Very brief history of self.

Between 1946 and 1947 I was between 6 and 7 years of age. Born in 1940 in London. Scottish father I have no idea of the nationality of my mother, Queeny Frances Harvey Nee Hahn? Mother died in childbirth and father was in the Navy. I was shipped out to a nursing home in Wales and stayed there for two weeks until they found my father’s mother, my grandmother, who lived in 15 Meek Place, Cambuslang in Glasgow. I was subsequently moved there and so remained until joining the Army at 16 years of age.  

Life then, during and just after the war was so difficult, even then I knew this, I was always hungry, there was never enough food to be had in the shops and when it did occasionally come we had little or no money to purchase any. I resorted even then at that age to stealing from other gardens to get food, I had my little bum slapped so many times by angry gardeners and the like that I almost became used to it. (No I do not still have a fetish along those lines).

There is a more affluent area about a mile from where I lived. It ran along the top of a steep hill and overlooked the railway line. These people in the big houses were generally called the ‘Burnside Hill folk’ probably politicians and other similar crooks and generally dishonest people, these were the much envied and disliked ‘mega rich’ ‘toffs’ ‘posh folk’ or whatever.

The banks of the railway were particularly made up of a very rich Scottish soil which was probably as good as you will find anywhere in the UK. It was up there that I chose to plant my potato peelings so that they would produce the potatoes in the autumn, or so I hoped. Remember, I was only six or seven at the time.

I remember so clearly now an incident that was somewhat frightening and now rather sad in a way. It was probably a weekend, (I was not in School) a nice day and I think around late August. Perhaps that’s why I was not in school. Anyway I was walking along the top of the southern bank of the railway line. The grass and nettles so tall I could barely see above and the narrow path almost invisible. The top few yards of the embankment is flat and is bordered by the gardens of the ‘hill folk’ more often than not a wall but occasionally just a fence or a hedgerow.

I noticed that one of the garden gates had been left open and I just went over to have a look inside. What I saw was a very well tended and cultivated vegetable garden and nearest to me well developed potato plants. This was just too much temptation for my diminutive underdeveloped brain to take. I entered and sat down beside the nearest plant and started to scrape back the soil with my bare hands, lo and behold I uncovered what to me was buried treasure, the biggest potato I had ever seen, I cleaned it off on my shorts and sank my teeth into it.

“What the hell do you think you are doing?” looking round I saw a tall lady scowling down at my cowering figure.

“Answer me you little devil, why are you stealing my vegetables?”

At this point I could only mumble the first thing that came to my mind. “I am hungry missus.”

My collar was grabbed and I was marched in a somewhat ungainly manner up to the rear door of the house. Pushed inside I was unceremoniously picked up and dumped on a chair in front of the kitchen table. “Just you sit there and don’t you dare move” I was instructed.

I sat very still and was full of fear, when the men come home I will get a thrashing form them, I was convinced that I would get a good hiding. The lady continued to mess about with her cooking, which I now believe she had been doing before this diminutive little miscreant had invaded and laid waste to her garden, I do remember that a tear run down my face, I tried not to show it though.

After what seemed like an eternity, but what was probably no more than ten minutes or so she turned round and was holding a plate of steaming food. I honestly thought that she was going to sit down and eat, but no, she placed the plate in front of me and said in as stern a voice as she could muster, “here, eat this, and don’t leave any.”

I did eat the food, there was even a piece of some kind of meat there, until that point in my live I had been a vegetarian, not through choice, I might add, I had never tasted meat in my young life.

All the time I was eating she was standing by the back window, sometimes looking at me and occasionally just gazing out of the window. When I had finished eating she walked over to me and I could see that there were tears in her eyes, she picked me up and gave me a big hug, she started asking me about myself.

When I answered her questions and I had explained my circumstances, no mother or father and so on, by now she was crying openly. I was also crying openly by this time.

The lady carried me all the way down Greenlees Hill and when she was very close to my home she only then she put me down after kissing me on the cheek and again hugging me.

She then told me that if I ever got so hungry again I was to go up to her house and she would give me some food. Turning away she then and went back up the hill. I never forgot that lady and about how I had misjudged her. I would have loved to stay with her but knew that could never be.

I never did return to see her, something that I now deeply regret, I know that I should have gone back, if only to thank her, but, I was too mortified about the circumstances of our first encounter.

Nowadays I never pre judge people, I never have done after that, to me anyway, extraordinary episode, I wait until I have known a person or persons better before I jump to conclusions or prejudge them, it is a good philosophy. I now have so many friends and acquaintances in so many countries around the world and to the best of my knowledge anyway, no personal enemies.

Finally; the hug I got from the lady I will never ever forget, because that was the first hug I had ever gotten in my young six or so year old life, I was eighteen years old before I got another.

The more I ponder over the articles and pictures on your site, the more I recall of the places and the people that I see. However the names of most people still elude me and my ninety year old brain, as I am only sixty nine years of age this is a problem. On the other hand, some of the kids who were in the same class as me, I remember them clearly.

Many years ago I wrote quite a lot, mainly light hearted short articles about everything and anything, some poems and so on. Regrettably I lost all my work in an incident better forgotten.

I have attempted to recall some of the articles and I have re-produced one of them, you may, if you have time to spare glance over the one appended. 

Have  pasted a before and after picture of self. (I had a huge crush on the girl beside me, sadly have forgotten her name).

The Early Days                                                             (donated March 2012)

First I have to explain, the last time that I visited Scotland or saw any of my friends or any of my few known relations was in 1958. Having joined the Army at a time in which the intensive everyday military activities were such that external time consuming family or otherwise visits was discouraged. (Which in military parlance meant, you are not going anywhere that we don’t send you). I did a few years later manage to return to Cambuslang and the local areas of my youth, but to my amazement everything had changed, I found absolutely no one, except my Father’s elder brother and his wife, that was good but it was just two of the many that I had taken for granted would be around for ever. I was devastated. I tried again in later years but with the same result, no one. Unfortunately even those two relations had moved away to another location, and even the house was no longer standing. Local investigation even then proved to be fruitless.

Now in my dotage, I was trolling the net for anything connected to Cambuslang and hit the Friends of Cambuslang Park site that was run by Ann Flannigan. Great, I saw so many pictures and of course the comments left by the visitors to the site, but lamentably nothing from anyone that I knew personally. Then at some point of my perusal I saw the reference to Edward Boyle’s site and went to it immediately.

For me the site was nothing less than a godsend, and before long I recognised so many of the places that used to be my playgrounds, also so many of the kids that were my school pals and so many more whom I recognised but could not remember the names, but, I now have 6 photographs of myself that I had no idea existed. The first picture I ever remember having been taken of myself was my Army identity card. Sadly though, I have been unable to actually contact anyone from the Cambuslang area, but, I later thought to myself, perhaps it is better that I don’t find names of friends or relations followed by the initials R.I.P.

Recently.

It was February 28th 2011, I was meandering through many of the forums that I regularly visit on the internet. I was on my own of course and passing my time probably annoying people with my incessant ramblings and also enjoying the chit-chat that the internet gives. I remember that evening when I was just about to sign off I had a message alert come through.

At first I did not recognise the sender, as it looked like so many of the other annoying scams that seem to appear on a daily basis.

From: Isobel **** Etc,
Date: February 27, 2011 10:53:30 PM GMT+01:00
Subject: Hallo Cousin! It must be you…………

Well, at this point my normal reaction would be to have my finger hovering above the ‘Bounce’ button, but I hesitated for whatever reason. Isobel? Isobel with an ‘o’ that should be with ‘a’? But I hesitated nevertheless, again I was just hesitating with the deleting digit of my right hand hovering, and then just this once that I remember, I opened the mail instead

Opening that message, that was the turning point in my life, it was a short message, “It just must be you! We’re cousins” it said, and then to confirm, Can you remember the day when you fell out of the big apple tree in Grans garden, you had climbed up to get me an apple and then you fell down through the branches? (Or something similar) Initially I simply froze, my mind however racing, this was a person whom I had seen many times when I was a child, yes, and I remember that incident so well. I was at that time about 5 or so years of age, and she and her brother Frank were sitting in the long grass in my Grans back garden and she remarked about the apple tree and the apples. Well at that point my ‘Big hero’ head appeared and donning the same I went and tackled the said tree. Looking for the best apple led to a fair height and I managed to grab a nice apple, but it was at the same time that I lost my sense of proportion and I let go of the branch with my other hand. OK, it was too late I thought as I descended through the branches, finally coming to my senses on reaching the ground flat on my back. No problem, as I limped towards the long grass and the two cousins laughing their little heads off, I won the day. Hand inside my pullover I produced the apple and presented it to Isobel, the admiring look that I got washed away any feelings of stupid that I had. That was one of the finer times of my young life. We both remember the detail until today, 65 years later.

My very first encounter with Isobel however was much earlier, well, about eighteen months earlier.

When I was about four and a half or so years old, I remember Isobel’s Mother Isabella came to the door of our house in Meek Place, which is just at the top of Borgie Crescent and just north of Kirkhill. Bella as she was generally known then was the wife of my Gran’s first son, and my father’s oldest brother. Apparently she had walked all the way from Eastcroft in Rutherglen just to see “the auld wife” as my Gran was euphemistically known. She was carrying a hand cot at the time, a blue plastic covered box with handles, which in those days was used to carry a child. As she entered the house, my Gran pulled out a dining chair and the cot was placed on the seat of the same. I was sitting in an old armchair a few feet away, I had no idea at all what the box contained, was it toys for me or a present? I sat looking at it. And within a moment or two the box started to tilt slowly forward, as it turned out the head part was rising upwards, I jumped up and caught the bottom of the cot and started to lift it to stop it sliding off the chair, I also took the chance at this point to look at the contents, that was the first and most beautiful moment of my young life, I remember it even now so well. As the box levelled off and having peered over the top, what I saw was an apparition, a small chubby baby’s face looking at me with this huge grin and just the two very obvious prominent top teeth. It was my cousin, Isobel.

In our early years Isobel and I saw very little of each other, she was a girl, in those days boys were not to be seen playing with girls, in any sense of the word, but when I did see her I was captivated by her looks, she was always so attractive and remains so to this day. I was, because of my early upbringing I was a very shy boy and found it difficult, if not impossible to talk to girls. But she and I just managed to get a few awkward smiles and words in whenever we did meet. I never really got her out of my mind in all the years that passed since that first encounter, and that was the lady who was sixty-seven years later to email me with the words after the Subject: -

"Hallo Cousin! It must be you…………"


Treasured memories.

How many recall, or indeed would want to, the idiosyncrasy of their youthful and informative years? I mean those things that stick in the mind, things that you recall only if a similar situation transpires again. For example; the first time your feet slipped off the pedals on your bike and your whole weight seemed to be destined to congregate between the central cortex of your legs and the only thing to cushion the fall was the most fragile of soft spots on your little body. Even the memory of when I was so afflicted still brings water to my eyes.

It was not always accepted then that the crossbar on a bike was peculiar to the male version of the machine, supposedly because the ladies wore skirts, so the offending bar was peculiar to the male version only; incidentally, I am still not sure why this remains the case 65 years later. (One of the earlier ‘birth control’ functions perhaps)? Yes, those were the days alright. On the other hand there were so many great moments, some that did not register at the time but on reflection, these were indeed the ‘spice of life.’

Circa 1950, how well I remember the times as a lad that with nothing else on my mind, I and a mate or two would go down to the north bank of the river Clyde for a swim. From Cambuslang Cross, go north and down the hill ‘ower the brig’ take a left and there was a part of the bank of the river that was slightly more accessible than the rest, having a small recess or ‘mini cove’, for whatever local reason the place was named ‘The Skudgie’.

The water was always slightly warmer than the ambient temperature, of the surrounding air, probably due to the decomposing bacteria therein; in fact the water was always a darker shade of pale, and so obviously polluted that I am sure even non Catholics could walk on it.

Running alongside some 100 yards or so from the bank was the rail line on which ran the tug train which pulled the ‘slag wagon.’ The steel mills produced this molten residue, locally ‘slag’, which was just like the hot lava seen running from erupting volcanoes, this was then unceremoniously dumped at seemingly random places along the bank which was to us a godsend, since we would warm and dry ourselves from the heat so produced.

The swimming activity always took place during the summertime, in the winter great slabs of ice would be seen making their way westwards, even so, I know that some brave souls still ‘took a dip’ I think this was more bravado than aquatic pleasure.

Farther along the bank and out of sight of the road the ‘men’ would play ‘hoyers’ the history of the name is to me still unknown. However, it involved laying two equally worn pennies on the outstretched hand and casting them upwards, the hand would manoeuvre in such a manner that the pennies would spin until they landed on a flattened patch of the ground. The aim of the person ‘flipping’ the coins was to attempt to get two heads upwards facing, this was a winner. A head and a tail would be invalid and the thrower would try again. Two tails would be a loss and the money bet would be covered by the thrower.  To encourage the betting the person willing to open the challenge, would chant “heads a penny, heads a tanner or heads a bob” depending on how much got from the dole that day.

Even in those days, I wondered would if it not be easier to simply hand over the money in your pockets to the challenger, which was where it usually ended up anyway.

And yes, I did see two headed pennies, although it would have been a brave man who would have used them, the chances are that there would be something more substantial than leeches and tolies floating westwards towards the North Atlantic Ocean.

Doon at the Skudgie

There’s leeches an tolies and things in the watter

But if ah float tae it disney matter

We a’ smell alike so nae’b’dy’s tae blame

At least ah’ll look clean when ah get hame.

Dry and warm on the heat frae the slag

Wipe ma’sel doon wi a bit o’auld rag

Hey Wullie, git oot ‘o’the skudgie

Look there’s Tams cairt we’ll cadge a hudgie.

Up tae the toon ta see the boys

Past snotty wains wi their tatty toys

Here’s a tanner son, dinny greet

An take that bogie aff the street

There’s ‘Daft Wullie’ wi’ his hons oan his heed

Anither glaekit helper the Polis wilnae need

Och well we’re a the same if it comes tae the truth

But nearly a the daft comes oot the mooth

Well here’s the lads noo, an  jings whit a sight

No a penny among them an no a dout alight

Theres tam on the brue, and Jimmy’s been freed

The Jonsies are there tae, but no in the heed

Owen the big yin, taggin along

Hummin some auld unmelodious song

Jo canny, Tam wilnie, Shuggie Disney

Still o’ there, jings, ah wish a wisnie.

                                                                                                              James Harvey.

Re ‘Daft Wullie’   (in reply to my email. Ed)

I cannot be sure but as I recollect he was just the person that you described in your reply, I do remember him hanging onto the bus platforms. What I remember most about him was him stationing himself in the middle of the junction on Cambuslang cross and so directing the moving traffic with gusto. On one occasion I even saw a couple of policemen watching him, they were smiling but took no action; I suspect that they were improving their own traffic management skills from him?

Yes I did hear of some drownings at the ‘Skudgie’ although my enquiries as to “Who” were ignored, I strongly suspect that it was a subterfuge to stop the younger kids from being too adventurous in the water. I do remember however that standing on the bridge one could clearly see that the water was quite shallow, at that point anyway. To my young mind and I suspect to may other kids, the Clyde was like the Ganges or the Mississippi, Ben Nevis was analogous to KII or Everest.  

I did a long time ago write a long winded story about the attributes of the Glen and the Borgie, two of my favourite haunts; it was more directed towards the humorous side of life rather than anything remotely approaching reality. There was also a poem regarding the same, my children thought it was rather good, but I suspect they would say that anyway as a credit towards their next financial or other request, I am trying to recall the general gist of the content and will forward it for your appraisal. You may again of course do with it what you will.

'My' Borgie 

(Donated Feb 2010)

There is a burn, the Borgie’ I am informed that the name Borgie means ‘meeting or jousting place?  It’s not so far from my previous home in Meek Place in Cambuslang, about three hundred yards or so at most. It appears to still be there, although one cannot actually see the stream, from the air as it is completely obscured with the great canopy of trees, oaks, elm, the willow and birch mostly.

It is still there I checked ‘Wikemapia’ and was startled to see that although the general area where I lived was once fairly open it is now completely utilised with housing, and other buildings, lots of trees have been removed to make way for the encroaching populace.

The weird thing is; that part which is the Borgie appears from above to be even more overgrown now than it was all those years ago. It is now just a huge long blanket of leafy mantle. I was so pleased that it had not been covered in as is the case with the ‘Glen’, another favourite haunt of mine along with some of my other little scruffy urchins.

The source of the Nile is easier to locate than the Borgie’s; Dr Johnston of "I presume" fame would have been well better advised to have explored Scotland before venturing forth to Africa. (I could have told him where the Blue Nile and Red Nile tributaries emanated from. But it would take the Indian god Ganja (Ganges fame) to find the enigmatic Borgie’s source.

The part that was my little Empire started south of the Cathkin Park, a public park in all, but for one thing, no public. (In those days anyway) Of all the times that I ventured so far south to the uplands of the said park, which was somewhat similar to the Ridgeway in Oxfordshire in the UK, but much taller and desolate. I can never remember ‘public’ utilising said park?

However as I am wont to do; I digress. This was a ‘public park’?   Glasgow Gorbals Barrowland (‘the barras’) and its immediate environs were just about the scruffiest habitable places in the world, something like a multi story Bombay (Slumdog Millionaire). The Cathkin Park on the other hand there looked like the gardens surrounding Windsor Castle or St Andrews golf Course, for whom? Begs the question, Glaswegians would have been as out of place there as would be Bin Laden in a synagogue.

Very few people had cars; the parks were way beyond walking distance for the average person even if they felt inclined to visit them. There were no busses there either. The strange thing was however. These beautiful parks were always close to the 'posh folk' of the parish. In my early days I took exception to the above situation, however, I then realised that the parks were not put there to be close to the affluent, the well heeled simply moved to where the parks were. Indeed; there was a distinct and noticeable lack of millionaires wandering the rows of stalls in Sundays Barrowland. I wonder why? Perhaps they were touring the Gorbals and handing out alms to the poor? Yes that must be it.

Incident; on so many occasions my friends and I would go all the way up to Cathkin and our ‘bogies’ would be laboriously pulled behind us, we must have looked like diminutive refugees escaping some invading tribes. The wheels from an old pram and a plank of wood were the basic model, the deluxe model had steering facility incorporated, (A foot on each axle close to the wheel) and the super deluxe sported in addition a cushion seat. (Anything softer than the bare plank) Anyway these were hauled all the way to the top of the ‘brae’.

