I was really shocked to see from the photo in your paper that Tertowie House is derelict.
This old mansion house was bought by Aberdeen Town Council and it was used as a school and activity centre for pupils from the city’s junior secondary schools in the 1950s.
I was a pupil at Powis at the time and my class (which was all girls) were given a slot to stay there for three weeks as boarders throughout the week from Monday to Friday afternoon and we were allowed home for the weekend, going back by private bus to Tertowie on Monday morning again.
There was a classroom and our mornings were spent in there doing our normal lessons, but after lunch every day we were each given the loan of a bicycle, and the teachers would take us orienteering and reading maps and other outside activities.
After supper we had to learn The Reel of the 51st Highland Division.
We slept in dormitories and our pre-bedtime drink, if I recall correctly, was cocoa!
Different schools in the city were given the three-week slot and after us it was the boys’ turn from a different school.
I do not know when it stopped being a school but during the Cold War period there was a nuclear shelter built under the basement of Tertowie House to accommodate all the town councillors and councillors from Aberdeenshire in the event of a nuclear war.
This must have cost millions to build and my last knowledge of the house was that it was in private ownership.
I thought your readers might be interested in the history of the old house – perhaps many of them had spent time there while still at secondary school.
Muriel Jaffrey, Bridge of Don.
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