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Robert Langlands, teacher, founder of Drumtochty Castle School
Born: 27 August, 1910, in GlasgowDied: 17 May, 2000, aged 89
ROBERT Scott Langlands was a schoolmaster of the utmost dedication and remarkable endurance, not retiring till he was 77, and then reluctantly.
He was born in Glasgow, the son of the Rev Dr FD Langlands, then minister of Eastwood, and Ruby Scott, whose father, Robert Scott, had a successful jeweller's and silversmith's business in Buchanan Street. A younger brother died in infancy, and so he was brought up as an only child; this contributed to the formation of a self- contained and often reserved character.
He went to school first at Shawlands Academy and then at Glasgow Academy, but when his father accepted the charge of Old Parish and St Paul's Church in Galashiels, he was sent to Warriston Preparatory School in Moffat. From there he went on to Merchiston Castle School, one of the last generation to be at Napier's old castle before the school transferred to Colinton
There were Borders connections on both sides of his family, and his father remained in Galashiels till he retired in 1950. So Robert came to think of himself as a Borderer. He loved the landscape, took part in the Common Ridings, and played Border League hockey.
He was first intended for a career in the tweed industry, studied at the Border College of Textiles and worked in a mill. But the Depression closed opportunities, and, changing direction, he went to St Andrews University to take an Arts degree with French as his main subject. He would go on to study at the Sorbonne immediately before the war. It was at St Andrews that he met his wife, Elizabeth Brash. They were married in Glasgow Cathedral on 2 December, 1939.
He had joined the army on the day war was declared, being commissioned...