How we ever reached puberty remains a mystery to this very day. The steep slope, water streaming from the eyes grasping the steering string we accelerated all the way to the bottom. In those days even the Delux model had no brakes, therefore the feet were employed, brake failure was common and the soles of the shoes (for those who had shoes) did not last long.

At the bottom T junction, stopping was very much a hit and miss affair, more often than not it was miss and then a hit, one would find oneself hurtling through the open entrance of the Vets emporium which was inconveniently placed directly opposite the base of the hill.

As I have previously stated, there were very few cars on the roads in those days, I suggest that a similar escapade nowadays would result in a dire shortage of pre pubescent youth in the local areas.

In the wintertime with snow on the roads we all had sledges, (for chuchters, toboggans) a similar adventure to the above was the norm, and in this case however the braking effort was to throw ones self off the sledge just before the last corner and crash into the fence or wall. It was all good fun. The dead and wounded were assisted to their respective dwellings.

The water from somewhere in or beyond Cathkin made its weary way north and downwards into the Clyde valley, passing through Kirkhill/Cambuslang Park, the ‘Wee’ pond to the Duck Pond to the Lilly Pond from whence it descended underground to emerge at the bottom of a small valley, overseen by the slum like tenements of Kirkhill itself. Strange, it was called Kirkhill, perhaps because there was a Kirk on top of a hill there? Shades of Wark?

The area of the waters emergence from the park was called the glen. (Arial view appears to show that this area has been filled in / perhaps by the rubble from the tenements?). Odd thing this, it would appear that a tunnel had been dug some hundreds of years ago, deep and for a long way underground to allow the water to reach the glen.

Begs the Question, up to and including years the time before before, i.e. before it was released, where did the water go then? Perhaps there was a great ocean there? Perhaps ‘Global Warming’ has been going on longer than we thought and perhaps the great Scottish glacier had melted. Perhaps Sean Connery is Welsh? A mystery indeed.

Having then reached the ‘Glen’, very steep, and in some stretches with almost vertical slopping sides, It then meandered its way through the years of accumulated garbage and junk that the good inhabitants of Kirkhill thought was a European Environment Communal (EEC) recycling plant.

The good part was that coming to the end of the Glen; it had to pass through a long filtering system of ancient garbage that had lost its microbe’s virus and other hazardous properties finally emerging from a small tunnel and into my adventure playground.

Again; I just cannot see the relationship between these streams, the cost, the manpower and effort involved in digging yet another deep tunnel under hundreds of metres of granite to get this water to the Borgie from the Glen, it simply does not make sense.  The Borgie now, to me anyway, was clean, clear and pure.  However there is a saying:

A drink from the Borgie, A bite of the weed

Sets a’ the Cams’lang fouk,’ Wrang in the Heid

At the top was a generally flat piece of ground, and it had some children’s swings and maypoles and so on there, again strange, other than myself and only a couple of other little scruffs like myself, there were no children there? The little wooden hut of the caretaker was set back a little and was always occupied by Mr Leighton, who just happened to be my next door neighbour, His grand daughter Elizabeth was my friend at the time.

I see in the more recent photographs that the area is now fenced off and grass is growing, the swings are gone, as it would appear, have the children.

As young as I was when I first ventured down into the Borgie, I became infatuated with everything about it. I won’t go too deeply into my adventures there for now, but suffice to say that I saved Scotland from so many unwanted invaders, (More English than anyone else) Martians, Red Indians, Germans, Communists, Politicians, my Science Teacher and many others.

There was one incident that has stuck in my mind for so many years, but first let me explain my own status then. I had no parents, no brothers or sisters; basically I was almost a recluse. My genetics made me and my existence up until then, and even now had produced a child who; lacking normality in so many ways deprived of the parental guidance and companionship of other siblings, left me in a kind of mental limbo as far as others were concerned.

Girls were to me angels, dainty, demure, visually exciting but also very enigmatic. In short they scared the living hell out of me. Like other boys in school, of course I talked about them but on my part it was all bravado, if a girl spoke to me I simply froze. I still get the shivers when confronted with a person of the paradoxical and contradictory gender. I am now married have 5 children, my wife heard that every sixth child born was Chinese; she did not wish to risk any more.

There was a girl in school and in my class, (St Brides RC) I have for many years tried to remember her name, but to no avail, however she looked like my female screen icon my very first love; Kim Novak, whom I saw in a film.

I have still to this day the picture of her profile in my mind as she glances through the half open door in ‘The Notorious Landlady’. In school the best I could do was to behave in such a manner as to insure that I was always seated near the rear of the class, we were always segregated of course, Girls on the right boys on the left. Ones behaviour determined how far away or near the teacher one sat. From such a strategic position I could glance sideways or forwards to catch a fleeting glimpse of her profile or the lesser acceptable vision, that of the back of her head, but that for me was sufficient.

How it happened I simply don’t know, perhaps she had noticed me catching a furtive glance in her direction on occasions, perhaps one of my classmates had said something. However, On Greenlees road which ran down the west side of the Borgie, there was an opening, a narrow track between two gardens led down to the waters edge. I often took that route to get home in the summer months.

On one particular pleasant day I had taken this route and had stopped half way across the stream, there was a series of large rounded granite boulders, which are probably there to this day.  Sitting down on one in the middle of the stream I removed my shoes with the statutory ‘holes in the soles’ and put my feet into the water.

How long I sat there I cannot recall, it was at least 10 minutes, I looked up towards where I had come from and behold, an apparition I froze, literally. It was Kim Novak, (the classmate, not the real one) I could only stare at first, and then, sweating profusely and I have no doubt becoming as red as a Russian flag, I quickly looked away.

"Hello James" going home then?  From the goddess.

Rapid nodding of the head from me.

"Where do you live?" spake forth Cleopatra

Finger points up into the wilderness "there" from el stupido.

"Are you alone?" the Angel sang softly.

"Aye" from dodo.

After about a further ten minutes of this intellectually engaging repartee, the object of my affection stood in the water, and kissed me gently on the cheek, said "goodbye" and left.

I could not see straight, I thought that I was going to faint. Half way up the track from which she appeared she stopped and looked back, "I don’t know why you don’t like me James Harvey" she said.

In my now almost seventy years I have never felt so distressed, never, my 22 years in the Army, all over the world, then the Police and afterwards, nothing ever happened that made me feel as bad as I felt at that moment.

The Old Borgie Dell.

The earth was new when you began
Who was there when you first ran?
Your translucent waters silent and deep
There, where now only silver fishes sleep

What tales I’ll bet that you could tell
What happened when from the skies you fell?
Those who ignored you, respected or cursed you
No longer there to maltreat or nurse you

Your banks and water always shaded
The edges clear where as a child I waded
Off the rich fertile soil the great oaks were fed
Strong banks firmly the waters led

Towards the Clyde, Robbie Burns’s river of old
Where many great and wondrous tales were told
You made your way there over countless years
And made those stories of happiness, but also of tears

Around and over the cultured boulders
Like the smooth curve of feminine shoulders
The winter’s rains; torrentiall, no more silent
The waters rose and ran more violent

The granite worn all those thousands of years
Its rough edges shorn by the waters great tears
Deeper and deeper the valley went down
Fall in then; one would surely drown

But I think that you had a soul just like me
What other reason could there be
I knew of no case where life was taken
When someone died or was even badly shaken

I daily played there for a decade or so
I would now give so much if just once I could go
Back to the stream where I as a child
Spent most of my days just running wild

‘Rock Hopping’ the boulders up to the dam
I surely was your greatest fan
I would race your waters every day
Mindful not of wind or spray

Imaginary battles I fought and won
Then, this was always how my young days begun
Time moved on and then sadly, I had to go
I said goodbye to my burn and its enigmatic flow

Well now I dream of those youthful days
I can see it in my mind in so many ways
Perhaps as reward for your story I tell
One last chance to see; The Old Borgie Dell
                                                                                                              James Harvey

(Now apparently refurbished) writing on the Borgie Dell stone reads:

The Borgie Well here,
Ran Many a Year
Wells wane away

Brief too—man’s stay
Our race alone abides
As burns purl on
With mirth or moan
Old Ocean with its tides

Pace longest day
Join hands and say
(Here where once flowed the well)
“We hold the grip, Friends don’t let slip
The Bonnie Borgie Dell
”
Come guard this dell and guard this stone
Because? Because both are your own
1879

Some of my friends from my early days;

Joseph Cannon – Elizabeth Leighton – Joseph Mac Keown – James ? and the Mc Lindens – and the Pickerings - from Meek Place

Gordon Kennedy. William Montgomery - Henry Ferguson - from Borgie Crescent.

William Macintyre- Mary Keenan – Charles Keenan- James Keenan – Tom Keery -   From Kirkhill

John Keegan - James and Charles Jones. Owen ? Hugh Coyle- Kings Crescent

There were many others of course but I fear I have forgotten the names, for this I humbly apologise.

More early days.

(Donated 4 February 2010)

It was suggested that I give a short history of myself from early in my youthful and informative years until the present time, well here we go. The part up to my leaving Cambuslang is, or will be adequately covered by my meanderings which in part have been appended already.

I left home early in the morning one day at the beginning of August 1956 to get to Glasgow Central Rail Station for 0900hrs accompanied by three of my closest friends. We said our goodbyes, it was a sad moment, god only knows when I will see them again I thought, and I went through the platform gate to produce my Army Travel Warrant. 30 seconds later I was back with my friends again, the Travel Warrant stated 1800hrs, not 0800hrs. A valuable lesson was learned at that point. ‘Read documents very carefully.’

I spent the next 22 years of my life almost wishing that I had missed that and all future trains, but to be honest, I learned so much from my time in the forces that I could never have done as a civilian. I was a mediocre soldier (11 Hussars PAO. A Tank Regiment) but I became a very good Instructor. There is a well known saying; “If you cannot do it, teach it.”

There was a little incident related to my mother tongue (Soft and clear English with a strong Glaswegian area accent) I had the ‘Mickey’ taken out of me so many times, and as a result, became involved in so many minor skirmishes that I resolved to correct my speech to  ‘fit in’ as the saying goes. I am now told that I sound like Sean Connery? It gets worse.

Having purchased a ‘Speech to Type’ converter for my PC at work some years ago, I found that I had to delete the‘s’ or ‘sh’ after almost every word.

One incident involving the Scottish accent sticks in my mind. Teaching a young recruit the finer points of the recoil system on a Chieftain tank, I sent one Glaswegian to the stores for a few litres of OM 13 hydraulic oil. He returned after a few minutes and told me that I had to go and talk to the store man, this I did. “I have not got a clue what the lad was saying” I was told. “What did he say I asked?” 

Well it sounded like “hivye ony ile” I translated it for him.

He said “I thought he was a Polish lad.”

In addition to my role as a Troop Sergeant I became an instructor in various other disciplines and finally left the army in 1979 after my final posting as an Instructor with the Junior Leaders Regiment RAC. (Where I first started from)

From there became a Police Constable with the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority in Harwell, Oxfordshire I Informed my Chief Constable. I would give it two years and then decide whether to remain or move on. As most of the staff there were ex senior ranks in the forces, he told me that I would remain there until I retired, that was the norm. Outside counting the leaves in an Amazonian jungle, it turned out to be the most incredibly boring job in the world.

Two years later I left the Police. Initially I took to driving Instruction and having covered all classes I then took to other machines, i.e. all Construction Industry types from Dumpers to Tower cranes and everything in between. A Course in Chemical Science.   Became involved in Hazchem / Explosives Operations and then to all other aspects of the Engineering and Construction Industries as a Safety Consultant and Advisor. Became; Member International Institute of Risk and Safety Management. Travelled all over the world. 

Many years ago I did a fortnights course in Hamilton (Between Motherwell and Cambuslang) for a Security firm, (Securicor I think) Advanced, Evasive, Defensive Driving Techniques for Armoured security Vehicles. Great bunch of lads but driving skills ‘dodgy’.

As they were all fellow Scots, I gave them all a ‘Pass’ What the hell.

I Retired in July 2005.

Wife is Indian ‘Goan’ (on the west coast, a former Portuguese colony) I moved there mid 2006 and have been living the ‘life of Riley there ever since’.

Incidentally, India is the most ‘enigmatic’ country in the world. The people are wonderful and I love them dearly, but, at the same time, can be the most infuriating people on the planet.

Example;

Me. “I want that digital child’s watch, how much is it?

He. After noting my Caucasian appearance, “1000 rupees”.

Me, “Thank you, I’ll think about it”

I send my driver in next day, same conversation, now it is 400 rupees.

I send my maid a day or two later, she then says “He told me 250 rupees”.

I return to the store and explain what previously happened.

“Ah Sir” from him, “now it is 1500 rupees”

Me. “What!”

He. “If Sir can afford a Driver and a Maid, Sir can afford 1500 rupees”

 Me? Speechless!

Army Life 

My first wife and I divorced in early 1980. I note that it is the military that keeps families together; at least it did in those times.  I got married again in 1986 and that lasted for 18years, we divorced we divorced but the divorce did not work out so we remarried in 2006. My daughter told me, “Dad. That is like crapping in your hat, and then putting it back on your head, or having a reverse appendectomy.” This time however it is working out.

I went to a reunion near the town of bath and was very surprised to find that a great number of my fellow cohorts had now divorced. On the other hand I also find that many of the long time active service personnel become sedentary when they retire from service, drivers, security, traffic wardens and the like. They tend to die off very quickly, a point I noted with sadness at the said reunion. I never attended any more of these.

I have refrained from trying too hard to contact my school day friends in Cambuslang; quite simply I would like to think that they are all up and about and enjoying a well earned retirement, I realise however that it is very likely that some are no longer with us. I know of at least two who migrated. One to Canada and the other to Australia, there are probably many more like these.

Regretfully, I lost much of not only my writings but also a lot of personal possessions in a fire, my army documents were also lost. I never asked for replacements as I did not think that I would need them again, my stories were more important to me. I see three places that our paths might have crossed.

I also served in Sennelager in the early seventies, I think it was the 14/20 hussars we took over from. I also know that we had some dealings with the 4/7 Dragoon Guards but I cannot for the life of me remember how thing where.

My regiment,  11 Hussars became amalgamated with the 10 hussars to become The Royal Hussars. This happened when we returned from Bergen- Belsen in 1968ish. I think that due to further amalgamations the regiment is now named ‘The Royal Dragoons’ but I have never tried to keep up with my military past. Too sad!

I also served alongside the 32 Field Regiment, but I think that it was in Germany. I also did two 6 month stints in N.I. One in Lisnaski  and one in Long Kesh. 1972/73 where I was the regimental intelligence Sergeant? Probably because I was no good at much else.  I never received much in the way of your ‘Casual Emoluments’ either time.

So, it is quite possible that our paths might have crossed, however fleetingly, however the pay office personnel were, and it would seem to most of the troops, to important to be openly seen by us mere mortals?

Incidentally, I well remember the days when on every Thursday, one would have to attend ‘Pay parade’ The whole Squadron would have to stand and wait for each individuals name to be called, march forward, Halt, Salute, get the pittance, salute again ("pay and pay book correct Sir") and march away. A full afternoon’s work completely wasted. Why could it not have been put in an envelope and given to the Troop Leader/Sergeant to distribute to his men. I did not complain then however, I enjoyed the ‘easy afternoon.’

The ‘Bing’ Playground 

Leaving Kings Crescent one heads for the ‘big’ village, I am given to understand that Cambuslang was the largest village in Scotland, more than 70,000 inhabitants and no legislative body etc it was classed as a village.

Anyway I digress yet again, you come to a crossroads, and straight on takes you up to the Borgie Crescent and eventually Kirkhill, area. A right turn at the crossroad will take you to the ‘Village’ and a left would be the route to Halfway.

Halfway to where? I often puzzled and argued with my little friends saying that to be halfway to anywhere, one had to have a starting point and a destination, halfway would be an exact measured point twixt the two. Since I was the more diminutive of the group, I always lost the argument.

So we take a left and head east, this takes us over a railway bridge and eventually under a further bridge.  Exiting from the bridge and on the left side (North) of the road there was a ‘bing’ from whence came the name I don’t know, but, I believe that all such coal pit effluvium or detritus dumps were so called.

In most cases these ‘bings’ were upside down conical in shape and with very steep sides. The one here mentioned, appeared to be unused as the waste had reached a point where any further tipping would have resulted in the waste overflowing the small wall that separated the sidewalk and road from the pile.

Always on the lookout for some adventure or other ‘Wullie’ as in William Lyons originally of Borgie Crescent (Now in Canada) and I explored every inch of the place, the top  and its environs but apart from a deep vertical hole about  two and a half square yards width, there was little to challenge our adventurous spirit.

We did venture down the hole with its embedded metal rungs but the farther we descended the hotter we became, it also became difficult to take in air, we came to the unanimous decision that nothing was to be gained from descending any further, ( I was scared) we ascended.

I just about made it to the top, I am now convinced had we gone deeper we would never have been found. My little weak arms were by now aching so much I only just managed to scramble over the top.

Where we had left the roadway the ascent to the top was fairly bare of grass and weed, I think because the frequent warm and gentle rain that swathes Lanarkshire in general during the temperate months has washed away the top layers of the mound and it was now resident along the foot area behind the wall.

One, infamous as it turned out, day Wullie found a metal sheet. In those days houses with open fires and a fender, there was some kind of metal plate which fitted inside the fender and the fire itself. I think it may have been called a ‘hearth plate’ or similar, it was fairly thin, and quite strong; about 36in long X 18in wide I guess, the upper side was usually enamelled and had a multi coloured design finish, for us posh folks anyway.

Quoth Wullie; “ Jamsie, I have a great idea”  

From me “Aye……… what?”  Hesitantly This was because Wullies ‘great ideas’ usually meant some new escapade involving a great deal of risk.

“We can use this to slide down the auld bing” Excitedly.

“Illucidate” or something similar; like a quizzical, eyebrows raised “Ohh aye” from me.

“Look, bend the front bit back about here” finger pointing “it will stop you falling off, almost like a windshield.”

From; by now a condescending Jamsie “Ohh aye, to stop ‘ME’ falling off?” 

From Wullie “You’re an auld scaredie cat”

From Jamsie, “aye”

I suggested to my good friend and fellow idiot Wullie, that we should get another, because if we have just the one, YOU will slide down and then have to bring the ‘bing bogie’ (our new name for the machine,) back up to the top, for my turn.

Now looking back after all those years, that was the suggestion was by far the best that I have ever made, nothing and I mean nothing compared to that suggestion  

I have forgotten exactly how long after this ‘great idea’ the next ‘bing’ episode emerged but it was shortly after, we found another ‘bit of tin’ I distinctly remember it was slightly bigger and was anything but flat, looking back I think it might have been an old drum of sorts.

