Ian McLennan, one of the longest-serving members of the Glenalmond staff, died on 19th July at the age of ninety eight. Ian was born in Belfast to Scottish parents, his father being a draughtsman in Harland and Wolff. His mother died in 1939 when he was thirteen and their house was bombed in the war. He went to the Royal Belfast Academical Institution and during the school holidays travelled alone to Scotland to stay with his grandparents in Dingwall.

He came to Glenalmond from Queen’s University, Belfast, where he was a scholar, in 1947, and unlike his contemporaries did not do National Service, as it was not required in Northern Ireland. Ian McLennan was the last of Christopher Smith’s appointments. He arrived a few days after his twenty-first birthday. From the very first he made his mark as a skilled teacher of Mathematics and as a keen musician. He sang in the Choir, played the clarinet and the bassoon in the Orchestra and even the timpani, if required. He also was a founder member of the Perth Symphony Orchestra. Like a number of his colleagues he was an enthusiastic hill-walker and shared this enthusiasm with the boys. In 1989, Douglas Allan OG (Goodacre’s 1953) hired a train from Glasgow and took all those who had climbed with him to complete his last Munro, Beinn na Lap, which is near Corrour station. The OGs sang the Carmen at the station, and there was suitable refreshment at the summit. Ian was interviewed by the BBC reporter and it was shown on the TV News.

There was no Senior Common Room till 1949, and it was an unconvivial place and staff tended to meet in their rooms. In the early 1960s Ian, along with Peter Adam and three others of similar vintage, all House Tutors, took over the lease of the Chapelhill Inn. This worked well at first, but it was not a successful venture financially and they gave up the lease at the end of five years. He and Peter became firm friends and golfed together regularly well into retirement.

In the classroom he was precise and methodical, and earned his nickname of ‘Ticker’ or ‘Tick Tock’ from this and his metronomically purposeful walk into Chapel. When he took House Bank before lunch, incomings and outgoings had to balance exactly before he went in to eat. He was the natural successor to John Rossiter as Head of Department in 1963. The new Maths courses he readily absorbed and imparted with great clarity to his pupils. He took over Patchell’s in 1966 and guided the house
through a turbulent period with tact and sympathy. It was to him that the first girl at Glenalmond, Charlotte Barry, was entrusted. During the course of his Housemastership, when he was forty-five, he married Miss Kathy Wilcock, the College Matron. He retained his study in Patchell’s, though they lived at 3 New Cottages. In 1976 he left Patchell’s and was appointed the first Director of Studies, with the responsibility for the whole academic organisation of the school. As with all his other work, the Timetable and White Book, an increasingly complicated document, were meticulously accurate. Without his sound advice, the many changes of curriculum and timetable could not have been effected so smoothly. He retired in 1986 after thirty-nine years.

He and Kathy went to live in Bankfoot. They bought a camper van, a novelty in those days, and toured Scotland and Ireland extensively. Ian was persuaded to cross the Channel and they went on several coach trips on the Continent. They were regular visitors to the Perth Concert Hall. Ian gave up driving in his nineties and in 2024 they moved to a flat in Perth. Those he taught down the years will have memories of a wise and highly respected schoolmaster.