School Camp Glenmore Lodge , 1952

From the earliest recorded school camp in 1921 our pupils have been on hundreds of trips.

Few can have been as impressively recorded as that of 1952 to Glenmore Lodge in Cairngorm National Park.

The Lodge was established in 1947 to “provide boys & girls, men & women, with new skills of moving safely in, living in, understanding and appreciating a completely different environment”.

In 1952 Portobello was the first Edinburgh school to take part in a course, with a party of 40 girls departing from Park Avenue on 24th May, led my Miss Boath and assisted by Miss Richardson (and accompanied by Bosco, Miss Boath’s bulldog).

The girls have left us a marvellously detailed record of the week starting with their journey from Edinburgh to Perth via Kincardine Bridge (no Forth Road Bridge) then up the ‘old’ A9 to Aviemore.

Reading it you can sense their excitement: “Look at the snow!” (as they pass through Blair Atholl). When they arrive they refer to Glenmore Forest as “Our forest for the next week”; Morlich is “Our” Loch. All are featured on the embroidered cover.

The girls’ week is documented in wonderful detail. Not only the activities – campcraft, way-finding, field studies, map work and a two-day mountain expedition – but also the daily routine, like dormitory cleaning.

The log book, of which we post some extracts, is illustrated throughout with drawings and photographs, a truly wonderful record.

Girls attending and their ‘patrol names’ (L=Leader):

Glenmore

Heather Finlay (L)

Jean Rankin (L)

Margaret Muirhead

Jean Muir

Anne Darling

Joan Jeffrey

Jean Hamilton

Jean Hunter

Maisie Taylor