Looking at Wullies against my own, his was sleek; it was light, shiny base to make for even more slippery. Mine would bend too easily was full of lumps and bumps and I was sure that it would be useless. Actually Wullie agreed with me, but we by now were impatient to get a trial run in. In appearance his ‘bing bogie’ was a brand new Rolls Royce and mine was a 1932 Austin 7 that had been badly mistreated.

The great day came (Saturday or Sunday because of school) we made our way from the south side of the area to the ‘bing’. Incidentally, there were no houses there at that time, I think they started those around 1948 or so, there was a large manor house there, set in a vast woodland area.

However we crossed the road and made our way laboriously up the ‘bing’ carrying our respective bogies. Reaching the top we rested and made the decision as to who would go first and the reasoning as to why it was always me who was selected. Putting my feet against the bent up front of the tin I got a push from Wullie.

I have to admit I saw no obvious problem at that point, as I gathered momentum I then started to have doubts as to the wisdom of this move. Honestly I distinctly remember thinking about half way down that we should have put some bricks or something on the tin and let it go, just to see what happened.

Nothing happened, got a good speed going and just before the bottom it slowed down sufficiently to come to a halt on smacking into the wall, a light jolt and covered in coal dust, no problem. The wall at that side was only about six to nine inches high because of the debris that had come from the slope; I sat on the wall and waved to Wullie.

I saw him take off, and by god he was picking up some speed, I was envious of him at that point, it was not easy to see his face but I know now that he must have doubted the wisdom of this whole episode. He reached me so fast that I had to move away quickly to avoid an unintended encounter with him, the front of his ‘bogie’ whacked into the wall it turned a somersault and to this day I have this vision of his outstretched flailing arms as he sailed over the wall, the ‘bogie’ whacked into the roadway and slid to the other side, well almost, Wullie completed a long rather graceful summersault and he made a quite graceful landing, almost, he was on his feet, but his upper half was going so fast the feet could not keep up, he half slid half rolled almost halfway to the other side.

This was a main road, it was fortunate that in those days there was very little traffic, and Wullie stopped almost exactly in the middle of the road. A guy who I now know to be Bull Grey drove a coal truck for the CO-OP, he stopped and got out to go to help Wullie, I laboured over the wall to him.

Wullie was sitting up I was laughing my head off, I could not help it, Wullie was, apart from a few bruises and his damaged dignity miraculously and relatively unhurt. I suggested that he was lucky that the wall was there he could have been badly hurt if the wall had been much higher. He had just enough strength left with which to smack me one though.

Bull Grey? He lived in Kirkhill and moved to the new houses on the other side of the road opposite the ‘bing,’ when I was about ten or so. I used to help him unload the coal wagons at the Kirkhill rail yard and then we would fill the bags, load the truck and deliver the coal. He helped me to get the bag on my back and would let me carry it as long as it was near the truck and there was no stairs involved.   He gave me two shillings every week, to me; A fortune.

Wullie, He was about 15yo I think when unfortunately his dad died. He moved to Canada with his mother and big sister Etta (Henrietta) where they had relations.  I got one letter from him afterwards. I was awaiting my 16th birthday in order to join the army. Wullie had to go back to school, the leaving age there being 18. I would have loved to go there with him, not to school, to Canada.

James Harvey ~ 6 February 2010

Dear Edward (11 February 2010)

You must have been very brave, If the heat chimney was the same one that Wullie and I went partially down, then I am an old ‘scardy cat’ I see a ‘bing’ behind the houses in kings crescent, I never ventured near those. I fear that the Coyle lads kept a fairly tight reign on me when I was living with them, which was perhaps just as well because Hugh (‘Shuggie’) was a bit of a lad. I did most of my ‘exploring from the Meek Place base.

I can just vaguely remember the ‘wire pulley rope’ now that you have mentioned it, but the finer details escape me, I do know that it made a real mess of ones hands though. I remember the brick kilns in that general area, for whatever strange reason I was fascinated with them. I know that some bricklayers would get a surprise; Wullie and I would find some soft clay bricks waiting to be ‘fired up’, we would write some rubbish or other on a few of them with a small bit of stick, then they would be returned to the stack. I would have loved to see the faces of the guys who eventually found them after they had come out of the kiln.

I have enclosed yet another bit of nonsensical goings on. See what you think. I won’t write any more, I promise.

James.

The Parachute

One of my haunts as a child was the Cambuslang rubbish dump, down by the River Clyde. I say that quite flagrantly. I and many other kids rifled through the junk for anything of interest.  I had been given some bits of an old bicycle by Joseph Mc Keown (No 11 Meek Place) a frame and a chain and a set of pedals. He was my guru and my friend ever since I can remember; his whole family were superb people in every sense of the word.

The rubbish dump was the source of most of the remainder of my bicycle, I had found dozens of bits and unfortunately most of them were useless, wrong size or whatever. My grandmother suggested that I was contemplating a scrap yard of my own to compete with the one in the town. Forgotten the name, perhaps someone can remember, I think you went to the bottom of Church St or the street opposite the town library and the site was on the right. 

I mention the site because I eventually took all the useless bits of bicycle there and he gave me a couple of pennies for them. Eventually he asked me why I was collecting so many bits and I explained the home build bicycle project, he told me to bring the bits I had already kept for him to look at.

I had been advised by a few friends not to do so because he was a ‘bad man’ and would keep the bits I took. I took the chance and lugged them all the way to his yard, far from being the ‘bad man’ he actually gave me some bits that did fit my as yet incomplete bike, he even fitted them for me. I distinctly remember a better saddle and a set of handlebars that did fit. I said I had no money, he said “never mind son I don’t need those” or something similar.

Once again, I suggest that it is better never to prejudge people, we are apt to do so towards scrap merchants, rag and bone men and the like, but we never prejudge Politicians, but you can guarantee that they are mostly corrupt. I pride myself in being honest, that’s why I love India, because I have no competition here.

Where was I? Ah yes, the rubbish dump. BTW, I was not the only little urchin to be found scavenging amongst the trash there. At times the competition was fierce, lets face it a couple of years after the war, very few had anything at all.

Going off track a little, I am reminded of the Disc Jockey Chris Evans, for whatever reason I had no time for him; that was until I saw him crying uncontrollably at seeing the kid’s rotten feet in the garbage dump in Kolkata (Formally ‘Calcutta’) (Community Channel  6-9 am Daily) then found out that he was more than generous in his donation to charitable causes.

“Hey Wullie!” (Perhaps it was ‘Ging’ (Gordon Kennedy) “I’ve found a parachute”

That became one, indeed the only treasured possession I had in my life (The bike was still not complete) That parachute became a tent by adding a few bits of stick, and by tying the chords to small bits of wood to be hammered into the ground, I was the proud possessor of this great prize and no amount of offers to exchange it for books, toys, were entertained I remember Joe Cannon offered me a shilling for it, but no way was it going anywhere, at least not yet.

The conversation went something like this, (I have translated from the local colloquial to English as my wife and kids think I am speaking Klingon)

“Jamsie” From Wullie “I’ve got a great Idea”

Me,  “Aye……… what?”  thinking ‘here we go again’

From Wullie “we could use it as a parachute”

At this point I noted that he had said “We could” etc.

“OK” from me, convinced that he was joking, “Where do we get an airyplane?”

“Don’t be daft”  from Wullie “we just jump off a bridge or something”

Now, even at the tender age of seven or so, I could see the flaw in his reasoning, even if we,……. no, even if ‘he’, jumped off the Clyde Bridge he would be at the water before the top had even cleared the parapet. I explained my doubts to Wullie. “You’re just al old ‘scardie cat’ from him.

“The Borgie” from Wullie

“Ohh …. Aye?” from me.

Then Quoth Wullie, “the bit above the caves, where there is a big tree leaning over the top”

“Aye”……..? from me.

“We could jump off the tree; it’s straight drop, nothing in the way and very high”

“Aye” from me “but with just one wee change to the plan, we drop the WE and we insert YOU instead, remember I went down the bing first, it’s your turn.

Surprisingly now from the gallant Wullie, “I’ll go first this time.”

“Aye” from me.

Directions: - from Meek Place, between numbers 12 and 14 runs the Tabernacle Lane footway. Just at the exit and on the left is Myrtles wee shop, her sister was with her at times. Anything from potatoes to sweets, paraffin (bring your own bottle) to Cigarettes.

How much are those sweets there, pointing, 10 for a penny Jamsie, She always put 12 in the ‘wee paper poke.’  Bless her.

Straight across the road was a large wooden hut, the only thing I remember it being used for was a weight lifting and body building club. I know there were other things but I cannot remember exactly what.

On the right at the exit was the fenced in step up Power station. We go to the right, Wullie to the fore and me bearing the parachute tagging reluctantly behind.

Clearing the Power Station (Its still there I think) over the fence and up the embankment we are now walking alongside the bottom of the gardens of Meek Place. The track becomes much narrower carry on and alongside the back gardens of Borgie Crescent we come to a point where the track is just passable.

There is a very large tree; it is leaning at a very jaunty angle over the Borgie water flow. If one climbs up a few yards a fork makes a good sitting place. Although when one is so young the height, slope, width, and so on of things appears massive. On the other hand, the risks pale into meagre insignificance, if it were the other way round, many children would actually never reach maturity.

Wullie and I now perched astride the fork of the tree, survey the drop, I now suggest, and I am guessing at 35 yards, as a 6/7 year old it appeared to be a very long drop.

Wullie says “Aye, it’s a long way down, the parachute will open just fine at this height”

Jamsie says “Aye” but quizzically and with eyebrows raised. I knew in my mind at that point that even if I was shot where I was sitting, I was not going down there by parachute, elevator, stairway or anything else. Wullie on the other hand appeared to be looking forward to it?

Having just been in St Brides  Infant School for no more than about two and a half years, We had not yet covered E = MC.2    Kinetic energy had yet to be mastered by us, we did however understand the basics of Gravity. Doubts were beginning to enter the old neurofibulary area of the brain.

“We need to have a trial run first” say I.

“How?” from Wullie.

“We tie something to the strap hanging from the strings and let it drop”

“Your cat” suggests Wullie.

“Bitey! No way” says I. “anyway my Gran says that people come back as cats and dogs, so we have to treat them well”.

“Rubbish” says Wullie. Well he would, he’s a ‘proddy dog’ (Not Catholic)

“How about a stone or a log, or even an old coal bag with some bits so it will be about the same weight as you” from Jamsie.

“Great idea” from Wullie.

And so it came to pass, that Wullie and Jamsie did assemble a multitude of bits and pieces and verily did deposit them into the aged coal sack at the foot of the chosen tree.

And did they verily empty the aged coal sack again as it was too heavy to get to the required height in the said tree.

The sack was emplaced in the crook of the two staunch branches and bit by bit the weights were so emplaced.

Wullie and James also now ensconced some fifteen feet or so high and alongside the sack, tied the parachute cords to it and the great moment came. With both of us holding the top of the chute clear of the branch we pushed the sack away and at the same time released the top of the chute.

We both I am sure had visions of a gentle opening of the canopy and a somewhat majestic descent to the bottom; as in the movies. However, it was not to be. As soon as the infernal thing was released it virtually plummeted to the bottom, it was over in not more than 5 seconds. The parachute did not even start to open, it crashed to the bottom and smashing into a large boulder the aged sack burst open and the parachute was dragged away by the flow of the water.

Wullie and I just looked at each other, said nothing, but we raced down to the School end of the burn before the chute had a chance to get there, in fact it had stuck on the rocks not far from its inglorious descent.

“I wasn’t really going to go down you know” said Wullie.

“Aye” from me.

Much later Wullie asked his dad what he thought of Jamsie’s parachute. His dad said yes son, during the war these wee parachutes were used to drop wee packets of food and the like to soldiers on the ground.

Later found out that they were designed to take no more than 14 lbs of non breakable supplies.

Wullie was definitely heavier and certainly breakable.

The chute was later exchanged for something or other from Joseph Cannon of no 1 Meek Place.

I am particularly interested in locating Mr William Macintyre now 69years, lived in Kirkhill until about 1955 then moved to the new housing area across from the Cambuslang Park. Anyone???

More Ramblings

I doubt if a day goes past in which I fail to peruse the areas and people depicted in the site. As the occasional visit produces yet another of my old friends the thoughts and memories come flooding back, the latest discoveries were a picture of Elizabeth (Betty) Leighton, at about 15 years of age; I had already discovered one of her at 7 years. (She was my next door neighbour) in Meek Place.

The other discovery was of Ian Richardson who had one brother Charles, found and recognised Ian OK but Charles is becoming rather elusive.

Another odd thing is that although I am able to remember the names OK some of the faces I simply cannot place, it is as if I had never seen them, although many of them were in the same class at school as me for many years.

Odd story; having gone through some 5 or 6 years at the primary school, I had to change classes around 1948 or thereabouts because my birth certificate surfaced (No mum or Dad available until 1948 when my dad returned from the forces??) (Mum had died in London during the war). It appears that I had started school sometime just after my 4th birthday.

I cannot remember a single face in my primary school class but I remember so many in the secondary class. Left in 1955. No place to go but into the Army.

Got an email from Walter Japp in reply to the one I sent him, he had his email address appended to his ‘reminiscences’ on the site.

‘Begging now’ would it be possible to append my own email address after my ramblings? Please. And thanks in advance.

Speaking with Walter he made a very pertinent point as to youthful friends etc. These tended to be located only a couple of hundred yards from ones own home, and thinking back that is so very true, all my own friends were so located, but on the other side, since I lived in Kings crescent for quite a long time I made a lot of friends there also. You of course were the ‘wee loddie’ from downstairs.

I remember on one occasion, you may even recall yourself. Hugh and I and a couple of lads were in your garden down at the bottom near the railway line fence. Someone in your house, father, elder sibling, relative, brought down a large collection of wooden boxes, much like the army MFO boxes which we then made into a large ‘gang hut’ sometime late evening we had to relocate, flit, give up, vacate, and the boxes were subsequently collapsed, the odd thing was that sometime later, perhaps a few days, the said boxes became a huge bonfire, we never understood that. What a waste of a gang hut?

There was another thought, you are probably rather tired of my thoughts, however; At the bottom of Tabernacle lane just over the railway bridge there was a small newspaper printing outfit, I seem to remember ‘The Cambuslang Advertiser’ I suppose it has long gone? Anyway I imagine that there must be a local or reasonably local newspaper??

I had a thought, A visit to the editor with a collection of school photographs from the 40s and 50s, one of which could be inserted, even on a monthly basis, as a sort of competition,

Are you here?
Are any of your parents?
Grand parents?
Friends?
People who owe you money?
Run off with your sister?
Joined the Taliban?
Or whatever,

First it would be good for the paper, would encourage people to get the paper in the first place, and could be added to the competitions page, whatever. Just a thought Edward, You could even put a link to your own site.

Lost your school friends, see www/ etc

OK I will go now, I’m rambling on.

The Teddy Bear and other stories

1943/4, I was living in Meek Place, Cambuslang at the time, Carl and Judy came to the UK from Denmark at the start of the war, apparently they were cousins of ours, I only saw them only on the one occasion. They were both girls and I would think about five and six years old. I think that I was about two and a half or three at the time.

Can anyone remember the teddy bears and other soft toys that were available then? One that I had, from heavens knows where it came was a flat-pack job, i.e. it had no filling; one had to do that after getting it home, fill with what? I think that my Gran tried to fill it with straw, or something similar, it was huge, bigger than me in fact. Now, I don’t know if it was just me, but even at that young age I realised that these creatures were not filled with artificial materials, it just seemed silly, they were flesh and blood just like us, so I removed the filling and that was it, I suspect at the time that I thought it would naturally fill itself with the appropriate whatever. Remember; I had no mum, dad or other siblings. We had no radio or TV, I had not invented them yet.

However, I was sitting quietly on this old rickety arm chair at the time, it was late in the evening and dark, the blackout was on and we had a candle or two burning when my Gran told me to go and get Edward, (yes, as in Teddy and Teddy as in Bear), and show it to the girls.

Up the stairs I went and in my youthful innocence I climbed into Teddy, couldn’t do up the big buttons at the back and in my mind I assumed that someone would do them up when I got down to the living room, there were eyes and the mouth was well open, just enough for me to see.

I had fumbled my way back downstairs and being unable to reach the lounge door handle I banged my teddy paw on the door at it was opened by one of the girls, I entered to a cacophony of high pitched screams, and I reeled backwards landing on my bum and banging my head on the wall behind me.

No one was interested in my shock and a couple of sharp slaps on the back of my little legs left me wondering if it was part of some great master plan for the wide-ranging chastisement of children in general, or, was I peculiarly and exclusively so favoured? I never saw Carl and Judy again; I have often wondered what happened to them.

Strange thing then, the living room or lounge was generally called the ‘kitchen’ and subsequently the actual kitchen was named the ‘scullery?’ where did that come from?

The Gas Mask

I distinctly remember it was summertime and the war was still in full swing; my Gran had been rifling through the cupboards for something or other and had come up with a gas mask. I asked her what it was and was given something along the lines that the Germans will drop the gas and we have to put it on or we will all die.

The Gas! For a long time after that I was so scared to go near the gas stove in the kitchen. (Or Scullery?) However, “there is one for you as well” she said, and at that point brought forth from the dark void yet another mask. At this time I think that I was about three or four, I looked at it and said “I don’t want to wear it”

“Why on earth not” she said.

“It looks funny” from me.

The mask was indeed very different from hers, in this case it was red if my memory serves me well and it had a long flat sort of arrow head shaped pointed nose. My Gran told me that it was like that in order not to frighten the children and they would be more inclined to wear it, as a kind of game I suppose.

Some weeks or even months later I was ‘screenging’ (locally; ratching around for nothing in particular) and came across the mask again. Boys will be boys and I just had to try it on, then having adjusted the straps tightly and grown tired of the game I tried to remove it.

It would not budge, I started to panic, and “what if it will never come off” I was telling myself? Quietly over to Gran who was sleeping on her (and my) bed, my head was just level with hers on the pillow.

“Gran, I cannot get this off” and after a few attempts to awaken her she stirred.

“Ahhhhhhhh” from Gran

“Ahhhhhhhh” from me

Pause, then from Gran a long almost uncontrolled laughter spell. 

“Why is my cooking so bad” she said

“You told me the gas was poison” I reminded her. “Not our gas, you silly boy, German gas” For years afterward I wondered about this. Why were we using German gas? Why were Germans using poisonous gas?

