Author travels back in time for anniversary

EDINBURGH-BORN novelist Morag Ramsey visited her old primary school to help celebrate its 80th anniversary.

Ms Ramsey won the Beryl Bainbridge First Time Author award for her book Alex McLean-Time Traveller, a children’s historical novel set in the Capital, and returned to Wardie Primary School to talk about the book to excited pupils as part of their medieval times project.

“It was joyous reading to 60 children,” she said.

The book tells the story of a contemporary child who travels back in time to Edinburgh Castle in 1314 and leads the scaling of the Castle Rock by Scottish rebels. It is sold in the Portcullis shop of the Castle.

In 1939, Ms Ramsey, known then as Patricia Worth, became a pupil at Wardie just as the war broke out. Along with older brothers Peter and Philip her family were among the first pupils to attend the school.

She said: “In my first term the siren went off on the way to school – it was deafening. My brother left me and I was late. It was a hard place, but the Wardie of today is just magic.”