Create successful ePaper yourself
Turn your PDF publications into a flip-book with our unique Google optimized e-Paper software.
T h e O l d S t a t i o n e r - N o 7 8<br />
well) was The Moderator of the Church<br />
of Scotland and at the same time another<br />
former pupil, Finlay Calder, was in<br />
Australia captaining the British & Irish<br />
Lions. Therefore DSMC had a legitimate<br />
claim to be the only school to have<br />
provided leaders for both The Christians<br />
And The Lions!!!!<br />
One final anecdote from a fellow player.<br />
Emie had the ability for short, pithy, snap<br />
replies - and when he was congratulated<br />
on becoming a grandfather said: 'Thanks<br />
- but I didn't do anything!'<br />
Looking back to earlier days, he met the<br />
love of his life - VERA. Their marriage of<br />
47 years has been blessed with four sons<br />
Andrew; Alan; Roger; & Richard and<br />
Roger's marriage to Sarah has further<br />
blessed them with two grandchildren .....<br />
Emily & Robbie who brought great joy to<br />
both Emie and Vera. Over the 47 years,<br />
Vera was there -looking after the family<br />
(and here I quote them} "All Dad's<br />
achievements; all his cricket; his hillwalking;<br />
his 39 years of Carbisdale;<br />
overseeing of Duke of Edinburgh walks<br />
were only possible because Mum was<br />
there to support him.<br />
Regrettably, the past year has not been an<br />
easy one for them, after he was given the<br />
diagnosis of his illness - which came as a<br />
great shock to all of us who have known<br />
him to have kept fit and well throughout<br />
his life.<br />
One of the enduring gifts of this life for<br />
which we are eternally grateful is that all<br />
our experiences are undoubtedly enriched<br />
- not only by the things that we do - but<br />
also by the people that we meet day by<br />
day; by those with whom we work; those<br />
with whom we share a common interest<br />
and a common bond of friendship; those<br />
who add more than just a little to our<br />
everyday living.<br />
Ernie was that type of person; one who<br />
enriched our lives; who added considerably<br />
to one's experience of people; and all of us<br />
will hold him in our hearts forever together<br />
with the many, many memories of this<br />
most sociable and likeable of men.<br />
Tribute by J N D Gray<br />
The death of Dr Ernie Wilkins on 17<br />
September 2013 marked the passing of a<br />
great schoolmaster, dedicated to teaching<br />
and learning, to generations of boys and to<br />
the best traditions of Stewart's Melville<br />
College. Although not a Former Pupil,<br />
Ernie always gave the impression, from<br />
his devotion to the school and assiduous<br />
attention to all its aspects, that he must<br />
have been, and he ensured that his four<br />
sons enjoyed the benefit of a Stewart's<br />
Melville education.<br />
A Londoner by birth, married to a Yorkshire<br />
woman, he was a convert to Scottish<br />
landscapes, their 'Munros' and the stark<br />
beauty of some of the most inhospitable<br />
terrain in Europe. Ernie was a staunch<br />
exponent and one of the longest serving<br />
and durable leaders and supporters of the<br />
Carbisdale experience. He encouraged<br />
fathers and then their sons and some<br />
grandsons up hillwalks, to the Bothy and<br />
on the two day expedition to Croick. He<br />
was always the heart and soul of the<br />
occasional evening walk to Hillwalk 3. It's<br />
sad that he will not be with us for the 50th<br />
Carbisdale in 2014, having been there from<br />
1972 and almost all that followed.<br />
An exceptional teacher and Head of<br />
Chemistry (he had a First Class Honours<br />
degree and a PhD from Leeds), Ernie had<br />
a sharp, analytical, encyclopaedic mind.<br />
Sympathetic to boys' difficulties, he could<br />
answer their questions on almost any<br />
subject, whether pertinent to the study of<br />
science or otherwise. As Senior Master in<br />
the 1990s, he was fair, consistent, an<br />
excellent organiser and, to boys, the<br />
epitome of the Stewart's Melville allrounder:<br />
an academic, a sportsman<br />
(especially cricket at which he excelled), a<br />
mountaineer, a raconteur and a man who<br />
had a fascination with the workings ofthe<br />
natural world. One of his great<br />
disappointments in the course of his final<br />
illness was that he was unable to pay a<br />
much wished for visit to the Galapagos<br />
Islands where Charles Darwin first began<br />
to conceive his theory of evolution.<br />
In 1999 Ernie retired from his full-time,<br />
permanent position at Stewart's Melville<br />
although he continued teaching Chemistry<br />
on a part-time basis for several years<br />
afterwards, and devoted his attention and<br />
undiminished energy to the life ofthe<br />
48