The long handled coal shovel

During the war many Households were issued with a bag of sand, and a long handled little shovel. Anyone remember them? There was also of course the famous ‘Anderson Bomb Shelter’ partially buried and half way up the back garden.

Just why Uncle Adolf would wish to bomb no 15 Meek Place I cannot think. My Gran had explained to me that someone came to explain to my grandmother how to use the shovel. Its purpose was to put out a fire should Adolf decide to set fire to our house. One had to load the shovel with sand and throw it high enough to go through the upstairs window; I have often wondered who came up with that great plan. The idea was however not completely lost on me but; I wandered what length of handle would the folks in the upper floors of the tenements buildings down in the town use?

One day I was in the back garden with my little friend from next door at No 16, Helen Pickering, comely lass she was. On reflection I suppose the handle of our shovel would be about 4 to 6ft in length, I decided to show Helen how this thing worked.

As I now look back to the event I suppose I was just trying to impress Helen, god knows why, I was not older than 4 at the time. In my little mind I saw the sand fall against the window and then fall harmlessly to the ground below, but, that was not exactly the outcome, the first part of the plan went well, that was until the shovel had just passed top dead centre, the shovel with its cargo detached itself from the handle and continued  forward.

At this point I have to admit that I had not planned the operation very well. Firstly I should have checked that the window was closed, secondly I should have checked that the shovel was actually attached to the handle firmly, thirdly I should have found some other less adventurous means of impressing Helen.

My Gran was not impressed any more than Helen was.

Looking back a few years after the failed ‘Fire fighting display with Helen, there was an unfortunate incident; for reasons never mentioned Helens house caught fire, and I was standing in the back garden with my Gran, it was so fierce I could not believe it, they must have been storing firelighters in every room in the house. Every window and door had great gushing fire extruding, it was an inferno. Even the rafters in the roof were alight and collapsed. Thankfully no one was injured.

Looking at my little coal shovel and bag of sand, even then I knew that it was as much use as a Cadburys Dark Chocolate Tutti Fruity frying pan that had been made in China.

The Clydebank Firework Display

Dark night, I am about three and my Gran and I were standing at the top of the stairs and looking out of the window. I was watching the firework display coming from somewhere close northern area of the river Clyde, it was a fantastic display and there were long fingers of bright light lighting up the sky as they flitted across the base of the clouds.

My Gran on this occasion was talking away to herself and the strangest thing was, I could not understand a single word. I asked her what she was saying and she paused in her tirade. “I am just praying James, so don’t interrupt me, there’s a good boy” or something similar.

Many years later I realised that the fireworks were indeed bombs falling on the steelworks areas, and the fingers of light were the searchlights looking for the bombers.

I also found out that my Gran was not actually praying, she was cursing the Germans in Irish Gaelic. Whatever, we won anyway.

The Balloon.

Just as you turn right to go to Borgie Crescent having crossed the railway bridge heading south, on the left there is a hall of some kind, (Turned out in those days to be the W.A.A.F.S. station in Croft Road and incidentally, (The wee park in Vicars Walk,) (Thanks to Margaret McKinnon for that info) I remember many years later that Mr and Mrs Pat Coyle (42 Kings Crescent) had their Golden wedding anniversary celebration there.

However, on this occasion I was walking towards the hall and I saw that there was a lot of military people there and they were wrestling with the ropes which was holding down a very large balloon, later I was told that it was a Barrage Balloon and the Idea was that the German planes would bump into it and it would bring them down.

At least that was the grand plan. But, the person that I was with at the time, John Leighton, my next door neighbour, he informed me that it was a large bomb, the idea was that when the wind was blowing towards Germany it would be released, and when it had reached its destination it would descend and the brave British pilots would fire at it setting the huge bomb off. Well, that will be just fine and I hope there are many more of them.

Now I don’t know exactly when the thought first entered my mind, but, it occurred to me that this could be a two edged blade, what if the wind direction changes? Which it did some days later, the infernal contraption would be blown back to where it came from? Why had no one thought of this? We would all be doomed as the Germans followed it back and then they shot at it as it came back to its base.

Again, remembering I was just about 4 at the time, but it was a very long time before I took this route to get to Meek Place, preferring to go from Kings Crescent into Cambuslang and go up the Tabernacle Lane to my home, irrespective of in which direction the wind was blowing.

The sad thing was no matter to whom I expressed my fears to of the impending cataclysmic explosion, they just laughed, and I despaired for a long time. I suspect that I started to age prematurely somewhat after that.

Tom Kerr.

Margaret McKinnon, I can remember her name from then in the late 40s early 50s but not her face unfortunately. There was however, just one name from her extensive list of locals that I remember very well; He was Tom Kerr, a redheaded lad as I recall, he was a really nice guy, probably about 5 or 7 years or so older than myself, he always stopped and chatted with me.

I remember on one occasion, a very heart warming thing. I was going home from school (St Brides) and it was absolutely ‘hissing down’ I met him just as he was about to cross the road and turn into Vicars walk, he stopped and said after the usual pleasantries, “Going home James, get under with me” He had on a large raincoat which he had taken off, we huddled both together under the outstretched coat and reasonably out of the rain, then he walked me all the way to the steps outside my door, about half of a mile away, said his ‘goodbye’ and wandered off down the road again to his own house. I wonder even now if anyone would even consider that kind considerate behaviour, under those circumstances, truly he was a gentleman in the making. Where are you now Tom? Living the life of Riley I hope.

The Guinea Pigs

Talking of John Leighton, (my next door neighbour) I and My friend Wullie Lyons, would accompany him on his by-weekly forage to find a good grass supply to feed his countless pets, mainly rabbits and guinea pigs, again I am 5 or 6 at the time. We would carry a large Hessian sack each and would try to get as much new grass, as we could into the sack. It had to be young and very green, straw was no good.

We would venture miles I am sure, on every trip just to get the good feed. I myself had a Dutch rabbit, the black and white one, like a little panda with long ears. It would eat anything that I gave it, but it would not be good enough for Joseph’s pets.

In my naivety I thought that he was just being very selective in his food choice because he loved them all so much.  It was a very long time later that I found out that the creatures were being taken to a large hospital on the outskirts of Glasgow, and there to be used for experimental purposes. I found it hard to look the guy in the eyes ever again after that. 

I now of course realise that we have to carry out these experiments, but, we should use paedophiles and supporters of Hamilton Academicals for that purpose.

The Reservoir Raft.

Yet again I wonder how I ever managed to get into my teens, let alone reach my very late sixties; I am seventy next month so I suspect ‘someone up there likes me’.

At the southern most part of Cambuslang Park there is a walking track, about halfway along there is, or used to be a style. If you look north and down the slope you will see the children’s swings. However, go over the style and you are again on a narrow track between two agricultural fields, never totties or neeps, they would get plundered, not by me, by the bad boys? I am a good boy.

Take the track north and you come to a narrow metalled road, a little left and a junction leading north.  This leads to the main local reservoir, one of the favourite haunts my little friends and me.

Now I simply don’t know what the fascination of this reservoir was for us, the water was always very cold, there were fairly steep brick sloping sides and as far as I know there were no fish therein. On the other hand, “If we had a raft” quoth one of my little friends, Wullie Macintyre or possibly Tom Keery, both from Kirkhill, “we could sail up and down there”

Looking around as far as the eye could see there was not so much as a twig growing anywhere, so after a lot of neurofibrilary activity inside the collective sculls someone (not me) came up with the Idea of lots of big empty cans tied together and upon which we could lay some planks or whatever.

And so the grand seagoing exploration of the mysteries of the reservoir began. It took some time to collect the empty cans to start with, in those days these things were precious, god knows why; it was just the thing to keep in case it would come handy sometime. We did find however that it was the men who stored these useless objects, so we would go asking when the men were at work. The ladies on the other hand were so glad to get rid of the, to them, useless junk. (My wife is still like that, with one little difference, she collects the junk and I find reasons, which are not grounds for divorce, to throw it/them out)

Eventually after a few trips to the launching slipway we had managed to collect sufficient large oil cans and the like and hide them locally to the launch slipway. Sometime later we reached the site with some planks of wood, enough to form a platform, but, the task of putting the whole contraption together proved to be the greatest challenge. It was finished eventually and the great day arrived.

Now past experience should have shown me that this kind of dubious experimentation with the elements at large was a no, no, however we managed to get the contraption into the water, the steepness of the bank was a problem that we had not taken into account and the first mishap was as follows. Distinctly remember John Keenan from Church St in the town, sorry in the village of Cambuslang, village? It’s larger than a lot of towns and I suspect there are smaller Cities somewhere.

John, obviously frustrated with the attempts to push the contraption into the water decided that a pull would give better results, and with that went to the front of the launch pad and tugged, we others pushed and it moved, in fact it moved so fast it shot into the water like the launch of the QE11. John ended up under the infernal contraption, the next minute or so was a nightmare as we tried to get him from under the raft but managed to do so OK, John was not a ‘happy bunny.’

He then explained, when he stopped shivering, that the reason it would not move at first was that the edge of the tin on the front was in contact with a raised portion of the brick bank. As soon as he lifted it up it shot forward and he fell backwards into the briny and he was pushed underneath.

I know that it is not a nice thing to laugh at another’s misfortunes, but you must admit, at times it is the only way out of a dodgy situation.

So; out we went without further mishap, at least not immediately, the first thing that gave us (Tom and Me) any reason for concern was that we had not tried to estimate the depth of the water, which turned out to be considerably deeper than the length of the sticks that we had thought would propel ourselves, along (two clothes poles) my Gran would eventually chastise me as she just happened to need the pole on the day of our expedition into the blue yonder.

The prevailing wind took us fairly rapidly towards the other side of the reservoir and of course the poles were useless. At least useless until we almost got to the other side, (West) it looked different, there was no brickwork bank on that side and in the distance we could see that there were reeds sticking out which meant that it was shallower. Great, I thought, but as we got nearer our Ark of the Convenience (Covenant) (Sorry to the RCs, play on words) ground to a halt. No amount of pushing, paddling, cussing, etc would make it move, we were at least 50 yards from the bank. In the end, Tom, My great hero of the moment, (I have this movie vision) “Don’t worry Jamsie, I’ll go and get something to help us get out” and with that and holding his nose he jumped over the side like a parachutist, but just a little different, he landed and did not even come up to his knees in the water.

The thought was there. In so many of my subsequent sixty or so years the thought was not there, under so many similar circumstances.

The Train Set

I have put this next item because it has opened a new door to me, I will bet that anyone reading this will stop and say to themselves, ‘Ye Gods’ or perhaps ‘jings!’ or whatever, “that has happened to me.”

At the time I thought nothing of the incident but it always puzzled me’ Things came a little clearer a few years ago and many others who have had this experience have contacted me regarding this ‘phenomena.’

‘Quantum Physics’ Does it mean anything to you? Basically it is the scientific study of things very small, (wee or totty). To clarify, an atom, an electron or proton would be regarded as BIG. When Einstein produced E=Mc 2 , he was talking about light and particles, not wave. It is now well known that thought waves are instantaneous and not related to distance, so.

My Gran’s oldest daughter Mary McGill lived in Borgie Crescent, (the top end across from where the Taxi Man lived) her husband Charles was oddly enough quite an affluent fellow, had two pubs in Glasgow. However they never once visited us to the best of my knowledge, but, from when I was about six they would send me a Christmas present, something like a small toy or my greatest pride ‘The Wonder Book of Wonders’ I frequently spent many hours and going through that book. I distinctly remember the Taj Mahal, The giant Canadian Redwoods and so on.

I am sure that I was about six and a half when this very odd thing happened. Quite some time before Dec 25, I had started fantasising as to what I would get this year, I am thinking of all the possibilities, not a bike, that would be ridiculous, a toy car, a scooter and so on, but in the back of my mind I had my mind set on a train set. Yes I know, stoooopid, but I could not get my mind to look at any other possibility, it’s uppermost on my mind, and also the reasoning against it, the war had just been won, we were still on rationing, no one and I mean no one that I knew had a train set, not even a wind up clockwork toy car, but still it was uppermost on my mind.

Christmas morning and my aunt’s driver duly arrived; I almost had a heart attack when I saw the box he was handing to my Gran. I knew in my heart that it was a train set. It was, and not just a simple one, but a monster, I had to move things around to make room for the tracks, it was enormous. I will bet that it was near enough the only one in Cambuslang at the time.

I have since learned of the ‘Power of Attraction’ and it has opened up some new avenues for me, never used in a frivolous manner, or to test the system, or to gain specific but not needed articles or money, but when there was a genuine need, it always happened. Specifically recently when my wife’s daughter had a major problem and I had to get back to England quickly, an amazing series of weird events, for which I am eternally grateful and I might add, still bewildered.

There has been a book published recently, (I am in no way connected with it) ‘The Secret’ There is also a very interesting DVD called ‘Human Psychology’ They are quite cheap and  compiled by some very well known scientists, Stephen Hawking has some input.

That’s it for the time being my friends, ‘Don’t worry be happy’ as the song goes.

Scottish people are such wonderful people, Scotland is fantastic, when I feel it is time to rest I will go home, I am not religious, but, I will feel proud that my bones will rest in a country that I love. I cannot afford to live there, but I have the right to be buried there. May your god or your favourite brewer look after you all.

Everyone;  begging Now!! Get Pen to Paper.

I am absolutely sure that so many of the folk who visits Ed’s site have so many wonderful stories to tell involving your good selves, Cambuslang or/and its good folk. They do not have to be anything other than simple things from your childhood, of your siblings, friends, etc. Colloquial humour I am sure is always appreciated, even notes on the local accents and so on.

Pipes and Drums

One things that I miss in Scotland is the occasional sound of the pipes and drums. I recall a saying from somewhere, ‘I pity the man who hears the pipes and who was not born in Scotland’. It has pressed me into the mood to put pen to paper.

Most countries have their favourite musical instrument, that is how it should be, but there is a difference when it comes to marching with the band, especially a military Band. Even the RC folk will stop and listen to a band as the Orange Walk marches past St Brides  on the 12th of July. It was probably a joke, but we were always told that if the drummer could beat the drum hard enough to burst it, at that point he would get a prize or something. Probably a kick in the bum for bursting the drum. (The flute is excused.)

I am prepared to bet that there are not many Scots who are not visibly moved when the pipes and drums are played, especially at exhibitions and the like, e.g. brought on at the grand finale’ of the Edinburgh Military Tattoo

Just Imagine:

I hear the lute and the shriek of the flute

The Spanish guitar makes quite a sound

A guy with vuvuzela I would gladly shoot

And for me, no cymbals I’ll be bound

The Swiss in weird hats, with their horn sounds forlorn

A piano to push would be a joke

A triangle for fun would have me on the run

And the bass would need a huge bloke

The Spanish guitar won’t get very far

When it comes to the grand parade

The Irish harp sounds nice in a bar

But it's not to be carried I’m afraid

But ah, the sound of the pipes and drums

With wee Shugie then Wullie and Tam in the middle

And the English will do what they always do best

Bring up the rear and be on the fiddle.

Bits and Bobs

Hi Edward, some more bits and bobs spring to mind on occasions and I just jot down some notes when I get a chance, the following was not meant for insertion in the site but just some info for you.

There was a picture house next to the Sefton public house, just round the corner from the Masonic Hall. I cannot remember the year, but I suspect it was around 1953/4? Walking past on the opposite side of the road I saw a very large queue controlled by a large fellow in some kind of uniform, obviously the usher.

Above the entrance here was a huge curtain type poster advertising ‘The Snows of Kilimanjaro’. It was, to the best of my knowledge the first film in colour, at least in Scotland it was. I never did get to see the film or any other one for that matter until I went into the army in 1956.

Joseph Cannon of No 1 Meek Place was a classmate and a friend (I lived in No15), to the best of my knowledge the Cannon family had one of the first televisions in the area and Joseph would always gallop off before 1600 to see a pop show, The 6:5 Special I believe? It was hosted by Bill someone or other, he used to gesticulate something with his thumb followed by “groovy” or some other expression in another sitcom.

I know it now seems strange but in those days, at least amongst my friends it was very unusual to be invited to each others house, not just me, everyone? I now have five daughters of my own and my house was more like a school classroom than a home, there was never a day when our home was not invaded by my children’s friends, they were always welcome. What I do remember though is that adults were always welcomed into the homes where I lived, but not children, it was different in England, the children were always welcome, but adults rarely visited each others homes.

When I lived in Abingdon England and was working as a Construction Consultant Advisor trainer etc, I had a task to do in Motherwell. I took an additional day from work just to visit Cambuslang; but very briefly. The saddest thing that I recall was that I could not find a single person that I had known from my childhood. Even though I have visited your site virtually every day for the past year or so, I have still not managed to contact anyone that I knew then. (1940-1956).

I look at the numbers visiting the site and in the last few months alone there have been over 2000 visits, but, very few comments left.

In a way I am relieved that I have not seen any details of those who have passed away, but on the other hand I find it hard to imagine that no one can identify any of the hundreds of children that are displayed on the various school photographs. But there again, I only recognised about ten or so myself, their names had already been appended.

I wonder if anyone knew John Simpson? He was a sergeant in my regiment (11th Hussars (PAO) he was killed in NI during the ‘troubles’. A Scottish lad and like myself married and had 5 children, I believe he lived not too far from Cambuslang. He was a great guy and the strangest thing was, even my own children found it hard to tell us apart. Even his wife approached me once and started talking before realising that I was not John.

Went into a small Café in Cambuslang just after the cross and sat down to have a tea and whatever, gave my order to the waitress, a comely lass, “yes” she said and then “what part of England do you come from?” It is surprising how upsetting such a comment can have. Anyway; I said “Meek Place, it’s just up the road from Borgie Crescent” I got a very odd look from her at that point. Of course I know why she thought I was English, My own tongue was very Glaswegian and was difficult for my mates in the army to understand, I made a decision to copy their tongue, this went on for years, and the oddest thing is, whenever I go to any other country I start speaking like a native. My German was so good the locals in Bergen thought that I was from Frankfurt? Sent a voice tape back to my wife when I was in Ireland in 73 I think it was, she was very worried at first because she thought it was from a Paddy impersonating me, really! (Was the regt’ link int Sgt)

I drove up the road in Kirkhill and just before the Church (the one that persisted in tolling the death knell bells from about 0930 -1130 every Sunday morning and driving all the local inhabitants to despair). The grave yard had disappeared by then and also the big ramshackle tenement blocks also, the ‘Glen’ was now filled in. Two old ladies were sitting on a bench and facing the road where I had stopped. Engaging in some pleasantries, I enquired as to the whereabouts of various people that I had known there, sadly they knew none of them, but, one of the ladies asked me for my name, I told her by simply saying “James Harvey” and then the oddest thing, she looked at me for a time and then she said “Your granny was Mary Harvey and she looked after you very well, so she did” I was dumbfounded, they were talking about something that happened between 40 and 50 Years earlier. I never managed to get any other information from either of them regarding the locals. Apparently everyone had ‘flitted’.

