Born: 1 October, 1932, in London. Died: 8 March, 2008, in Edinburgh, aged 75.
MIKE Brannan was one of the leading teachers of Russian in Scotland during the great expansion of the language in schools in the 1960s and 1970s. He was passionately de
voted to Scotland, which was his adoptive country for the last 43 years, to socialism, and to the Scottish Episcopal Church. He had six daughters and three sons, and to date, 15 grandchildren.
Michael Neilson Brannan was brought up in north London and had to leave school at 15. After working in the civil service and completing his national service, he took a general degree at Goldsmiths College qualifying him to teach English, French and music. As a communist, he attended an International Youth Congress in Moscow in 1957, where he contracted Asian flu and was hospitalised with pneumonia. He started learning Russian in order to communicate with the nurses and on his return he took a degree at the School of Slavonic and East European Languages, part of University College London.
The Scottish expansion of Russian language teaching enabled Mike to start teaching at Kilmarnock Academy in 1965. In 1970, he was appointed principal teacher of Russian at George Heriot's School where he developed a department teaching Russian as a first foreign language to 100 pupils.
Sadly, just as the former Soviet Union began to open up under Mikhail Gorbachev's slogans of glasnost and perestroika, Scottish schools were exiting from Russian in favour mainly of French. Mike put up a fight for Russian at Heriot's and even found pupils to volunteer for an 8am class before the proper school day began. However, the "real" Russian pupils dwindled to around ten, and Mike was forced to return to teaching French. As his health deteriorated, medical retirement became the only way forward and he left Heriot's in 1988.
Mike loved Russia and visited there at least 40 times, on school trips, exchanges, private visits or as a leader of Sovscot Tours, which were sponsored by the Soviet government. He shared this sideline with people like the late doyen of Russian teaching, Harry Milne. He was also a leading member of the former Scotland USSR Society and became a founder member of the recently formed Scotland Russia Forum.
Mike expressed many of his passions through music. Among other instruments, he taught himself the piano accordion. With no Scottish roots, he set up Mike McNeil's Highland Band while a student. The various Caledonian Societies in and around London provided the band with regular gigs. He loved wearing the kilt, adopting the McNeil of Barra tartan. Moving to Scotland with first wife Rosemary, an Edinburgh girl, enabled him to become an adoptive Scot. At some point,he met Jimmy Shand and played alongside him. He later learned some Gaelic and travelled to the US and Canada in 1988 with a Gaelic Choir, competing at various Mods.
In later years, Christianity came to play a very important part in Mike's life, especially the musical side. Building on his training as a treble in St Edmunds, Northwood Hills, he joined Old St Paul's Church Choir in 1982 as a tenor. In 1992, he was invited by the late Iain Ogg to be a founder member of the choir of St Michael and All Saints Church in Brougham Place. He sang there until his kidney transplant in 1999 made it too arduous. During the 1990s he also sang in the Edinburgh Bach Choir. When living in West Preston Street, he formed a connection with St Peter's Lutton Place, singing at Evensong on Sundays and attending the 11am Mass on a Thursday where he was "master of music", meaning that he got to choose and lead the hymn.
Mike's many interests included politics and he was an active member of the Scottish Socialist Party. He marched on Stop the War demonstrations even being pushed in a wheelchair on one occasion, holding his placard. On 12 November, 2005, he marched for the last time in a demonstration which went from Parliament Square down George IV Bridge. He came home and confessed to Micheline, his second wife, that this had been too much for him. On 14 November, 2005, he suffered his first stroke, and never came home from hospital again. Fortunately, he retained the power of speech and would sometimes astonish hospital staff by addressing them in their own language, such as Spanish or Polish, or declaiming in Latin and assuming that they could follow. On 5 March, 2008, he had a further devastating stroke. He died surrounded by his family, as well as staff of the Astley Ainslie who had cared for him with great respect and affection throughout those final years.
The full article contains 798 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
