Page 96 - Herioter 2021

JUNE

June Day – left sat Mrs Franklin. It was a symbolic image of then her own time at Heriot’s: ‘It has been an
honour and a pleasure,’ she said.
two inspirational woman of different generations
P7 pupils left East Lawn, ushered out by Pipe
who leave Heriots’ after a combined 40 years,
we made it having imparted their own particular indelible Band, with pairs of pupils parading down a centre
marks.
aisle before splitting left and right. S6 repeated
The singing of The Merry Month of June was
perhaps the most bizarre moment for those the drill – and the whole event was somehow
more emotional, as we could see the faces of
‘June Day 2021. We made it.’ Esther Arthurson’s hundreds of pupils and teachers who were every individual pupil.
teachers know all about her ability to find the sitting in classrooms at the very same moment. As the lawn emptied, Pipe Band marched
right words at the right moment. She has been Strangely, we could hear the music and singing across, breaking into Scotland the Brave. You
doing it for 14 years at the school she would funnelled through the speakers in our classrooms would have to be hard-hearted not to feel
captain. ‘He would be proud,’ Esther remarked. and also through the open windows. We seemed a prickle of emotion. It does not take much
‘He’, of course, was George Heriot, and if he was so close, yet oddly distant. imagination, therefore, to sense the feelings of
up there, somewhere – and Esther, the future Following the singing of the school song and two watching women, Esther Arthurson and Lesley
theologian, would undoubtedly have a view on the traditional hanging of the wreaths, Mrs Franklin, as the music stopped.
such matters – our founder would probably be Franklin addressed her final June Day service,
wearing a wry smile. focusing on the positives of session 2020/21, and Mr Jonny Muir
June Day 2021 did feel like a we-made-it
moment, bookending a year of masks, Teams
and uncertainty. There was a sense that we could
finally breathe the kind of breath that marks the
end of something. Speaking to lines of P7 and
S6 pupils, Pipe Band and the CCF on East Lawn,
Esther, admitting her own terror at being ‘one
month away from the rest of my life’, told the
audience that our summer ‘mission’ was to ‘have
a good time, all the time’. I am sure we will try –
assuming we are allowed.
How much thought had been given to the
cinematography and mise-en-scene of this
moment I do not know, but as Esther spoke, to her

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