Mr Sag

A real blast from the past, reminding me of our days of ‘civil disobedience’. The very sudden decision in 2004 to close all the small rural schools in Midlothian brought the council much more grief and opposition than they had expected and actually went against some of the aims that the Scottish Government had only just announced.

Midlothian Rural Schools Action Group was formed (Mr Sag as we liked to call it - back then if you did an internet search you would also find this was the name of a German 'adult' actor), councillors had never had so many people attending their surgeries, we marched on the council buildings, many signs were painted and placed beside the major roads in the dead of night -  my favourite "Welcome to Midlothian, Proud of our Rural Schools'. Lesley Riddoch even came to Temple Village Hall with her Radio Scotland show. 

Eventually the council realised they had to go to Plan B (not sure if they really had a Plan B, but they came up with one) - building 2 new rural schools to replace 4 of those in the photo. 

The website about it all is archived at MRSAG