Gail Kennedy (formerly Henderson) providers he memories of life at Largs High School. We are looking for your memories of Largs Academy which is closing in March, email your story to editorial@largsnews.co.uk

I attended Largs High from 1969 -1973 having previously attended the old Fairlie Primary School. My name at the time was Gail Henderson

In these days the classes were streamed and those in the top stream had to do Latin. Mr Cochrane I think was the teacher. Coming from a small primary school it was a bit of a shock having to get a bus to school and walk up Nelson Street from Nardinis to the school, as well as coping with timetables for different subjects, adjust to bigger classes etc.

The classes would hardly of been big but seemed so at the time.

In those days we had to go to Ardossan Academy if we wanted to do a 5th and 6 the year . We could choose to go either after 2nd year or 4th year. I chose to wait till 4 th year as I did not want to cope with yet another change to an even bigger school with a longer ( 12 miles) train journey.

I have a lot of memories of the school and all the different teachers but 2 particular events stick in my mind. The first is quite personal as I was the only one in the cookery class who chose to make a Christmas cake. It was to be a present for my grandparents whom I lived with and I had never attempted anything like it before. It took a full morning under the guidance of the cookery teacher..(" remember to get all the egg out of the shell" she would say,) and I was allowed to leave another class later in the afternoon to go back up and ice the cake. It did look lovely, decorated with little Lego trees and I was so proud, never having baked before. I carried it so carefully all the way back down Nelson Street in a tin to catch the bus . I was a little later than normal because I was being so careful and I heard someone suddenly shout " quick there's the bus" . I ran, tripped and the cake landed upside down on the pavement!!

On a happier note, I recall being somewhat stunned and very proud when our singing class entry won the Mod down in Ayr. We had practiced and practiced our song for weeks but the Gaelic song we were going to do had one very high note. Most of the time , we did not manage to reach it so it was going to be very much hit or miss whether we could pull it off on the day itself. Well ..we did and I remember shivers running down my spine. We were just delighted we had hit the note but I think, still very surprised that we won.

I still have the little gold James Wilson medal I got for French which is engraved. I think I was the last pupil to receive one. I now live in Argyll but still keep in touch with a former schoolfriend from Largs High who now lives in Fairlie .

I often wonder what became of my fellow classmates. I send my best wishes for the success of the new school.