I distinctly remember every wintertime when I would trudge down the hill to St Brides school, there were always a couple of weeks when the snow was up to my little bum and by the time I got into class I was soaking wet, as indeed were most of the other kids. It was a good time though, after school we would have lots of fun with the sledges and so on. When I stopped at the bottom of the Meek Place road on my visit there, in 1990ish I took a picture of the area. I then saw an aged gentleman approaching and I asked him something about the inhabitants and so on. I then remarked about the snow and the difficulty in getting to school. He asked me when I had left the area and I told him 1956. He then said, “Well you must have taken the snow with you because we hardly ever get any at all now”. Global warming?

Went up to the public park by the Cairns Road route, had a good walkabout. The grandstands pavilion had gone but everything else was almost the same. I distinctly the Coronation celebration there or perhaps her marriage? They gave out over the tannoy about Hillary and the Everest thing at the same time. Now a funny thing; I remembered there was some swings close bye and had a look around the area. When I found Edwards site over 20 years later, I looked up the swings area, and guess what, there is a photograph of the swings, and what’s more, playing there, a 60 year younger picture of myself and Gordon (Ging) Kennedy and William (Wullie)) Macintyre. My two scruffy little mates. What are the chances? Well weird, because looking at the picture of the ‘swings’ in Kirkhill I found yet another picture of Wullie and myself on the ‘see saw’ (Wullie is the lad standing and I am sitting and trying to balance the thing). Also found one in the Kings Crescent picture with Hugh (Shuggie) Coyle and one in St Brides Class of 47. Another against the railway wall in Kirkhill, circa 1948/49ish. One year ago the oldest picture of me available was of my marriage in 1960. So now I have 5 pre 1950 pictures of self in Cambuslang.

I have added the names to 4 of the guys in the picture, I am almost certain that the two lads in front of me (4) are Charles and Ian Richardson (L to R). As you obviously have the original you should be able to do the necessary amendments (add the names), I really wish that others would write in and let you know some of the other names, in all of your pictures, not just this one.

A week later.

Surprise, I have just found yet another photograph of myself and my best mate at the time Billy Macintyre from Kirkhill, in the same photograph I recognise so many of my school friends, it is unbelievable, I recognise many of the faces but cannot put a name to any of them, it was believe it or not, my ‘maid’ who recognised me, I missed it myself at first. I wish people would send the information to you. I now have 7 pictures of self taken from your site.

I keep telling my maid and my driver to take as many pictures of their family and especially the children as they can. In fact I bought them both a camera each for their Xmas some time ago.

When I think back to my own younger days I cannot remember even one family having a camera, I suppose that is why I get so excited now about the old photographs. A recaptured moment of time that can never be repeated; now I have over five thousand pictures in my (PCMemory) collection.

A little addendum.

Yes I was scruffy; no mum no dad, no food or money for clothing. Problem with the class selection changing at various times arose because I had no birth certificate, I started school when I was 4, all others 5, Then birth cert arrived when father left navy in 48ish and I shifted back a class. In addition to being badly colour blind, really odd story about how I got into the army in the first place. Anyway, bless my little shoes with the holes in the soles, I progresses to secondary school, this time it was class2b, the thicko mob. Many years later (40 or so) when I was studying science for my BA (chem.) which I had to teach. (Which I got in the end) I found that I had dyscalculia. E.g. maths was always a mystery to me. It wasn’t even picked up in the army. I now have 6 pics’ of self from the site. Strange, I never found any more pics of the others in the pictures. Was fortunate that mine had all the kids names in. (the only one I think). 

Rationing                                                                                    (submitted Feb 2012)

Another short but heart touching story has just sprung to mind. I and I guess quite a few of your site visitors remember the days during and just after the war, and the ‘rationing’ I certainly do, oddly enough nowadays I have a problem remembering things that happened last week.

There was just myself and my Gran living up in Meek Place, and on one occasion I remember I was about four or five at the time, it was a cold winters day and Gran had me dress up in my plastic pointy hat with the chin strap, I hated that, felt such a fool, however suitably attired to face the cold winters blast I was despatched down to the Co-Op by the terminus in Cambuslang, it was only about a mile or so from the house and my task was to buy about a shillings worth of tea. (I think it was a shilling, could have been sixpence)

When I got there I saw that there was a queue stretching all the way out into the street, and partly up Tabernacle Lane so I joined in at the back. It was so very cold at the time, but after a long time I managed to get through the very large doors just to be confronted by an even larger queue but this time seated all round the side opposite the counter.

At long last it became my turn and I was directed up to the counter where a lady was serving, I handed her the written note in which the shilling was wrapped and also the ration card. She looked at it for a time before saying, “You don’t have any stamps left on your ration card son.”

I just stared at her, the truth was I simply did not know what a ration card was at the time. “I cannot give you any tea son, sorry” she repeated, sounding sad at the same time. I now distinctly remember standing still for a few moments before turning with obvious tears in my eyes and moving towards the exit.

At this point I remember a huge lady came up to me (Well, everyone then to me was huge). She took the card from my hand and ‘Wait there” she said, she went back towards the queue and I saw she was speaking to some of the ladies waiting and finally came back to me, she gave the lass behind the counter a couple of cards, which were duly stamped and I was handed an unmarked brown packet of tea. At the time I simply did not know what had happened, I just took the tea, mumbled something to the lady and went home.

Of course I know now what had happened, this was just another example of the kind of people then who would think nothing of just stepping in and helping someone without question, I have already mentioned in a couple of my meanderings the generosity of the Scottish people in both word and deed, and of those days when it was the normal thing to do, I fear that it may not be as rigidly adhered to or accepted nowadays, but then again it is so long since I had much contact with the areas of my youth. I like to think that the Scottish people are just as they were all those years ago ‘Absolutely Priceless’.

Halloween Night

Ghoulies and ghosties, long leggety beasties and things that go bump in the night,

One of the most welcome and annual events that I remember so well was ‘Halloween Night’, or for posh folk, The Eve of All Hallows? But, if the truth were known, we as children had not the faintest Idea what that was all about, what we did know was that it was a chance to make a few pennies. Now then, what our diminutive little minds knew was a matter of deduction. Big properties, and compared to our humble semi detached or tenement ‘up a close’ types, Palatial houses, possibly a car, and that equals money, and people who had a few pennies to spare, and hopefully they were bound to be, more than generous, or so we thought, as everyone now knows of course, the more people have the more they seem to need, these people were in residence along Burnside Road area, this was a long road at the top of Greenlees road that ran a long way towards the village of Burnside, although, to be honest there was definitely no Burn (colloquial); (Stream or Brook for southerners). However it seemed to be a logical begging ground, and so that was our targeted area. It was not always successful though, and on occasions proved to be the opposite, as a child anything goes, and now looking back I realise just how foolish it all was.

Now I have seen the American kids on the TV, and in the cinema, there it was ‘Trick or Treat’ now on reflection, that would have been be a better ploy than our sad faced “Please gee us oor Halloween,” this was said with the pleading voice, and as best we could muster, the saddest and most pathetic expression on our little semi disguised faces that we could manage.

Our disguises were of course home made; they invariably consisted of an old ladies hat of some kind, (with or without the owners knowledge). An added refinement was red lipstick, again if available, which was liberally applied on cheeks and wherever there was a space on the exposed skin, but never on the lips as this would be regarded with suspicion, it was always too cold to go without shoes so the ploy was to use a huge pair of boots, or huge wellies, (wellington boots) which were usually our normal footwear anyway. The idea was to have folk feeling as sorry for us as was possible.

Generally speaking the remainder of our disguise would be to look like a scarecrow or a tramp, this last element of course required very little effort, because the sad fact was, that is what most of us looked like normally.

Now, forgetting the Halloween thing for a moment. It was many years later that I found out that our reasoning was somewhat misplaced, and the fact was that the ‘Hill folk’ were as tight as the proverbial. However, the truth of the matter was, and I am sure that many will agree, the chance of getting much in the way of money from the hill folk was virtually nil, it was a fact that one would have gotten considerably more from the poor people in Cambuslang, and in areas like the huge slums that were to be found in Church St and the like.

However, let’s go back to the ‘Hill Folk's’ area. I think that I was between 7 and 9 years old at the time of these now regretted excursions.

After knocking on the door, some of which to our diminutive little selves looked like the entrance door to Herman Moonster’s abode, if in the more often than not unusual event of someone answering the door we would chime:

“ Please gee us oor Halloween way oor glesses ohn oor een, (with our glasses on our eyes) fur we’re the best yew’s ever seen, please gee us oor Halloween.”

Invariably we would be ushered away and the door would slam, in most cases no one would answer anyway, so we would trudge away. Occasionally however I have to say, we would be given an apple a biscuit or possibly a sweet each or something similar, and on one or two occasions we would actually get money, usually a penny each, there were usually three of us engaged in this grand deceptive scam?

Now, the truth was, of all the times that we went begging we were never asked to perform as we eventually realised we were expected to do, people just wanted us to go away, but, on one occasion we were actually invited into the sitting room of a house, and assembled there were about six adults, all with an expectant look on their collective faces, then the lady of the house thus verily she did spake forth, “What are you going to sing for us then”? Shock horror.

Sing? Sing? We had never been asked to speak before let alone sing, instantaneous unbridled panic, we are now looking at each other with that look that you would get if you were confronted by ‘Old Nick’ himself, Ian was the first to break, and as he started to inch back towards the door we got the message, an almighty rush and falling over ourselves and everything else we raced out of the front door and disappeared like shadows into the night.

Sing? It had not ever occurred to any of us that we would be asked to break into song, even in those days the kind of song that we knew was not suitable for the ears of the hoi polloi. However we did eventually come up with a nonsensical partly rhyming song, just in case we had another request to sing, I cannot remember it now but it had something to do with a cat by the name of Daisy, and so on, I forget the rest. Now we were ready for them.

On one occasion we knocked and a very old lady answered the door, after our introductory wail we looked expectantly at the old lady. “All right children, but could you do me a favour, I need the dustbins taken out and they are too heavy for me, would you mind”? The said bins were at the rear of the house and there were two of them, it took all three of us to move just one of them. When we went back to the door after moving the second bin she appeared again, here you are children she said, holding out her hand in which there was three small individually wrapped sweets, Thank you missus we chimed and as we walked up the path popped them into our poke for sharing out when we had finished. When we came to sharing out the booty the three ‘sweets’ turned out to be three buttons wrapped in old sweet papers? seriously.

We had expended ten more times the energy shifting the midgies (Scottish refuse bin containers) than the sweets, even if they had been sweets, would have compensated for.

There was one little incident that made us laugh rather than disappoint us, but it could have been better. Having knocked on a particular door, a youngish fellow answered, about 20ish or so. Having given him the dubious benefit of our introductory chime, he then asked us to wait for just a minute and this we did, as he came through the door, he locked it behind him and motioned us to follow on behind, which we did, obviously wondering what was going to happen, having got to the road outside the front gate, and over to a black car of some kind. Well it would be black; all cars were black at the time. He then explained that as the battery was flat or something, then he asked us if we could give him a push start first. “But of course young man” we chorused “no trouble at all, it’s a pleasure indeed” or perhaps we just said “OK then” He, climbed into the drivers seat and we assembled at the rear of the car, OK he shouts, ‘PUSH! Which we did faster and faster and then he obviously let the clutch out, put, put, and the engine started. As we stood panting on the road we watched the car as it disappeared down the road, turning left and undoubtedly into town. All was not in vane though; as he accelerated away he waved to us out of the driver’s window. I have to admit though; at the time in question I had wondered why he locked the front door?

What put paid to our Halloween escapades was an incident that even now I find it hard to believe that it had happened at all. It was dark of course as it always was, and we went down a fairly long descending pathway to the front door, there was myself, William (Wullie) Lyons and Gordon (Ging) Kennedy although it may have been Billy Macintyre. However we knocked on the door. It was very dark and we three stood expectantly and waited, now, and I swear this, the door swung open, the light above the doorway came on and a figure appeared in front of us. Very tall, No visible head showing, a single large painted venous eye in the middle of the shirt or jersey, or whatever it was, all in black and a huge spiked club in the right hand. Needless to say we yelped and beat a hasty retreat and never stopped running until we had made it half way home.

OK, he was almost certainly just having a joke at our expense, but I know that it served its purpose. I suspect that it was just a way of ensuring that we never visited his house again, and I am quite sure the other two, never went near that particular one also.

5th of November  

Again, another moneymaking project that did not, I’m sad to say makes us rich. Good old Guy Fawkes, I so wish we could have him back again, only this time it would be better if he succeeded in his original intention of blowing the parliamentary building up. Yes, you have guessed it correctly, I have an inbuilt aversion to politics and politicians, probably stemming from my school days, poly; usually meaning very many, and tics; small irritating biting insects.

However, one particular year on the 5th of November we had already made our bonfire, which was to be lit as soon as it got dark in the evening. We had combed the Glen and the Borgie for every bit of wood we could find, and we had even taken to chopping down anything that looked as if it would burn.

In Kirkhill just S.E. of the old tenements there is (Its still there) a patch of concrete slabs ground that used to house the swings and jut up from this an old patch which was usually our football ground, no grass just scattered road stone. (The open area is still there but now it seems to be sealed off and the ground is now well-trimmed grass, what a waste). Incidentally, when I visited the area some fifteen years ago I swear I never saw one child anywhere; the place was deserted apart from two old ladies sitting on a bench outside the Kirk. Anyway, I digress, this area also served as a good place for our bonfire each year, and the year in question is the one to which I now refer. However; I am reminded of a saying; ‘The best laid plans of mice and men gang aft agley’ this incidentally was more the usual outcome of our external but well intended activities. In this case the bonfire was almost completely constructed by the 4th and we eagerly awaited the 5th. On this particular year it was a Saturday and this suited us to no end.

The morning of the 5th and the finishing touches were put to the bonfire and it was then time to get our ‘Guy’ ready. The Guy as you all realise, I am sure, was to be placed on the top of the pyre and then the fire ignited. However that was going to be a problem, as we needed the guy to put into the ‘bogie’ to push around main streets of Cambuslang where the people were doing their shopping.

So, Jamsie came forth with a grand master plan, we would put our hastily constructed dummy Guy on top, of the bonfire, not an easy task’ but we managed. Then I suggested that we get one of our smallest and skinniest fellow scruffs and dress him up, and then we could push him around in the bogie (cart). Charlie Richardson (Ian’s younger brother) was the selected dummy.

Charlie, with upside down cardboard ‘pokie’ hat with the optional straw bits sticking out, tatty old jacket and pants again with straw accessories evident from cuffs and bottom of trouser legs, and some muddy stuff over his hands and face. We put a bit of card over his chest with the caption ‘Penny for the Guy’ put an empty cardboard box on his lap, I was quite proud of my attempt, so off we went to town, Charles in the bogie and he seemed to be enjoying the ride.

OK, I tell him, “ye hifty kid oan youre a strowgrassy fella, dinney move aboot’ Translation for non intellectuals: One has to pretend that one is a man of straw, so remain as still as you possibly can.

So; all was going well and we entered the town, down Greenlees road and take a left at the cross, the intention being to go as far as the railway station, cross over and go back up the opposite side. “Penny fur the Guy, hons in pokets dinny be shy, Penny fur the Guy,” We chorused as we wandered down the sidewalk, and oddly enough we actually did get a few pennies thrown into the box.

Now, as I look back at our activities I can see in hindsight that something was bound to go wrong. I wish I had been blessed with some more common sense when I was a child. An old fellow came out of a close, or a shop or from somewhere he was obviously limping and had a walking stick with him, he stopped and spoke to another fellow with him; ‘Look they’ve goat a dummy Guy tay burn’ or something similar, and at the same time gave the dummy a sharp poke just under the sign on Charlie’s chest with the stick, Charlie screamed and then the old fellow also screamed reeled backwards in fright, tripped over a step or something and fell over on his backside. We legged it up the road. I think we made about two shillings that day, it was good. Charlie was OK, just a small dent in his pride and a small lump in his abdomen.

That evening we were all ready for the bonfire much too early, it was still daylight so we messed about for a time, then came the big moment, it was just dark enough to light the fire, by now there was about a dozen or so, a few local girls, a man or two and the rest of the scruffy kids, like me.

I suppose we should have had better sense then but we were children, lovely sweet children, well I was anyway. Standing back demurely away from the bonfire by a few yards I watched one of the adults light the fire. It has to be mentioned at this point that the wood that we, my friends and I had put nothing but wood and similar on the pile, also, we did not chose the place where the fire was placed, the men did that. What we also did not know is that the locals from the tenements and nearby semi detached, houses had brought all their old combustible rubbish from their respective homes and had stashed it fairly centrally inside the bonfire perimeter. It transpired that there were old tins of paint cooking fat and all sorts of potentially explosive devices in there.

To make matters worse there was a fairly strong wind blowing, initially this was not a problem but as the fire now literally started to ‘rage’ the wind started to blow the paper and burning effluvium away in the direction of the Borgie, it was fully out of control, the long dead grass that surrounded the area and all the way down almost to the water caught fire. It was at this point that my friends and I decided that another area a mile or so from here would be a better place to be, we went.

The following day, the area looked like Berlin in 1945, the whole area was burned black, and our football area was ‘out of Bounds for a time. Apparently the fire brigade came up to Kirkhill but it was too late and the fire had almost burned itself out by the time they got there. I understand from someone that they had been out to bonfires since about 4 of the clock that day”

We never even got to see the fireworks.

My Gran and I

Remembering that I had no mother or father as such, (Already explained this) I ended up being cared for by my grandmother, and much of the time there was only the two of us, it was a sad fact that after having ten children in all, it was on the rarest of occasions that any of her children came to see her, up in Meek Place, in fact other than her youngest daughter, who used the house as a kind of transit camp when she was between her gallivanting activities around the world doing odd jobs, and of course my own father when he left the navy in 1947, he would stay for a very short time and then disappear for many years.

When I was a child, and I mean a very young child, like two weeks old, I was dumped (not literally) on my grandmother’s doorstep. It was she who brought me up until I left and joined the Army at 17 years of age.

