Off to one of the more pleasant tasks of the year, the annual party thrown by the Scottish Council for Independent Schools. It was a chance to catch up with old friends including Bart McGettrick, the council’s much-travelled chairman, who led St Andrew’s College until Glasgow University took its hand in marriage.
McGettrick finally stepped out of Glasgow University earlier this month, which will allow him more time to spend with his global family in places such as Palestine and in the work he is doing in Middle Eastern education.
He was also stepping down as chairman of the SCIS after eight years and, as traveller par excellence, thought nothing of going all the way from Glasgow to Edinburgh to hand over the reins to his successor, David Edwards, who was the Scottish judge in the European Court of Justice.
“I’m never quite sure why it is people come to a wake,” McGettrick said in his speech of farewell, “unless it’s to make sure the body is dead.”
