My Scottish fling (in regional Queensland)

Watching the Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games is giving me flashbacks to high school.

I know this might not be the same for everyone, but for me kilts, tartans, thistles and bagpipes were as much part of my high school years as acne and big hair.

No.  I didn't go to school in Edinburgh, Inverness or Aberdeen in Scotland, but Warwick... regional Queensland.   

You see my high school had quite the "Scottish" theme going.  

Instead of recorders, we had chantors and bag pipes, and instead of school houses we had "clans" (get it?).

I can't quite remember why this school, as far away from Scotland as humanly possible, had such a fascination with Scotland.  Strangely it wasn't something I questioned  when I was donning a kilt and sporran for my year 12 formal.  I guess it's just one of those things you look back at and think "WTF?".

A shot of the real Scotland

Now I'm not going to share some rather choice photos of myself in a kilt, though it has to be said I looked pretty awesome and certainly had (and still have) the legs for it.   

And sorry ladies, if you think guys are only interested in looking up your skirts, then think again.   Imagine a group of immature teenage boys dressed in kilts; a  fair amount of time was spent looking up each others' kilts to see if anyone had dared to go commando.

Not me in a kilt

Oh, the good old days.  Well, the old days anyway.   

It was a good decade after leaving high school that I would actually visit Scotland... the real one.   Since then I've been perplexed as to how someone wandered around the (usually hot, bone dry and flat) Darling Downs and somehow thought "Scottish Highlands".

Scottish Highlands

It would also be interesting to see what a Scot would make of this imitation of their home country.  Would they see it as honour, a bit kitsch, or an insult?

I'd like to think the admiration is reciprocated and somewhere in Scotland (perhaps in Dundee?) there is a school with an Australian theme.   Here the students wear blue tank tops, King Gee shorts and thongs, and school sports include "Stopping the Boats" and crocodile wresting.   

Don't get me wrong, of all the potential inspirations for a school theme "Scotland" isn't a bad choice.   I guess I'm lucky they didn't go with "ewok", "Demis Rousos" or "Clockwork Orange" (though I wouldn't have minded wearing a bowler hat).

I can only imagine in years to come, there'll be the Australian Kylie College or the Alf Stewart Memorial Academy.  Enough to make you want to go back to high school for sure.