Having brought up her own children and then when the war started, her own husband ‘Tommy’ was killed in the shipyard in Glasgow. She was left literally ‘holding the baby’ to coin a phrase.

Gran had to take on a job to pay the household costs, and became a cleaner in St Brides School; she carried on this job until she retired at 65 years of age. She died in 1962. Now I can never thank her enough for all that she did for me, but for her I would have been left in an Orphanage.

As I look back now, and as I get older I begin to realise even more each day what a wonderful old lady my Gran really was.

I can remember so many things in the past, but I think one of the earliest things was when she put a diaper on me, I only remember me laying on my back on the bed and little else other than the diaper, then the vest and shorts, and then being allowed me to go out into the garden, I could not have been older than two at the time. James Cleary lived in No7, just a few doors down from me; he was around 7 or so at the time and was playing games in the front garden. I remember the diaper started to descend down the leg of my shorts and James just shoved it up again, but it just kept falling down, in the end I just pulled it out and left it on the grass. For reasons that I cannot explain I wet myself again, I am sure that I had not felt anything until I was dripping. OK, back into the house and Gran laid into me with her tongue, I have no more! Why did you not come in? And so on. Some quick thinking from me, “Bitey did it”, Bitey was our black and white cat. Gran just stared and then, “Bitey!” Sh***y, you mean? She erupted with laughter at that. Long after the incident I had actually forgotten the wetting the pants and the cat but, she reminded me of it more than once, unfortunately she also had to tell Mrs. Coyle and her friend when they visited her, I would slink into the kitchen until the laughter died down.

At the top of our stairs there was a trapdoor to the loft, and immediately adjacent to it the water tank. At one point during the autumn or the springtime, not very cold is why I remember. However, I am in bed at the time and I hear Gran shouting from downstairs. “James, what are you doing, the water is coming down the stairs.”

Getting up and looking out of the bedroom I could see the water dripping from the hatch in the loft, I ran down and explained this to Gran, she went upstairs and then a load of Irish Gaelic came forth. Well to cut a long story short (thankfully I hear you say) a fellow appeared and went into the loft, “there is a hole in the side of the tank” quoth he. “We will have to install a new one, I have shut off the water,” and so on.

Well now Gran is fretting, by now we had no water supply and to cap it the entire top floor and the stairs and into the living room were all flooded, carpets soaking. In the end Gran got the sweeping brush and started to push the water down stairs and bless her soul she was becoming more flustered as she was obviously not winning this battle.

There was a small stool at the top of the stairs and she sat down with her head in her hands, “What am I to do James”? she wailed. As I stood beside her on the landing, I put my arm around her shoulder and said, “Don’t worry Gran, while everything is soaking wet, we can get the big bar of soap and use it to scrub all the carpets, you are always saying they needed cleaning.” She looked over to me, and paused, then she started to grin and soon she was laughing her lovely old head off. “Yes James” she said as she cuddled me “you have an answer for everything, don’t you son”?

We were poor, and I mean really poor. I distinctly remember when my first tooth became loose, “ahhh”, panic set in; I rushed to see Gran and explained how all my teeth were falling out of my head. Now Gran in her delightful manner pacified me by explaining that it was quite normal for this to happen, and then went on to explain that all of my teeth would come out eventually. This information did not make me any happier and I could not get it out of my head. She had actually forgotten to explain that they would grow back in again. This was a discomfort for me as I frequently watched my Gran remove all of her teeth to clean them or to go to sleep.

Now then, at some stage in the future, perhaps a year or so later, I remember Gran getting so very upset at something and on me asking “what is wrong”? She explained that she had no money to pay bills and so on, this made me panic. Someone, I cannot remember whom, had told me that if I put the tooth that had come out , then put it under the pillow and the Tooth fairy would come and put some money there. It never worked with me; my Gran said “you have to be a really good boy for the tooth fairy to come”

A day or so later I was awakened quite early, “James have you seen my teeth”? Yes Gran, I said truthfully, and I have been a very good boy.” “What are you talking about” she cried, “What have you been up to”? And from me; “I put all your teeth under your pillow last night and if you have been a good girl the tooth fairy will have left a lot of money there.” Well Gran just sat down on the edge of my bed and said to me, “Well James you have been a good boy and I have been a good girl, I will check and see how much money he has left me

Later on she told me that she had got the money that the tooth fairy had left and we would be all right now. I felt really pleased with myself. It was a long time later that I found out that the tooth fairy was a myth. (So where did Gran get the money from)?

I can remember so many incidences that had happened in my childhood, some sad some happy, what I remember most of all was that my Gran was the best Gran in the world. So, as is my wont, I have composed this wee poem just for my Gran.

My Gran and Me

She nurtured me as if I were her own birth child
And she had raised ten children of her own
Her manner with me was always so mild
But little thanks back then was shown
At an age of my life where nothing is real
Where the eyes and mind always seem glazed
It’s hard to think, and touch and feel
With no knowledge at all of just being raised
Who is this person who always appears?
When something seems so out of place
Who holds you tightly, and covers your fears
And softly soothes with a kiss on your face
There was no mother or father, but I was never on my own
Gran carried me through my informative years
And yes you did it all again until I was fully grown
And I know that I caused you some tears
And as the ages move on and changes appear
An older mind now adjusted to the time
Know now the face and no longer the fear
And realise that which is mine
I now realise just what I had been given
Genuine love over all those years
If I only could have known it was really my heaven
But it is lost now and I am left with just my tears
But I still have in spite of the moment
A memory of just what should have been
I could have and should have; loved you much more
You were a treasure and my one true Queen
I love you much more Gran, now my mind has matured
What you did for me I would but could never replace
I will love you always for the trouble you endured
And you will be rewarded in your own special place
May your God care for you now as you then cared for me
I am sure there is for you a place in his heart
You deserve all that was missing you when down on earth
And in your Heaven would be a good place to start.
May your God bless you Gran.

James.

The Football field and the track - Submitted 21 Aug 2012

The Parachute 2.

Well, for normal people anyway you would think that following the parachute incident in the Borgie, that would be enough to prevent any further experimentation with the same object, but no, children are what they are and further experimentation is the norm, and that is until someone dies or quite simply, grows up. That should be the case normally, but I fear that a further 60 years on I have not quite reached the age of adult sensibility, whatever that is. Wullie (Yes him again, you would think that I would have learned by now.) Wullie came up with yet another ‘grand plan.’ We were sitting on the stile, which is at the top end of the Public park field; it is at the opposite end from where the children’s swings used to be.   

Going over the stile and along the track eventually takes you to the Reservoir, another children’s experimental place, however; there is a gravel kind of track at the top of the football fields and a row of trees on each side. (See Photo at the end). Well suddenly excitedly Wullie did spake forth. “What about this then, we could bring a bogie” (The previously mentioned plank on 4 wheels,) (Not the contents of a nostril, that’s a different bogie) “We could bring a bogie, sit on it at the end of the field, then we allow the wind to fill the parachute which you could hold it by the cords and it would be pulled along and you” (Notice YOU!) “Could get pulled along by the wind and you could still guide the bogie with your feet”.

At this juncture I should have thought this latest escapade out more fully, but I actually loved the idea immediately he had stopped talking, I could just imagine the wind pulling me along and I would be able to guide the bogie with my feet, as was the usual practice. “I love the Idea Wullie” On that particular day there was very little wind but the idea grew in my mind; we did not have the Bogie or indeed the parachute with us at the time anyway. I could just imagine belting along the field, pulled along by the inflated parachute, nothing could go wrong, the huge wide and open grassed area, safe as houses. In an emergency I could simply release the cords of the Parachute, It was a great idea.

Now, what is that saying by the great bard? “The best laid plans o mice and men gang aft agley”? But I could not see anything that could go wrong.

It was rather more than a week or two before the weather permitted any chance of our trial run, it had been raining for some days, (A strange phenomenon in Scotland.) now I am fairly sure that it was a weekend in the autumn when the wind was blowing in the right direction and sufficiently strong to pull the bogie along.

Off we went and started our preparation, we started by putting the bogie in the middle of the football field and half way between the swings and the pathway at the top, I, with Wullie's assistance got on the bogie and held onto the strings with both hands, the parachute canopy was held down by Wullie to stop it filling before I was ready, then the great moment came, Wullie lifted the top of the chute and it suddenly filled with the by now very strong blowing wind, and that is where unfortunately the grand plan all went wrong.

As previously stated, it had been raining for many days and it took just about twenty or so yards before the front wheels began to sink into the very soft soil sank quite deeply into the ground and brought me to a sudden stop, well I said it brought me to a sudden stop.

That should read, it brought the bogey to a stop, I had by now leaned forward and was abruptly lifted off the seat, my feet were still on the front axle and I was lifted up and off the bogie, dumped on my face and then dragged along the ground in a somewhat ungainly manner. Mistake No1. I had tied the ropes to my wrists, twisted them and then held onto them because experience had shown me previously that the strings had been cutting into my fingers. Mistake No 2. I had listened again to Wullie in the first place.

I think that if the ground had been hard it would have worked OK, but I was absolutely soaking and muddy into the bargain. Wullie ran like the clappers and got in front of the chute and I, or we, ground to a halt.    

Well the wind was great and it looked like the idea was good but it was the ground that was letting us down. “I have a great Idea’ said Wullie, now that he had stopped laughing, and of course as always I listened attentively. Or at least generally appeared to listen “The track at the top of the field, that’s never waterlogged or soft, the wheels will not sink into the track, and the bogie would run great there! Actually again I liked the general idea, I could not see what could go wrong there, “OK lets go then”.   

So off to the top of the slope and onto the track, I noticed that the wind was not as strong now, and was probably due to the trees on each side of the track. It must have been autumn as there were very few leaves left on the trees I distinctly remember that. Undaunted we started to get ready for the next trial run, but this time I decided that I was not going to hold onto the parachutes cords, no way! I cleverly decided that they would be tied to the front steering axle, half on one side and half on the other, this was done, I could still steer the machine with my feet.   

So came the big moment, again Wullie lifted the chute at the front and when it had started to fill he beat a hasty retreat and off to one side. I was off. I suppose that the first doubt came into my mind as I was hurtling along and I noted that the trees were rushing by very quickly. The second doubt came into my mind after I had thundered along for about thirty yards or so, I could not see a single thing in front of me, the parachute was blanking out everything and it was all that I could do to keep the bogey from moving to one side or other of the track. There was absolutely no way that I could slow the rocket down now, it never occurred to me to grab the cords and pull the topmost ones toward myself, in hindsight that would have worked but it was too late by the time I realised the mess I was in I had almost reached the end of the track.

There is quite a sharp bend as the track passes the tennis court area and at this point I was thinking that I should jump off, then no! I was going too fast and the next thing I knew was that my right front wheel had run off the track and the next thing following that was that the parachute was stuck and wrapped around a tree trunk, a fraction of a second later I complete with bogey crashed into the said tree. I was actually knocked out cold and had cut the top of my forehead on the tree. I came round with Wullie again laughing his head off as he was wiping the blood off my face with a corner of the parachute. I still have the scar on my head as a reminder.   It was just a very short time after that incident that I exchanged the parachute for a shilling or something from Joseph Cannon.

Cowboys and Indians Idiots

I suppose that there are very few children in the world who do not, or at some time in the past, have not played cowboys and Indians, which brings me to another thought, What do Indians (American ones, not the Asiatic ones that I am surrounded with) play, Cops and Robbers, goodies and baddies? Anyway, I think that I would have been around 6 and a half at the time (summer time-ish) when a thought occurred to me, regarding the bow and arrow thing. Now, up till that time the bow would be a length of wood from a suitable branch, invariably quite thick at one end and thinning as it lengthened, not like the Indian ones at all, I am wondering if the Apache had wood lathes, smoothing planes and Bow and Arrow workshops? OK, they appeared to have knives and steel or iron for the arrowheads: that also puzzled me, they never had clothing, houses, saddles for the horses, shoes, and they lived in tepees? How did they make the tepees without knives? If they did have knives, which appeared to be the case, why did they not have all the other things that are frequently shown on film?

OK I’m wandering yet again. I was always unhappy with our bows and especially arrows, and as is my want, I decided to do something about it, the bow was the easy part, and I wonder why I or someone else did not think of this solution before, however it became a fixture in my miniscule underworked brain. I resolved to have the best bow south of Cathkin and north of Carfin. I first searched and eventually found a couple of branches, chopped them off and cut them to size, basically the two thickest ends were slowly and gradually carved flat on one side, Gran's best kitchen knife served the purpose. Then the Idea was to place the two flat areas together and to tie them down, that was easier said than done, No Araldite or similar in those days, and the so called gum from the gum tree was equally useless, what was left was to tie the two parts, and for this I had to resort to a length of Gran's cloths line. The actual string for the bow took a lot longer, most of the bits that I tried simply broke under the strain and I had not even got the arrows made yet. And although it is a great trial for me I managed to purchase a length with the money I got from collecting empty beer bottles from the railway embankment at the bottom of Greenlees road. The bow was ready.

The arrow was the next things on my agenda and that proved to be the more difficult thing, after all it was just a straight bit of round wood, however finding a straight length of wood was as easy as finding a straight politician, virtually impossible. Again I resolved the quandary by resorting to surreptitiousness, I.e., I stealthily searched for more beer bottles from the embankment area, and again the proceeds went to purchase a couple of small bamboo sticks. These were to be my arrows.

OK, I hear you think, where did the beer bottles come from to get onto the embankment? Easy-peasy, each night those men who had the wherewithal to imbibe in the local Sefton (Public House) would invariably buy a couple of bottles of beer, one was placed in each of the jacket pockets and after closing time (9 or 10 O’clock) they would saunter outside and looking like so many cowboys with Guns Hung Low, they would make their way up to the cross, there they would chatter and swig from the bottles, eventually, the more affluent of them would throw their empties ‘ower the brig’ much to my delight of course, they were worth two pence each, and that was a veritable fortune for me. Late Saturday night was the best time for bottles, wages were paid out Friday or Saturday and by 9 or 10 o’clock were usually spent, hence the bottles.

And back to the bow and arrow saga, now armed with a few short lengths of bamboo I again started on the arrow production. First I had to get the feathers from somewhere and that somewhere was the house on the corner at the bottom of Meek place, The corner house on the left as you stood at the bottom of the road was No 1 and to the left of that was just off the corner a house that was part of Borgie crescent, the lady there had a huge enclosed wire netted area and therein kept chickens, that was to be the source of my feathers, no problem, she gave me dozens of them.

Attaching the flights (feathers) to the wood took some thought and eventually I came up with two possible solutions, the first was to carefully slit the bottom of the bamboo cane and insert a doctored feather up into the wood and then to tie some thread around the bottom to prevent the feather flight coming out, this was not the success hoped for because one could only have two bits of feather showing and the Indian ones had four. Also, splitting the bottom of the cane was also a problem in that the split would invariably go along much farther than wished for and this meant more cotton thread to prevent further splitting, the thread usually broke up anyway.

The next solution then was to have four bits of feather on the flight end of the arrow, just like the real thing, this was my moment, this was to be what I had envisaged in the first place, I was going to have the best bow in Scotland, never mind Cathkin or Carfin, the bow of the Kirkhill Glen was going to be the thing, it just came to me so easily, all I had to do was to cut the feather up the centre of the spine of the quill, do this with two equally sized feathers and shorten to taste, the flat side would be stuck to the lower haft of the arrow, a little cotton thread top and bottom of the all four spread equally, no problem. At least nothing that was easily seen at this point in time. A wee pair of scissors would fashion the feather into shape when fitted to the arrow.

“Jamsie, the cowdies ur cumin” this is the Cambuslangonian version of “I say James, I do believe that the Cowboys are about to arrive here at our reservation” To me that was a signal to get off my backside and run for cover before we were over run by whoever were the Cowdies that particular day. And so, gathering my construction implements and my incomplete bow and arrows, feathers and the wee knife along with a small pair of a small pair of scissors that were to play a large part in the following saga. I legged it down the track towards the section that lead back to the tenement building, but that was as far as I got.

We used to get up to all sorts of tricks in those days, I honestly cannot for the life of me think where it all came from, I mean the bow and the arrows were just such stunts, there were so many more to see, for example, on of our little pranks was the ‘trippy trap’ my invention incidentally, this consisted in digging a small hole in the ground, taking the top sod out and making it about a foot deep, then we would put some small sticks across the hole and replace the grass sod or sometimes sprinkle the dirt if the trap was on the actual path. I am not quite sure if anyone ever got caught out in any of our traps, well that was not until I did so.

Galloping along the track with my bits and pieces from the arrow making area and away from the advancing ‘Cowdies’ I suddenly found myself falling having put my foot down one of the ‘ trippy traps’ and I hit the ground fairly hard. Initially I thought little of it until I started to get up, I felt a pain in my right hand where I had been clutching my bits and pieces, I looked down opened my hand and subsequently let everything fall to the ground, well not everything had fallen, the small pair of scissors were still in my hand, and I mean ‘in’ my hand, the fact of the matter was that the scissors had gone right through and out the other side.

It took just a short time before my little friends came up to me, including the cowdies incidentally, I just stood or I think I may have sat down cannot remember, I just; in the words of Wullie or Ging “Looked surprised”. The next thing that I remember was a man from the same close as Ian Richardson had arrived on the scene. Now I had seen the guy many times and I know that he was a bit of a loner, never seemed to speak to anyone and just seemed to come and go. Anyway, it appears that I passed out at the sign of the blood all over my hand and he put in an appearance, picked me up and carried me all the way over to my Gran's house with one of my pals showing him the way there.

I cannot remember how, but I remember sitting in a doctor’s chair and my Gran sitting behind me, the doctor was spraying something on my hand and trying to clean the front end of the scissors to get the dirt off before actually pulling the scissors out, this was done quite surprisingly easily and not painfully at all, He was squeezing my arm at the elbow that it became very painful, he said to me, Now look at your Gran, you have upset her, or something like that, I felt a slight tug and when I looked round he was holding the scissors under a tap by his seat. I felt nothing.

It was quite some time after this that I returned to the Bow and the Arrows, which I did perfect eventually, well almost.

The good thing about me and my bandage was for a time the local ladies took great pity on me, “Oh look there’s wee Jamsie, he got the scissors oh the wie through his hons so he did.” quite often I was awarded a biscuit, a sweetie or something, I played on it. Also played on it in School I remember the teacher praising me so much, just look at James Harvey, serious stab on his writing hand and he is still here writing and struggling on with it.” Or something similar to that, it felt good, ‘me, the Hero?

