made men of and others by their employers for I guess many reasons. ‘Worzel Gummidge’, so named, came from Cornwall and had an ancient Austin which I nearly bought after the course was over. Worzel was somewhat older than the rest of us, and a true gent. Our four day trek in the Cairngorms was one of many highlights. I saw my role, like Father O’Flynn, as ‘coaxing the aisy ones, checking the crazy ones, and lifting the lazy ones on with a stick!’ It was my first experience of leadership! Then we had a boat race with another Watch in a pair of old Luggers which we called Lower and Dips because of the necessity to lower and raise the whole sail each time they went about. I took the inside channel where I thought the current would be slacker and so it proved. As we passed the other boat, there on the floor of the craft, hidden from view, was the vice-principal! That was a sweet victory!
On the final day, we had ‘the five mile run’. It was a great month and I remember proudly wearing a silver Outward Bound lapel pin for a long time afterwards. That, and my father glowing with pride as he shared my report with his pals. Clearly I had passed his test. Some months later, a letter arrived inviting me to take part in a winter mountain expedition but by that time I was already in Trinity College in the middle of my Junior Freshman year. I sometimes think if I had left College and gone on that course, I might have ended up in the Falklands War!
Michael Hanna