The Dunoon School Hostel

"In August 1968 I had just arrived in Dunoon as a new teacher of English. I was in perfectly comfortable lodgings in Dunoon but then a note came round the staff that the newly-opened School Hostel was seeking a resident teacher to carry out various pastoral duties in return for the offer of accommodation (plus a small addition to salary). Some of my new colleagues suggested that I might apply. I submitted an application and was invited to an interview with the Warden. The interview was a success and I was duly appointed. This was to be my home for the next five years.

"The hostel, a feature of Hunter Street since that date, was one of seven built in identical fashion by a consortium of builders in various parts of rural Scotland, to provide up-to-date, comfortable accommodation for school or college pupils. In the case of Dunoon, the hostel was built principally to accommodate the pupils from Tighnabruaich, where the secondary school was going to be closing as a result of staffing shortages, and the daily road journey would have been too onerous (ironically, just after the hostel was opened the new road to Tighnabruaich was completed and suddenly the Tighnabruaich pupils were actually closer to Dunoon than were the pupils who travelled daily from Colintraive!)

"The accommodation comprised twin residential blocks, a common room area, dining room, recreation rooms and cloakrooms. There was also a study room and one of the teaching duties was to supervise homework and study sessions. On each of the two floors were six bedrooms (each sleeping three pupils) and a prefect’s room, giving sleeping accommodation for 40 young people in each block. The blocks also had a sick bay on each floor and a staff flat. The flats each had a sitting room, kitchen, bathroom and bedroom, and you can imagine the feelings I had moving into a new teaching post and also a very luxurious new home.

"Dunoon was unique among those new hostels in that it was the only mixed-sex one, a situation which caused a lot of interest and speculation and we were visited fairly regularly by various educational and social researchers to see how we coped with this potentially volatile mix of young folk. The fact that many outsiders overlooked was that almost all the pupils were from the same village and knew each other very well, and in many cases were related, so there was much less interest shown by one sex towards the other.

"Under the warden’s leadership the hostel very quickly became a real home from home. The excellent care shown by the matrons and the domestic staff also encouraged this family atmosphere, as did the creation of the Prefects’ Committee which had a regular voice in the running of the hostel. Such was the quality of the food provided that I have to confess that in my five years’ residency, my own cooker was used only three times!

"While the Tighnabruaich pupils were taken home by bus every Friday and brought back on Monday morning, those who came from as far away as Islay and Jura and Tarbert were with us over the weekends and only went home at holiday times or long weekends. We organised many events, social and sporting, to keep them occupied at weekends, and we even bought our own minibus. Camping trips became popular and prompted me to acquire my Scottish Mountain Leadership Qualification to keep us within the bounds of safety! We had football, hockey and netball teams and travelled to places such as Campbeltown, Oban and Inverness where the hostel was attached to Millburn College. Friendships were forged and have lasted. Hostel discotheques (no abbreviations then!) were another feature and the demand for tickets was always high among non-hostel pupils as parents knew that the venue was being well supervised and that their children would be safe there. Local bands such as The Fourem, Dobie Art and Funky Al and his disco performed for us, and our annual Christmas Party and Cabaret were big events.

"At one point the hostel accommodated 84 pupils, and we had to use the sick bays for a short period, such was the appeal, with many young pupils opting for Dunoon rather than other schools they might have attended. I really believe it was the hostel which was the deciding factor in many cases.

"Not so long back there was a strong fear of the impending closure of the hostel. Many believed that it would not re-open. It has survived, and each time I pass along Hunter Street and look at those grey, concrete buildings where I had my home, I cannot help but remember the great times we all had back then, pupils and staff, living as one huge, extended family."

As told by John Kelly, long-term English teacher at Dunoon Grammar School and the first Resident Teacher in the School Hostel. He also co-produced this film celebrating 50 years of the School Hostel.

More information on visiting the area can be found here.