We neglected to mention in past weeks that a surprise star turn at the recent secondary heads’ conference was Brian Souter, the founder of the Stagecoach empire. This, of course, had nothing to do with the fact that Bill McGregor, general secretary of the Headteachers’ Association of Scotland, has fond memories of his time driving buses.
Souter went down unexpectedly well with the heads, whose most recent exposure to him was as the pugnacious leader of the campaign to keep “section 28” in schools, the legislation which aroused the ire of the homosexual community.
Indeed, the irrepressible Lindsay Roy, former HAS president, reminded him of this in his introduction and said Souter should limit his speech to 27 points. “There’ll be no clause 28,” he commented.