THE recent swine-flu scare almost made a pig’s ear of the annual student nursing exchange between Grampian Region and its twin city of Houston, Texas. A two-week study visit to Aberdeen by two Mexican-born student nurses from Houston Baptist University had to be postponed earlier this month.
Happily, the visit by Ana Barrera and Darien Ruiz has now been rearranged for August 9-22 and Gillian McRobie and Jane McNicol, from the Robert Gordon University School of Nursing and Midwifery in Aberdeen, are looking forward to studying healthcare provision and nursing education in Houston in October.
The exchange is organised by the Grampian-Houston Association which promotes links with America’s fourth largest city and Gillian and Jane’s visit is being sponsored by the Wood Group. The exchange is also supported by NHS Grampian and Albyn Hospital, Aberdeen.
Mother-of-two Gillian, who has lived in Moray for 19 years, worked in childcare and ran her own nursery at Forres before taking a healthcare qualification at Moray College, Elgin.
Jane, 23, grew up at Kilchoan on the Ardnamurchan Peninsula and lived in Glasgow for four years before enrolling at RGU in 2007.
IT’S not just the Mini that is celebrating a golden jubilee this year.
So, too, are former pupils of Aberdeen High School for Girls who left the establishment in the summer of 1959. They have planned a celebration which will begin on June 26 (7pm) with a supper in the city’s Curl Aberdeen. Next day, the girls, so far 32 of them, are having a Flash the (bus) Pass day to Milton of Crathes and Crathes Castle, followed by a pre-show supper at HM Theatre, Aberdeen, and seats at the Flying Pigs comedy show How to Look Good Glaikit. Margaret Hadley, one of the 1959 set, said: “Margaret Hardie is one of our crowd and her son John is a leading light in the Pigs.”
Mrs Hadley can be contacted at 01224 865855.
Meanwhile, former pupils of Ashley Road primary in Aberdeen who left school 50 years ago are also planning a reunion at the city’s Palm Court Hotel on June 27 (7pm). The soiree is being organised by Bruce Drummond and Marion Donald, nee McClure.
“We have already had confirmation from John MacLeod in New Zealand to say he will be there,” said Marion.
She can be contacted at 01224 313014 or e-mail mariondonald@ifb.co.uk.
RETIRED banker’s wife Violet Thomson, of Bieldside, loves to do crosswords, but even she was shocked when she looked up the meaning of parsimonious.
The latest edition of Bradford’s Crossword Solver’s Dictionary, published by Collins, had the temerity to give the first meaning as Aberdonian.
“What a slur on our good fellow-citizens,” said Violet’s hubby, Andrew, an Aberdonian who worked abroad from 1953 to 1991. Other options given were cheeseparing, mean, niggardly, stingy and tight.
WHO are reporters to complain about MPs fiddling their expenses? In days of yore, it was their best fiction of the week as lunches with visiting Arab sheikhs from Huntly were claimed.
However, none had the gall of an Aberdeen-based civil servant. He made do with sandwiches and coffee on train journeys but picked up any discarded receipt for a three-course lunch in the restaurant car which he would later claim from an unsuspecting civil service. His colleagues were staggered that he could stoop so low, both literally and metaphorically.