Now the embarrassing thing was that I had played on the seriously wounded soldier fighting and being wounded fighting for the Scottish peoples etc, etc. when the wound had finally healed up, which was after only a few weeks really I continued to apply the big bandage that the doctor had put on it, even had it washed a few times, however I enjoyed the adulation so much I played it out.

After some time ‘Big Jimmy’ my English teacher asked me to stay behind for a few moments after class, he took my right hand with the bandage and started to remove it, when he had done he made some funny remark like “Oh it has healed itself” he then put a very large plaster on and around the now almost healed wound gave me a sweetie and sent me off home. He was a lovely man.

The Leven Trip    

Again Shuggie and I were in our youthful and informative years when his elder brother asked us if we would like to come up to Leven with them, Shuggie's brother was Pat (Patrick) and his friend whom I believe was called Gerry, or perhaps I am thinking of Tom and Gerry? Whatever. They were construction workers full time, but during the annual holidays they would volunteer to carry on working on construction sites, they had an old black car; I have forgotten the make. It was probably a Ford, as most cars appeared to be Fords then. However the great day came and off we went. The journey now would take no more than an hour at most nowadays but then it seemed to go on for days, I even fell asleep in the car at one point of the journey.

The site when we got there was a typical construction site, so nothing new there, as it got quite late by the time we had eaten something manufactured by the men we were shepherded off to bed, this turned out to be a tent and the bedding was a pile of straw covered by a piece of canvas and the covering was a blanket brought from Shuggie's home in Kings crescent. In the tent that evening in the summertime we were accompanied by a few thousand flies, midges and whatever, I was so glad to escape to the open and as yet cold air of the morning. This was not the holiday break that I had imagined.

I cannot remember exactly how long we stayed there on the site, but it was more than one week, the men had to finish building a large wall and a few other things, Shuggie and I would wander off into the countryside, even then in my young days I really loved the countryside, it was so different there compared to my usual haunts, the Leven area was just great.

One particular day we decided that we would go up the ‘Big’ hill, this was a huge mound like almost artificial steep slope to heaven knows where, We started out and it soon became clear that we were not suited to this kind of exercise, to my miniscule diminutive brain this was Ben Nevis or even Ben Mac Everest, which incidentally at the time we thought was in Scotland, So much to be said of the educational standards in St Brides Infant School. The difference was however was that there were no rocks and the like; it was covered in long and luscious green grass, rather like the military ranges on Dechmont hill. Nevertheless we soldiered on and eventually we made it to the top, fantastic! But, the top turned to be a misnomer in this case and we were face with yet another climb, this happened yet again, honestly it was like climbing up the step pyramid in Egypt. Eventually we conquered this whatever, and on looking down the other side we were absolutely amazed to see the sea at the bottom of the valley below us.

Now at this point let me say that Shuggie or I had never seen the sea, or a loch, the reservoir and the Clyde was our total experience, and let’s face it, the Clyde is not exactly analogous to the Amazon. But, we were really excited about the whole thing, as we sat at the top watching the waves rolling upward towards the end of the valley we at this point should have noticed something out of the ordinary, but no. We made the decision to descend down to the ‘water, it was a long drop but it would be worth it. Off we went, the odd thing was, and this had never occurred to me before, it was harder to go down than up, the incline kept wanting us to descend quickly but we needed to control our descent, it was really tiring on the legs. As we eventually neared the bottom, or when we were about a hundred yards or so from the ‘water’ we started to have our doubts, then we realised that what we thought were waves of water running up the valley was actually huge fields of wheat or barley or whatever waving around on being blown along westwards by the wind, it looked exactly like the waves on the sea. Neither of us had actually seen waves on the sea, except in the movies, of course, bugger! We were devastated and we had no choice but to labour our way back up Everest again. And yet again the descent down the other side was torturous on our skinny little legs.

We decided that we would remain ‘on site’ in future and leave the exploration to Dr Livingstone and company, then on one day Pat said that he and Gerry would take us down to the coast, now that was fantastic news, as I said we had never seen the sea, the great day arrived, I think it was the following day that we started out, and when we got to the sea we were absolutely amazed, it was fantastic. The men went off to wherever, the pub I suspect and we were left to our own devices, or own devices consisted of removing the shoes or whatever we were wearing and venturing into the water, fantastic, I have to be honest at this point, I did not then realise that the sea was salt water and I took a mouthful, mistake, big mistake. Shuggie laughed his head off as I spluttered and tried to get the taste out of my throat, anyway we had a great time after that.

When we had to get back to the car, we went along the promenade or whatever it was and Shuggie stopped to look at a cart full of bottles, no labels just clear glass bottles, he thought it was drinking water and asked the fellow in charge what it was, ‘Just sea water son, people buy it for 3 (old) pence or something and take it home as a souvenir of their visit, or something similar.

We did go back down there, just once more time before going back to Cambuslang, This time we noticed that the tide was out, and this is true, and I swear it, Shuggie looking down at the water in the distance said, “Hey Jamsie, Look, that guy must have sold a lot of sea water since we were last here,” I swear on everything that I hold dear to me that he said this.

The Holy Cross

Now let me explain something first I am not religious, in fact I am atheist, on the other hand I do not put down or ridicule those who are, but I am not ashamed to admit that I take the Mickey at times, but it is in fun. I got an email from the daughter of a fellow who was with me in the same class at school; it was a remark by the daughter of the fellow that reminded me of the incident that I impart to you now.

As already stated my grandmother brought me up, she was a good person in every sense of the word, on the other hand although staunch Catholic, and spent so much time in prayer with her rosary wrapped around her hands. She never tried to force her beliefs on me though; I suspect that she simply left that side of things to the teachers in my school. But, to the best of my knowledge she never actually went to church herself.

I expect that I would have been about four at the time and I know that she asked my much older friend Joseph McKeown who lived two doors away from our house to take me to the church one Sunday, apparently it was a sacred day of some kind, and at the time sacred etc meant absolutely nothing to me, but I was duly escorted to St Brides chapel on the holy day, actually it may not have been a Sunday, Catholics have these Holydays of Obligation and I suspect that it may have been one of these days.

Whilst I was in the church I had no clue in my mind at all what it was all about, but the one thing that I do positively remember was that as we left the exit when the service was finished we were handed a little dried up reed like leaf (like a palm leaf) and it had been fashioned into the shape of a cross.

As Joseph and I made our way back home I remember we had just got half way up Borgie Crescent and Joseph had been telling me the story of the events in the church, at the same time he had just started to unravel the palm leaf cross, as I was now after his non stop lecture on the crucifixion and so on he had already reminded me of the importance of the cross and I had taken it all in. I said to Joseph that it might be a sin that he had now dismantled the leaf cross, as he had told me that it was a sacred thing and I could go down to hell or something along those lines.

As I got further up the hill I started to worry about his destruction of the cross, and I was watching his attempt to reassemble it without any success I might add. It was at this point that I decided to ask him if it was a sin to break up the cross? “Well James “ he replied, “It is the cross that Gentle Jesus was nailed to and it shows people what happened on that day so very long ago.

My reply was something like “Well Jo, Gentle Jesus must hiv been an offy wee man if he was nailed onto that we cross’? Joseph just erupted into a state of uncontrollable laughter and was still laughing his head off when he left me at the gate to my house.

The Weeds

During one of my frequently enforced stays at No 42 Kings Crescent with the Coyle family, I know that I was only just four at the time, I remember one day when I inadvertently caused a problem, which in the end became a workable method of getting out of certain disliked, mainly work related activities without seeming to be lazy or recalcitrant in any way, in fact it has assisted me many times over the last 65 or so years.

It was a very pleasant day I remember, I don’t know where Shuggie was at the time, probably at School, but there was just Pat (Shuggie's father) and I in the back garden, Pat had finished mowing the grassy part and then he descended on the lower part which stretched all the way down to the high railway fence at the bottom of the garden. He had planted so many varieties of vegetables there, like Carrots, onions, potatoes, turnips and the like, well he had a large family to feed.

“OK James, you can help with this next bit, I will show you what to do” Obligingly I trundled over to him and he started instruct me in the finer art of removing weeds from the fertile soil in between the rows of young vegetable plants. Well that seems easy enough to me, so as he went about his own section I followed in like manner, ever eager to please.

As we got to the bottom of the garden having done between about three feet of ground width all the way to the end, I was following along behind. Turning round Pat initially said nothing but then, quizzically, “What on earth are you doing James. Quoth I “I have been picking all the weeds that you have missed.” Quoth he, “those were not the weeds those were my young vegetable plants that you have been picking!” Me “Oh”!

As I said it was a learning experience, Pat never asked me to weed the garden again. This became a little ploy that I retained until even now when I am unwilling to get involved in something tedious, I assume an extremely puzzled expression It usually works.

The Farm Estate

Well, folk should all know me by now as being a ‘guid wee loddie? I am not saying that I never got up to some mischief at all, there is not a soul on the planet that has nothing at all to hide, but then again I was always exceptional when compared to the norm, (I have said this with tongue firmly on cheek) let’s just say that I was ‘less mischievous’ than the average, well I think I was, (On the other hand my Gran disagreed with this). Go up the road from Kirkhill and take a right at the crossroads, Go past the Kirk entrance and carry on past the wee gate that leads steeply down to the paddling pool, follow the road along for a few hundred yards and you will come to the main entrance to the public park which would have been on the right hand side, but instead of going into the park entrance you take a left turn and around 1948 - 53 ish there was the entrance to what was a very large farm estate, which by the dates mentioned was now defunct. Venturing therein one would find two fairly large multi purpose buildings, one on each side of the entrance track, outwardly these buildings were large sturdy well built/designed buildings, by the dates again mentioned of course the internal view of them was similar to Dresden after the visit by the RAF bombers in 1944. Carry on past these then and on into the distance and you will find yourself in a beautiful and certainly in the summer / autumn time lush green area, trees of every kind imaginable in the northern hemisphere and lush grassy fields, this was a beautiful play/game area for the not so young children, that is providing you did not get caught by the Gamie, (Gamekeeper) who, complete with two slobbering mastiff type dogs and a shotgun over his shoulder, on occasions he would actually fire a shot up in the air to frighten us away. At the time of course we just thought he was very short sighted or perhaps just a bad shot, because no one ever got hit. I would suggest that the only thing missing here was a stream (Burn) or a pool of some kind in which one could swim, we had only the ‘Skudgie’ or the Reservoir south of the Public Park for this kind of recreation, neither of which were legal or indeed sterile I believe.

In the centre of this, to us anyway ‘Wonderland of wilderness’ there was a huge private mansion, strangely we never saw a living soul in or even near there. On one occasion though we saw when keeking (Intensely and covertly observing, English; Peeping) through the dense undergrowth a stationary horse which was tethered to a coach, rather like the ones in the old movies, someone making a film perhaps? However we never saw anyone there though, in spite of waiting for quite a long time. Perhaps someone can enlighten us to the story of the area? However at this point I have to say that it was to be just a few years more before this wonderland was destroyed and a new housing estate built, sadly this is the way of things everywhere, but people (Wullie Macintyre, Tom Keery, Ian and Charles Richardson a few young girl playmates, Bull Grey and many other friends for example moved there) have to live somewhere, I suppose. Sadly when the tenement slums of Kirkhill were vacated and I joined the Army I lost touch with so many of my friends. Ah well, nil desperandum.

There was however something else there that did puzzle us though, (Along with so many other things in our young lives) at the lower end of the track that led from the area to the roadway opposite the previously mentioned ‘Bing’ (of Bing Bogie fame’) there was a large number of very mature trees and at the foot of the same, dozens of crates which were full of shiny tins, they looked like they were meant to house beans peas or whatever but they were all airtight and sealed and empty? We tried to find out some info about these but to no avail, it was a long time afterwards that we thought of a use for the tins but by then it was too late, we had already had quite enough of the rafting exploits on the reservoir to last us for good. My guess is that it had something to do with the war, which had just ended about a year of so prior to this time, but, I cannot for the life of me think what, why or how they got there.

As I look at Edward's site I constantly see things, which bring back long forgotten memories, and even as I write now something else had just come into my mind on mentioning The ‘Bing’! No, it is not a coal Bing in this case, it was a policeman commonly known as ‘Wee Bing’. I need more information on him, Please!

At the north easterly side of the estate there was a tall stonewall fence, on the outside there was a long broad dirt track leading to heaven knows where. I am unsure if the intention of this wall was to keep people or things inside, or people such as my little friends and I out, the latter I suspect would be the case. However on the internal side of the wall there was a row of large mature trees, probably five trees deep and stretching for what seems like miles, this was one of our play areas, there was only the one occasion that we saw anyone there, and that one person was the Wee Bing, our afore mentioned little short and rotund policeman, but to be honest, I am not really sure that he actually was a policeman, he had the uniform alright but he looked nothing like the usual policemen in the town. More like some of the infamous ‘Keystone Cops’ all rolled into one in this case.

The area in which we were playing on this particular day was about a half mile distant from the actual farm buildings at the entrance, we were in the area of the trees already mentioned, to our surprise we found that some other kids (we assume) had made a few small huts out of branches and so on, they were leaning against the large trees and to us these would be our ‘gang huts’ to be honest there was only enough room inside them for two or three of us kids seated on the ground but that was OK, there was about eight or so of the huts, so we could have one each, whatever for I just do not know, but never mind something will come up, it always does, and in this case eventually did.

Now, even as I write this I have just had a thought as to what these branchy huts could have been used for, possibly hides for game hunting perhaps? It could be that the guests to the estate might have used them when they were out shooting grouse, pheasants or perhaps even peasants. (Wiki: A Rural Person!) who knows?

And so, this is where ‘Wee Bing’ enters the fray, he just sort of appeared, we were instructed to appear before him for questioning and he then began to take down all of our names, addresses and so on, this was interspersed with questioning statements such as,

“Why did you cut down all these trees?” The answer would be

“It wusnie us, they wur doon when we goat here”

From Bing, “I don’t remember them being here before”

From me, “they are auld and cut wi knives or something, we hivnie goat anything like that”

The next thing he said really blew my mind, even then, and as I look back I am still amazed, “You should be ashamed of yourself James Harvey, what would your poor auld Granny think of this?” How on earth did he know my name, I had not been asked for it yet? That still puzzles me still. And how did he know my Grandmother? After taking the names addresses, ages and so on he then said to me, “And your age James Harvey”?

Well at this point I have to explain, once more, Gran took me down to school when I was just over four years of age, there was at this point in time no Birth Certificate available (It’s a long story), she was guessing my age, bless her, if you look at the school photograph, St Brides 1948/49 (most of the kids are named on this one) you will see that I am the most diminutive little creature in the class. The main reason being is that I was just about one year younger than the rest of the children in the class. I was confused for quite some time in my younger (in this case ‘considerably less informative) years.

And so, now back to ‘Wee Bing.’ To continue, the questioning conversation went something like the following

“What is your age, James Harvey”?

“I don’t know” quoth I,

“Well then” from Bing, “When were you born”?

“I don’t know” from me.

“Why don’t you know” from Bing?

“Because I was very young when I was born” quoth I.

He just looked down at me for a while and then I swear that I saw a smile on his face. He then told us to leave the area and not to come back. But of course we did. And rather frequently I must add. I am absolutely sure that many of the ardent readers to Edward's site must remember Wee Bing, I and I am sure that many would love to know the why’s and wherefores of he.

Another personal revelation springs to mind now, not so far from the road where the Park gate and the Estate road intersects the road which of course continues eastwards to such adventure playgrounds like Dechmont hills and the ranges there, Gilbertfield Castle and lots of other interesting play areas.

There is in the region an area of road where we were all assured that one could free wheel uphill but would have to push the bogie downhill, does that mean anything to anyone? I seem to remember the name ‘Electric Hills, or electric Brae’ or something similar. I do distinctly remember going there on just the one occasion, complete with bogies and friends of course. The one thing that I do however remember quite clearly was that the phenomenon of the freewheeling uphill bogies was a myth, we were so disappointed, and our great plans of uphill racing came to nothing.

I do know however that there is such a place somewhere, in Fife I think; it is of course a visual illusion of an uphill and conversely downhill slope in reverse. This is brought about by the unusually delusional appearance of the surrounding countryside, nothing else, to us children it was of course a new adventure that had to be tested, the test failed.

And so to the naughty section, as already mentioned the entrance to the estate was directly opposite the Public park gate, the one where the tennis courts and the putting green is. The two aforementioned buildings were in a very sad state of repair, but to be honest, they were being slowly dismantled bit by bit. The multiple entrance doors appeared to be some of the first objects to be removed, I have no doubt that soon after they did adorn the entrance to some of the not so local dwellings, they were massive and considering their humble settings in the estate would certainly look out of place, If one can imagine the entrance door to No 10 Downing St being fitted to Flat 3 Church St Cambuslang. The internal floors were also removed and suffered a similar fate as the entrance doors, along with all the other fittings pipe work and so on, even the roof tiles were conspicuous by their absence, thus leaving only the ones that were badly damaged.

Now this is where the ‘good bit’? comes in. Wullie Lyons, my good local friend and co-conspirator in things mischievous shouted down to me from some part of the roof, “Jamsie, the lead is still on the chimney stacks” Now, this should have been a signal to me to back off, knowing the story of a friends brother who had become involved in such an incident. I did bring it to the attention of Wullie and we deliberated a while, we came to the conclusion that since everyone in the Cambuslang area and beyond, probably right up to John ‘O’Groats was slowly removing everything of use from the buildings; we could not see the harm in this, the removal of the ‘Lead’.

The grand plan then started to evolve and in a short time it was decided that Wullie and I would go up to the roof under the cover of the fading evening light, we would remove the lead, in bits obviously, then roll it up as best as we could and toss it down to the rear of the building. It soon became fairly obvious to us after a time that this would take more than the two of us to complete this work.

It was just a day or so later that Wullie brought one of his own school pals to the now ‘demolition site’ (Sadly again don’t have his name) to help with the work in hand, another grand plan was then put into operation. Wullie and I would continue to remove the lead and his friend would stay down below and collect the rolled up bits as they fell, he would then hide the bits locally in case anyone came to the area. When we had finished the task we would then carry the bits in a barrow, on a bogie or whatever down to the ‘scrap man in the town, and be suitably rewarded for our efforts. Alas, there is a saying, “If it can go wrong, at some point in time it will go wrong,” or something similar to that. I wish that my alter ego had thought this one out better, eg, pushing a barrow or bogie full of lead down through the centre of Cambuslang to the scrap yard would have brought a few enquiring glances, thankfully in this case that possibility was thwarted in its final stage.

