Chef Lorna McNee gives speech to college graduates

FORMER Forres Academy pupil Lorna McNee was the guest speaker as Moray College UHI students graduated at Elgin Town Hall.

11 years ago, Ms McNee (32) was in the position of the students as she graduated in Elgin, and a long journey took her right back to the same spot to deliver a speech to the proud graduates on Friday, October 4.

Lorna, who also attended Dallas Primary School, has moved on to work at Restaurant Andrew Fairlie, the most highly acclaimed in Scotland, since graduating and has won Scottish Chef of the Year and Game Chef of the Year.

She puts a lot of her success down to her education at Moray College. She said: "The encouragement the lecturers gave really helped. It's not that I disliked school, but I wasn't very academic and wasn't great at English or science.

"I was always much more hands on and college was perfect for that."

Ms McNee gave two speeches, one in the morning to a group of 116 graduates, and one in the afternoon to a group of 132.

She added: "I don't mind speaking and I'm not bad at giving speeches, but that was scary. Normally it's when demonstrating cooking but that was different.

"But it was an honour to be invited back at the place it all started for me."

Student speaker on the day was Ms Caroline Goodman, from Manchester, who moved north to escape domestic abuse. She got a huge round of applause as she took the stage.

After her speech, she said: "That was the scariest thing I've ever done in my life. A year ago I couldn't have even done group talks in classes.

"People have pushed me and helped me so much. I wouldn't be standing here today if it wasn't for the people here."