To rename or not to rename Aberdeen Grammar? That is the question continuing to face city councillors who are delaying a decision as long as possible.
The rammy is - depending on your view - about elitism and unfair treatment or prejudice and narrow-minded municipalism, or “codswallop”, as John Porter, the senior Tory, describes it.
City bosses are keen to bring the grammar into line with other secondaries, all called academies. There is apparently an unfair cachet in saying you went to the grammar school - which isn’t really a traditional grammar at all, they say.
Research shows grammar schools were emotive issues back when Wil Shakespeare was penning Henry V1. Jack Cade, known as the Man of Kent, who led the Peasants Revolt, thundered: “Be it known in the presence of Lord Mortimer that I am the besom that must sweep the court clear of such filth as thou art. Thou has most traitorously corrupted the youth of the Realm in erecting a Grammar School.”
There is no truth in the rumour that, in tribute to the sterling work done on the Grammar consultations by Jon Mager (as in lager), the departing assistant director, the school is to be renamed either Old Mager Academy or St Mager Academy. Sighs of relief from the city’s St Machar and Oldmachar Academies.
