I had lunch today with a friend in Edinburgh.
He is approaching judicial retirement age, and as we chatted, we talked of the bad winters past. He remembered 1947 ( I don't) and we both had memories of 1962/3.
" I was at Basil Paterson's trying to get another A level."
I had forgotten all about this " crammer", which has had an illustrious career and an even more illustrious roll of Old Boys.
In my friend's case, he had finished school with one A level. In those days, there were no grades, but you needed two to get into Youni.
So off he trotted to BP. His academic career had been less than sparkling, but his two best subject were physics and chemistry. He spent a year and managed to get a D in physics ( it was the first year of grades) thus giving him the required 2 As. No mention was made of the chemistry....
He then went to sit the entrance exam for St. Andrews. I believe to this day, he is the only person who has ever failed it. He insists they must have lost his papers.
What to do? As he says, " Well, the Law Faculty at Dundee was just being massively expanded, and they had lots of spare places so I went there - no exam needed. Of course, I didn't know that Scot's law was different from every other legal system in the world. So I was stuck with it."
Which I may say he has done very successfully.
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