Commemoration Day Address: The Uniqueness of You by Peter Guthrie

Link to Pictures of the Day

It is an honour and a privilege to be invited to return to the school, and to have the opportunity to address you. I should start by saying thank you to Andrew and Barbara Hunter for their kind invitation to be here and their unstinting kindness and hospitality on out visit here yesterday and today. Lorna and I have had the opportunity to see around the school (and thanks are due to Matthew and Alex for escorting us so expertly), and we are both struck by the positive atmosphere, the beautiful grounds, the lovely original buildings and all the new development that has taken place in recent years. One is left with a strong impression of a place where learning takes place in a happy and supportive environment, and credit is due to everyone involved.

My own memories of being here as a pupil are vague (it was a long time ago), but I can tell you that my school career at Merchiston was unremarkable, with few achievements of any note. My ability and talent are probably best captured by a story that I can tell of my time here. Unlike today when rugby is played seriously in at least six teams at the senior level, only the first and second XV were viewed with respect in the mid 1960s. To be in the third XV was a shame one had to bear. This was my team. I was toiling away in match one day against another school, and doing my best. A parent commented to the Master in charge that he had never seen anyone play with such commitment as that boy Guthrie. “When you are as bad as Guthrie” the Master replied, “you have to be committed.”

The reason for the kind invitation to speak today derives from the award of the Beacon Prize, given in 2005. This was in recognition of work that I have been involved in over many years in the establishment of RedR_Registered Engineers for Disaster Relief, which was formed in 1980. In 1979, I was given the chance to go to work in one of the world’s great humanitarian disasters, the Vietnamese Boat People. This was an exodus of some 3 million people from Vietnam, now a popular destination for backpackers, then a country destroyed by war following the defeat of the USA. Of all the people who fled the country in hopelessly overcrowded boats and into the perilous South China Sea, only half survived. All who arrived in the countries of Southeast Asia such as Malaysia where I worked, were traumatised, destitute, and dying in unacceptably high numbers from preventable diseases.

The typical response to refugee crises then, and alarmingly, all too often still, was for doctors and nurses to be sent immediately, and for blankets, tents and medicines to be provided in the belief that this approach would save lives. Of course medical staff and the supplies can and do help. But without the provision of clean, safe water, without decent and effective sanitation, and without the construction of dignified and adequate shelter, people will become sick, death rates will soar, and the excellent work of doctors, nurses and so on will be futile and ineffectual.

This simple and apparently obvious lesson has still not been fully learned in disaster relief, and there is a long way to go in changing behaviour and attitudes so that people will suffer less following disasters and many deaths can be avoided. In this belief, RedR Engineers for Disaster Relief was created, as on my return from my time in Malaysia, Oxfam who had sent me, were unable to find a replacement.

The concept was and remains simple. Relief organisations such as Oxfam and Save The Children, United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and national governments, have a need for their response in disasters to be improved. In particular they need engineers and people with similar technical skills to be available to them at short notice for rapid response in the event of a crisis. The world does not need yet another operational agency trying to act, albeit with the best intentions, independently in a disaster alongside the many other agencies. What was desperately needed, and this is still the case, is an organisation which can select and train, from volunteers, suitable and capable engineers and experts to be put at the disposal of the operational agencies, immediately on demand. That is what RedR has done since 1980.

The award of the Beacon Prize in 2005 was greatly welcome and an honour for the organisation as a whole. It came after RedR had proved itself, after HRH The Princess Royal had accepted the role of President of the charity, and after the work had been proven over many years. The £20,000 will allow important new initiatives to be pursued. But the £1,000 that Oxfam gave to RedR even before it had registered as a charity was if anything a greater prize, and the greatest prize of all is the lives saved and suffering relieved as a result of our work.

So prize winners here, you will be recognised as achievers, and rightly so. But there is in every one of you a prize winner. Known only to you are the challenges you have faced, the obstacles overcome, the competition beaten to achieve what it is you have. It is no less of an achievement for the lack of outward recognition.

Pupils of Merchiston, you are the victims and the beneficiaries of your parents’ ambitions. You did not choose to come here and many hopes and dreams ride on how you fare as you grow in the school. For some of you there will be great success here and for others the success will be less obvious, and for others the success will come later. The privilege you have had thrust upon you by being here brings with it responsibility. With all your excellent education and improved understanding of the world you cannot claim ignorance as the reason for any failure to act. You have now a strong duty to meet your responsibility, and it is up to you how you meet that challenge. Borrowing from John F Kennedy, “ask not what your country can do for you, rather ask what you can do for your country”.

In the uniqueness that is you, only you can answer this call, and in your own way. You have been given the opportunity, now go and take it. Let me leave you with this question: what will you contribute?