Miller dux medal is unearthed in Halkirk garden

A DUX medal which was won by a pupil at Miller Academy in Thurso in 1927 has been unearthed in a garden in Halkirk.

The discovery was made by James Falconer, who lives in Bridge Street, while he was digging his vegetable plot.

The medal is about the size of a 10 pence piece although thicker and is inscribed with the words "Dux of the Miller Institution and Miller Academy". Unfortunately, there is no name on it.

However, Mr Falconer knew a family called Black had lived in the house at one time and it was decided to contact Allan Lannon, a former head teacher at Miller Academy who has written a history of the school.

It contained a list of all the dux medallists from 1898 until 1995 when the award was stopped.

The only person with the name Black on the list was Marguerite Black who won the medal in 1927.

Mr Falconer’s daughter, Margo Mackay, then started to do some research and discovered the woman was the daughter of William and Marjorie Black.

Her father was the headmaster at Halkirk school and she was born in the school house in 1910.

Mrs Mackay, who is 45 and lives in Braal Terrace, also found out Marguerite went on to university in Aberdeen and Oxford.

She became a teacher and taught in Mysore Ladies College in India in 1938 and returned to the UK in the 1940s.

She continued to teach English to students and did so on an individual basis, up to A-level standard, until she was in her eighties.

Marguerite married for a second time when she became Mrs Walsh Atkins and was regarded with affection by her three stepsons, Alastair, Patrick and Roger.

She immersed herself in local community matters and in gardening, which was a lifelong passion. She was also involved with a number of charities and the London Caithness Association for many years.

Marguerite moved to a residential care home in Berkshire in 1997 to be near her youngest stepson. She died on September 29, 2005, at the age of 94.

Mrs Mackay obtained some information about the recipient of the dux medal from obituaries and managed to track down Marguerite’s grandson, Duncan Walsh Atkins, on Facebook.

He is a musical director and was recently involved in a show at the Edinburgh Fringe.

He was delighted to hear about his grandmother’s dux medal after all these years.

Duncan knew she lived in Halkirk, had won a dux medal, had two degrees and taught until she was in her eighties. He suggested sending the medal to his uncle, Alastair, who lives in Cheshire.

Mrs Mackay plans to do that and include a copy of Allan Lannon’s history of Miller Academy as well.

"My father was delighted to find the medal. He has found old crockery and bits of pots in the past but nothing like this. I am delighted the medal has been found and that we can hand it over to the family," she said.

One mystery remains, however. How and when the medal was lost. "I don’t have a clue how that happened," added Mrs Mackay.

Mr Lannon explained that prizes, such as medals and watches, were presented to top pupils at Miller before 1898. But the first reference to a school dux was made in 1898 when the Reverend Doctor Alexander Miller, of Buckie, gifted the funds to provide the medal and an associated monetary prize.

The tradition of awarding a dux medal carried on uninterrupted until 1995.

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