This page is designed to be the catch-all for the year’s news and projects. Some of them blend in from previous years, so have a look at the 2025 page here just in case….

A slow start to the year for a change, but the Club’s Annual Dinner (Friday 27th March this year) always requires our attention, and a flurry of activities are taking place to ensure a good evening. If you are intending to attend, and haven’t already advised us, please click here to enable an application form. The recent excellent news is that Tom Pow will deliver the toast to the club and the School.

Tom delivered two speeches to the School, firstly during the ‘celebration of the ‘Remembering Robert Fergusson‘ event in October 2024, and more recently in June 2025 when he spoke to both the Prize-Winners and the School Leavers at the 2025 Prize Giving.

David Robb recently made available the speech he delivered at the 2025 RHS Club Edinburgh dinner. Click here to see the inspirational content of his journey through his school life.

Sculptor Kenny Munro (leaving year 1972) has been added to the Sculptors page. The article also includes content about his father James B (Jim) Munro, sculptor and band leader, and his brother Gordon, also a Sculptor. Click here to view the article.

A new, or at least renamed page is available. ‘Creative FP’s’ has been superseded by ‘The Arts’, and a couple of extra classifications, Actors and Journalists are planned. It’s still WIP, but click here to have a look at what we’ve achieved thus far.

Sad News in early March, when we heard that George Grahamslaw had died on12^th February 2026 aged 92. George was one of the unsung heroes of a very successful Royal High FP rugby team in 1950’s and 1960’s. He was a Scottish Trialist in 1961 in the exalted company of Pringle Fisher and Jimmy Blake, and was.kept out of the Scottish team by Norman Scott Bruce, one of the immovable triumvirate of Hugh McLeod, Bruce and David Rollo. Jim Jarvis said “George played hooker when hookers hooked”.

A Co-Optimist in 1962, he played in no fewer than nine representative games for Edinburgh and the Cities between 1961 and 1963 including the Cities match versus the 1963 All Blacks, and Edinburgh v Canada in 1962.   He played in both international trials in 1962, and topped that off by being selected as as travelling reserve for Scotland three times, against France, Wales and England. He was Club Treasurer in 1964.    He made 140 1^st XV appearances between 1956 and 1964. Following his retiral from rugby, he was a referee for ten years, then he became a referee assessor and coach. George had two brothers, Douglas who was born in 1935 and was also a hooker, and Gordon who was born in 1939.   All three attended the Royal High, George and Douglas enrolling in the secondary department after attending East London St primary. Read the tribute read by son Douglas at George’s funeral, and for more background to George’s life, and a gallery of photographs and artefacts, click here.

The Ten Shillings Fine The Editor has been heard to bang on about the fine that was said to have been levied by the Edinburgh Town Council, starting in 1519, on any city dwellers who put their ‘bairn‘ to any school other than the city’s principal grammar school. J B Barclay’s 1974 history provides the evidence on pages 2 and 3, and a calculation of the value of the fine of ten shillings in 1519 suggests a figure of around £300 in today’s money.

Richard Christian Dark, 1913-1940, was a former pupil who died in World War 2. His niece Hilda Hesling, who knew her uncle as Christie, has compiled a short history of his life, and asked if it could be shared with the RHS Former Pupil community. We consider ourselves privileged to do so, and you can read the article here.

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Sad news in May. Two former RHS Club Presidents died – John Crombie MBE (1990), and Martin Bryden (2009-2010). Reports will follow in due course.

Retirals. Three long-serving staff members retire. Steve Bakke, Curricular Leader of Science, (24 years), Pat McDaid, Dinner lady (24 years) Gordon Rutter, Teacher of Biology (17 years).. Reports and photos shortly.

The 1938 School photo, one item of the archive of 1938 School Captain James Lewis Gilmour, which features all Senior School pupils, the Teachers, and the Janitor, revealed a fascinating image on the border. The photo, a 4 ‘ x 1’ panoramic image, shows on its left margin, a building under construction, with a very tall crane towering over it.

Investigation of the timeline of the splendid but sometimes maligned Art Deco HQ of the Scottish Government shows that St Andrew’s House, shown here under construction, was officially completed in 1939, around a year after this image was recorded, and opened on 4 September 1939. The building was opened less than 24 hours after WW2 had officially been declared, and as a consequence, the official opening ceremony due to be attended by the King and Queen planned for the following week was cancelled. Instead, it was officially opened by King George V1 and Queen Elizabeth on 26 February 1940.

Douglas Ford GC – the Memorial bench on Calton Hill

This news was featured as the 7th article in the 2025 Editors Blog. The account was repeated in the venerable ‘Broughton Spurtle’ newspaper July edition, page 3 this year.