Things won’t be quite the same again in the Scottish School Board Association now that president Alan Smith has stepped down.
Smith has a unique style in winning friends and influencing people. At the SSBA’s annual conference, he welcomed late-running Deputy Education Minister Nicol Stephen with the words: “You don’t have to be punctual when you’re a minister.”
Announcing that Ann Hill, SSBA chief executive, was heading for New Zealand in June, he remarked: “They might even keep her.”
And referring to a previous sojourn by HM chief inspector Bill Clark in another of the down under territories, to wit Australia, Smith introduced him as “Crocodile Bill”.