Bertie Munro Staig
Bertie Staig was an incredibly focussed young man. Born in Portmoak and brought up in Auchtermuchty in a one-parent household, he had received an offer of employment as a railway clerk in either 'Muchty or Ladybank, exactly where is unclear. Many young men of his background would have been well pleased at the prospects such a job would open up. Bertie, however, had a thirst for knowledge and an ambition that extended far beyond the expanding railway network.
His mother could not afford to pay the fees to send him to Bell Baxter, but between them they persuaded the then Rector, Mr John Dawson, that Bertie would work hard if he were admitted as a Junior Student. He won the Balgonie Gold Medal as Dux of School less than three years later.
He won a Bursary to the University of St Andrews, a scholarship to Trinity college, Oxford, and excelled in the examination for entry to the Indian Civil Service.
Sir Bertie, as he became in 1942, is not the only BB FP to have been knighted, and we hope to feature more of them in this section of the website. However, he is the only one to have been knighted twice. He was appointed Knight Commander of the Most Eminent Order of the Indian Empire in 1947.
A fuller account of his life can be read in Section I of Bell Baxter Lives, and there is also a piece about him in the Fife Herald supplement published on the occasion of the School's 125th Anniversary..
His mother could not afford to pay the fees to send him to Bell Baxter, but between them they persuaded the then Rector, Mr John Dawson, that Bertie would work hard if he were admitted as a Junior Student. He won the Balgonie Gold Medal as Dux of School less than three years later.
He won a Bursary to the University of St Andrews, a scholarship to Trinity college, Oxford, and excelled in the examination for entry to the Indian Civil Service.
Sir Bertie, as he became in 1942, is not the only BB FP to have been knighted, and we hope to feature more of them in this section of the website. However, he is the only one to have been knighted twice. He was appointed Knight Commander of the Most Eminent Order of the Indian Empire in 1947.
A fuller account of his life can be read in Section I of Bell Baxter Lives, and there is also a piece about him in the Fife Herald supplement published on the occasion of the School's 125th Anniversary..
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