The dark brown upright piano hasn’t changed and there’s probably the same teenage angst, raging hormones and inedible produce emanating from the home economics class.
But now there’s a girls’ football team – winning more regularly than the boys’, as it happens – and Gregory and Susan have become nothing more than figures on the school mural.
That said, there’s no denying that in a certain light the headteacher, who has slipped on a graduation gown to recreate a classic Gregory’s Girl moment, might just pass for one Scotland’s best-loved comics, Chic Murray.
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The piano – which the fictional school’s grim-faced head was captured at by a passing pupil in an unlikely moment of gleeful tinkering of the ivories – is one of the few remnants of now demolished Abronhill High School to have made the journey to the new £37 million Cumbernauld Academy.
And as it welcomed pupils for the first time yesterday, there was a pause to remember the much-loved bricks-and-mortar star of the classic coming of age movie.
Abronhill High School, with its classic late Seventies flat roof and pale blue fascia – and, of course, red ash pitch where Dorothy, played by Dee Hepburn, showed off her fancy footwork and Gregory zig-zagged across in a bid to disguise his late arrival at school – was pulled down four years ago despite a fierce local campaign to save it.
Yesterday the new academy’s intake of 1,000 S1 to S6 pupils waited patiently outside its gates before being given the signal to enter en masse – reflecting the moment when Abronhill’s departing pupils flooded through its gates as one for the final time.
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Head teacher Mark Cairns – former depute head at Abronhill and then head of the merged schools at Cumbernauld High – said the new school will seek to retain the strong community connection which Gregory’s Girl inspired among former pupils and film fans.
“People are still very fond of the film and it was very emotional for many when it was decided to close Abronhill High,” he said. “People felt they were losing a part of their community and part of a history that they were very proud of.
“We are hoping that one of the features of the academy will be its strong sense of community.”
Director and writer Bill Forsyth chose Abronhill as the setting for the 1981 teenage romantic comedy, in which gangly Gregory played by John Gordon Sinclair, falls head over heels for Dorothy, the star player who steals his centre-forward spot on the school football team.
He becomes so intent on catching Dorothy’s eye that he initially fails to notice the subtle advances of fellow pupil Susan, played by Clare Grogan.
While on the surface the film focuses on a typically awkward teen romance, its uniquely Scottish blend of humour – from Chic Murray’s dour piano-playing headmaster to a lost child dressed in a penguin outfit who roams the school corridors – clever observation and rich characters turned it into a cinema classic.
It also spotlighted Scottish education at a unique point: when girls were attempting to tackle sexist attitudes among teachers and fellow pupils head-on, and boys were being encouraged to explore what were previously girls-only subjects such as cooking. Mr Cairns, a pupil at Holyrood Secondary School in Glasgow when the film was released, said: “There were very similar circumstances in real life to what was in the film. When I was at school, they had just introduced home economics to first-year boys. The teachers were so terrified of these boys being in the classroom that for the first few weeks they more or less left us in the corridor.
“It was around the time that corporal punishment was being banned, and there is a logbook from Abronhill High School in which the head teacher chronicles how the teachers were worrying about dealing with indiscipline.
“There’s also an entry which talks about two girls turning up wearing ‘cowboy working denim’ and being sent home to change.”
He added that today’s pupils have been involved in designing elements of the new school, including the new mural which showcases key features of Cumbernauld and includes images of the film’s two lead characters.
The “Chic Murray piano”, meanwhile, retains its place amid high-tech equipment in the new music department. The campus will become home to a new Cumbernauld Theatre, which will include a 305-seat main auditorium, cinema, studio theatre and dance studio.
Mr Cairns added that it’s hoped a partnership can be forged with the facility to enable the school to become a centre of excellence for performing arts.
“Whether or not pupils will be giving their cookery lesson cakes to the teachers to eat or we’ll have penguins walking the corridors is another thing entirely. I am confident that everyone will make the most of the new facilities and ensure that the spirit of creativity and inclusion that already exists will provide a strong basis for exciting times ahead.”
Meanwhile, Gregory’s Girl continues to fill cinema seats: a fully restored 2K version is earmarked for a week-long run at New York’s 6th Avenue Film Forum, while the city’s Museum of the Moving Image is to celebrate the work of Bill Forsyth with a five-film retrospective next month.
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