Again I have to admit that I have forgotten many aspects of our goings on, but the following are two that have stuck in my mind very clearly indeed. Our removal operation was going just fine initially, Wullie and I tearing off the thin sheets of lead and rolling them up, we would then watch out for the lad below and throw the bit down. As the light was fading fast on one occasion we seemed to have lost sight of our catcher and resorted to shouting on him, he came out into the open then and chastised us for shouting, “somebody will hear you” he said, “Keep quiet and toss it down when you see me”. And that was the drill to be followed in future, no problem, I had just rolled a piece up and on seeing him standing below I waved and he held his hands out, I lobbed the lead down to him.

Unfortunately, Wullie who was at the other side of the big chimneystack had also seen him standing there and at almost the same time he lobbed his bundle down to him. Big mistake, it hit him on the forehead as he was looking up and he dropped like the proverbial stone, blood oozing from a cut in his now matted hair but he eventually got up and seemed to be OK, well reasonably OK, that was the end of our adventure for that day anyway.

A day or two later I think, we met up again and vowed to continue our nocturnal activities for the good of the nation and it was now so obvious that we had to take more care of what we were doing. Prior to attacking the chimneys again we had asked our friend and accomplice what and where had he hidden the lead that we had previously dropped down, on this he took us to the rear of the building on the right as you look at it from the entrance.

About ten to fifteen yards from the rear wall of the building there was a large open traditionally round shaped well, probably ten or twelve feet in diameter it was very deep, probably twenty or thirty feet or so to the water at the bottom and heaven knows how deep the water was. The lead that had been recovered was now stacked in the long weeds and grass that surrounded the well. It was still there and seemingly untouched. Great, Wullie and I then climbed our way up to the chimneys and began our task of ridding this area of such a nasty substance (the lead). No problems appeared as we toiled up to a point where Wullie had moved along to the last of the chimneys on that side, but that bit was visible from the road outside the estate limit. I tried to tell him it was visible and he never heard what I was saying, so again I shouted rather loudly something like, “Hey Wullie, the Polis will see you from the road, keep doon” or something similar.

A very short time later we saw Wullies friend legging it up and into the estate area, as he ran past he shouted “Polis” that was enough for us, we were down like a shot and off into the darkening evening, down to the halfway road and up to where we lived.

The next day when Wullie came up to see me he explained what had happened, and told me that it was my fault entirely after all. It would appear that when I shouted to Wullie “Keep down the polis will see you” His friend had heard that and assumed that the police were somewhere close to us, he ran as fast as he could away in the other direction, but, with great presence of mind, he first lobbed all the lead bundles that we had collected up to that point down into the well in case we got caught. And that was the grand finale of that little escapade. After that incident the only lead that we ever encountered was the lead in our pencils in our respective schools. (Wullie went to Gateside, A proddie of course)

St Brides Teachers (The few that I remember most) 1945 - 55

A Joke: do you remember Wee Kate, (‘Coleman’ as I have just found out) as she was euphemistically known? She was the Art teacher in St Brides, a bonny wee thing she was. Anyway on one occasion we were all asked to do a drawing of a horse and cart. I believe the object was to spot the difference in ones individual perception of how a particular object would appear, the reasoning is of course that everyone will see an object differently from everyone else, it is dependant on the nerve in the eye to send a signal to the visual cortex via the neuron system to seek a suitable neurofibulary fibre and then select a vacant receptor which will allow the brain to accept what the eye has mirrored. I of course had a different aspect to consider as I am quite seriously colour blind, really! Anyway we all started out and before knocking off time she did a tour of the classroom and commented on the individual aspects of a lot of the drawings, but, when she got to me she looked rather puzzled, “James Harvey you have only drawn a horse, why is that”? “Well miss, it appears to me that the horse would be enough, as it is the normal thing for the horse to draw the cart! OK?

This following bit is true, and it was the first time that I realised that there was a problem with my vision, and one would think that having fallen for the following error you would have thought that I would not do the same again, but I did. Wee Kate pinned a photograph (Out of a magazine I suspect) and asked us to copy it, the picture was of what was an Asian lady’s head from the neck up, it was to be in colour. What I do remember was that we had very little time for such a painting and it took three of so periods I think the paper I think was just short of A4 size and not I suspect the ideal medium for artwork, Incidentally, I still have bouts of painting but of a somewhat different nature, proper artists equipment, I still have the colour problem though.

Anyway it was I think the second period or possibly the third when Kate called me to the front and quietly said to me something like, “James, your painting is very good, probably one of the best in the class, but tell me, why has the lady got bright green skin”? 20 years later I did exactly the same thing. It was my wife’s birthday or some other celebration and I had secretly painted what to me was a masterpiece, it was a Chinese geisha resplendent in all the exotic trimmings and so on now the critics were my wife and children who all laughed their collective heads off. Yes, A bright Green Chinese face and heaven only knows what colour the rest was. (I now paint Black, white and sometimes blue.) Anyone want to purchase an Indian lady’s blue-faced portrait on black and white canvas? When I chided Dawn, my oldest (about Eight) daughter at the time, “why did you not tell me that her face and skin was green, “I have never seen a Chinese girl dad, I thought that was their skin colour”?

Then there was Big Jimmy (Purdie?); The English teacher I thought he was by far the best teacher in the school, a real gentleman, I remember specifically one thing clearest of all, every day he would come to the class resplendent in his black double breasted suit which remained buttoned up all day long, it was spotless as he himself was, by the end of the day however he was absolutely covered in white chalk dust from his furious writing on the blackboard with the white chalk. The next day he would be again spotless? I bet he would have given a lot for the yet to be whiteboard with the black marker medium.

My favourite lesson from jimmy was the poetry, (One can probably tell this by the poems that I have already submitted to Edward's site) but the thing was, he never in all the years that I attended his poetry classes he never finished off even one of them. He would start with the name of the author, and this was followed by the life history of the author from birth to death. One particular poem that I remember vividly was ‘The Ride of John Gilpin by William Cowper. It was a very simple story but over sixty stanzas long, needless to say that in my five years in the Secondary school, we never ever got to the end of that one, but we did know a whole lot of history of the areas, language and the people in the 17th Century.

I think Mr Corrigan may have been the history teacher, perhaps someone can enlighten me/us. He was a very nice guy, in my opinion he would have been better employed in some other subject; I also think that he disliked history as a subject. I know that I am something of a philistine when it comes to history, I don’t mean recent history but to be honest why would I need to know the lineage of the son of the second cousin of Henry the Eights first cousin thrice removed? There is just one funny little incident that I remember during our history lesson and it had nothing to do with history as a matter of fact. It was said that he was ex military and always stood straight as a die, in fact I don’t remember him sitting at all. One day at the start of lessons we as usual were standing behind our desks awaiting the instruction to sit, at this time he was giving us a lecture on our slouching attitudes and casual attitudes, then he suddenly said “Stand up straight at attention, and especially the slouching girls Stick your chests out” I think that the meaning was different from what was in the minds of the class, the boys all looked to their left and the girls were trying to cover their by now ample chests and giggling with embarrassment. Up to this point in time I had never considered that apart from being sacred angels, in my mind anyway, girls were untouchable, suddenly I changed I now loved the view that I had never even considered before this time some of the girls had gone quite red, and my colour blindness embarrassment vanished for a time. I suddenly matured, well after all I was fourteen then. He (the teacher) had a habit of vibrating his leg or legs and his heel would often chatter on the wooden floor of the classroom, as I said he spent most of his time standing, I was informed by someone that it was shellshock from the war, don’t know if that is true? Anyone?

Sid McEwen, he was my science teacher and he was also the person that I most disliked in the whole school, he was giving out all the impression of being a good Christian man but as everyone, certainly in my class anyway, knows he was a sadistic charlatan, even then in my young days I saw right through him and most of the other guys in the class also hated him. One of his little tricks was after ‘Prayers’ he would make all the lads put their hands flat on the desks in front of them and he would come round with a long wooden ruler and any sign of a dirty fingernail would result in a very red welt appearing on the back of the hands of the unfortunate lad whose nail cleanliness was not up to his standard. There were stories about his activities around the students, which are better left alone. From his frequent short remarks about females and science it was very clear that he hated girls.

Our woodwork teacher was quite an old fellow (Mr Stewart (Old Storky.)), sadly have forgotten his name, but he was well liked. After school was out I would often see him striding up Greenlees road where I think he lived, it was there or he was making for the railway station. He was incidentally also a Protestant, and to the best my knowledge never entered the infants or the secondary school as such, his workshop/class was in a building directly opposite the Infant school, I loved the woodwork and the tech drawing side of things more that anything else I think, at the end of a particular season we were asked to pay a few pence for the item/s that we had made during the term, I asked my Gran for sixpence to pay for the little bedside table that I had taken all the term to make and she as always said no James we cannot afford it. I told the teacher about it and he said never mind, I found sixpence this morning, you can have it? Yes he was a nice man, even though he was a ‘Proddy”

One memory of the woodwork side of things springs to mind, firstly the wood glue, in the corner of the room there was a small stove like thing, gas propulsion of course, when something had to be glued the gas was lit and there was a wait of at least fifteen minutes or so before it became liquid enough to be used. One lad, not me this time, got it going and then inadvertently held the edge of the pot rather than the handle, he yelped and let it drop, the mess was incredible, and the student spent at least three woodwork periods scraping every last drop of glue from the floor, he then had to sand paper the area to get it something like it was in the first place. It would have been easier to replace the floor, but we all learned another lesson after that. Use screws, forget the glue.

There was just the one time when I fell foul of the woodwork teacher’s patience, I cannot remember what object I was trying to make but it involved the use of a large wood chisel, the method we had been taught was to position the chisels sharp end on the wood and the thumb would go over the top of the chisels handle, the chin would then be used to assist in forcing the chisel downwards, this was OK in short bursts but for young lads of 12 or so it was or could be painful. Enter Mr Smarty-pants, when the teacher was otherwise occupied I picked up the wooden mallet and smacked the top of the chisel, disaster, the blade snapped across the cutting edge, losing about 5mm of the top right side of the blade. I expected an outburst when he looked up and realised what I had done but he simply took me forward to the big sanding/grinding wheel and had me turn the large handle on the side whilst he manipulated the blade. The wheel was very heavy and a task to turn, when he had finished with the blade that I had broken, he simply had the class bring to the front all the other similar tools to be sharpened, by the time the period had ended I had just about collapsed completely from my efforts. Another lesson learned there. Do as you are instructed or get an electric machine.

Suddenly another thought, Big Jimmy? Remember him? A photographer came to the school as would happen on occasions and took some nice headshots of everyone in the class, he also of course took pics of the whole class together, again as was my lot in those days I had no money to spend on the picture and a day or so before term ended I got flue and was sent home, I was in Big Jimmies class at the time, on the day after school ended for the term Wullie McIntyre arrived at the door to our house in meek Place and handed Gran the picture of me, “Its all right Mrs Harvey, Big Jimmy paid for it” . When I went back to school after the break, I went to jimmies desk and said “thank you for getting me the picture, “Ah it was only a few pennies James” or something similar, I choked a little.

And yet another thing springs to mind, it was after seeing an American sitcom on the TV ‘Two and a Half Men. Starring Charlie Sheen and others, the father of the young lad had said to the boy something like “and if you have a problem, you can always go to the janitor to look after you until the bus comes, or something similar. One of the reasons for my diminutive state was not just because I was younger than all the other kids in my class, it was because my poor old Gran just could not afford to purchase a lot of food. There was just the one occasion that I remember that when Gran worked as a school cleaning lady she had spoken to the Janitor whom she knew for many years, it would appear that she had arranged the janitor to get a couple of small bottles of the free milk that was then distributed to all the kids in schools. He would keep them in his cellar room until I went down there to drink them, at lunchtime, even if I had drank a bottle at playtime, if I did not appear it would appear that he drank them himself. The strange thing was however, after all the kids had drank their allotted share there was always a lot left over, I wondered about this, then much later I found out that it went back to the farm for the cows to drink and the farmer would in return wash and return the empty bottles for the next time. (Why did he not just keep the bottles and fill them for the next day himself)? I love milk; even now I never have less than one litre per day, I Also love cheese, Gee, yoghurt and similar.

Mr McKenna has just sprung to mind, was he not the mathematics teacher? I am speaking of the years 51 – 55 he was quite a stern chap, big fellow, or am I getting his name mixed up with ‘Big Jimmy’s? One thing that I remember was that one of them had short curly mid brown coloured hair He was definitely the English teacher, and the other had straight and again short but very black hair. The one thing I remember so well was when we got our papers back after he had marked them, it was not 5 out of 10. Or more likely for me 1 out of 10. He wrote just one word and always on the top left hand side of the page and it went something like this on a descending scale, Excellent! - Very Good, -Fairly Good – Very Fair – Fair, Bad -Very bad - Terrible –Horrendous - Awful, - Abysmal - Appalling –Atrocious There were more of these comments and I know that my embossed accolades always started with the letter ‘A’, ah well, you cannot win all the time!

There was the music teacher; I think she was referred to as ‘skinny lizzy’ tall, skinny as the name suggests with short black hair. The term music was a joke, she never lasted more than five minutes in the classroom and would storm out mouthing descriptive adjectives that would make even the worst students cringe, blackguards, and unruly deviants and a host of other foul mouthed words, how she ever got away with that I will never know, other teachers knew of her behaviour, and one ever remarked to my class that everyone was aware of a particular teachers behavioural problems. I will not comment further on this but I am absolutely sure that most of my avid readers and supporters know exactly who and what I am speaking about. I have a feeling that she would not last long. Oh yes, I forgot, the only time she actually got us to sing or whatever was when a Schools Inspector visited us, as soon as he had gone she would again storm out of the class, basically I suggest she was a few pennies short of a shilling, eleven probably!

A rather sad fact, when I visited Scotland sometime in the 1980s I went up to St Brides to have a look around and show my partner the sights, I still have the picture that was taken of me standing in front of the school gates, I see graffiti and broken windows everywhere, how can this be, when I left there in 1956/7 I know for sure that there was not even a single cracked pane of glass anywhere? I suggest the abolition of capitol punishment (the belt) and the attitudes of the people have changed so much since the 50s and sadly not for the better. OK, I know what people will think at my remarks, but the evidence is there for all to see, now please do not get me wrong, I am not knocking Scotland, this is almost a universal/international malady, there are very few countries that I have not been in and I see the same almost everywhere.

Leaving and Returning

When I left Scotland in1957 having joined the Army that was the first time that I had actually been farther than about twenty-five miles from Meek Place in Cambuslang. Chugging south on the old train not much was going through my mind at the time, I half expected to be saddened at leaving Scotland, my Gran and my friends, but I was young and this was a new adventure for me and one that was to last for a very long time, I have just a couple of immediate memories that stick like Araldite in my little brain. Obviously the whole experience was exciting, initially I had the feeling that this was something peculiar to me and me alone but I soon realised that the other 64 guys were ‘in the same boat’ as I, to coin a phrase. Incidentally, I was the only Scottish guy there, a couple of Irish guys and the odd Welsh (Strange people the Welsh) fellow.

The thing that really made me ‘sit up’ might seem strange to the casual observer, but to me it was very strange, almost to a point of me jumping on the next train out of there and heading north. Having visited the ‘Ablutions’ (Wash basins, toilets, showers etc) I had taken my army issue green coloured tin enamel mug with me to get a drink of water, at first I could not believe the taste, it was warm and slippery, "yech!", I then gave the mug a good clean and tried again at a different basin, “Yech!”, I cannot describe the taste, it was not bad, just very strange and to me then unpalatable. I reported the fact to the troop sergeant (Sticky Woods) who came with me to the ablutions and tasted the water. “Nothing wrong with that, perfectly OK, now “Bugger off.” It was quite some time before I became used to this slippery lime contaminated almost fog coloured lukewarm water. I had arrived in England.

Many months later, having become partially accustomed to the trials and tribulations of this foreign country it was time to return to my homeland to recuperate and to see Gods own country again. I, along with by now hundreds of Junior Leaders (AAJLR, RAC) got on the local train in Wool train station (In Dorset) and set off homewards, change in London and head north and Towards Glasgow Central (Just me, not the others obviously, (I was the only one with a Scottish passport!). Now you may think that I am ‘havering’ (Disproportionate Cranial disorientation usually brought about by extended absences from Scotland) but this is true. If you remember the old ‘choo choo trains’, (steam) and the carriages without the corridor, (Wish they would reintroduce them, not the trains, the individual carriages.) anyway I ended up alone in one of these and so it was all the way north.

Can you also remember the downwards-sliding carriage windows? I had passed Carlisle and was leaning out of the right side window, but only when the train was straight or turning left, otherwise one would get a lung and eyeful of steam and smoke from the engine. Anyway, after a short time there was a noticeable aroma pervading the carriage, it was so different from the air all the way from London, and yes it was Scotland, it was so noticeable I could not believe it. I never mentioned this to anyone; I knew I would get some ‘stick’ had I said anything like that. 45 years later I was driving to Scotland with my wife, I remember absolutely, as we had only crossed the border a few miles back, she said “what is that smell, I did not have to ask, I knew immediately what she was referring to, I simply said “That darling is my Scotland.

Just a week or so ago I explained this to my cousin Isobel on Skype (She lives in Switzerland now, (traitor) as I am) and even before I had finished she was laughing her head off. I said rather sharply “that is true, I swear it!” “Not laughing at you James,” she said, “I notice that every time I go over the border, and my friend Annette always stops in her car and says to her children “Out, that is Scotland that you smell, enjoy it.” Anyway I hope that it will not be long before I again enjoy the sights, sounds and aphrodisiac inducing aromas of Cambuslang and Gods own Country.

Army Days - James (always Jock) Harvey

Edward suggested to me that I consider writing something regarding my army days. To date I have only mentioned the military side of my life in passing. I never considered the subject to be relevant to Scotland or in particular to Cambuslang, so as a compromise I thought that I might put down a couple of lines regarding my time in the army where the situation included something which was in some way connected to my Scottish friends whom I encountered in my 22 years of military service. I have at this early point to explain that there was as much sorrow as there was humour involved in what follows, however that is the way life goes. For obvious reasons I have where necessary changed the names of the personnel involved in my meanderings because if read could possibly upset some close friends or relations of those involved, the more humorous ones on the other hand their original names remain.

Incidentally; my reasoning as to how can I write about something as painful as death follows in the few lines below and before my ramblings continue, you may ignore this next bit if you so wish.

Saying goodbye without grief.

Depending on the mindset of a person it can be easy or difficult not to grieve deeply when someone that they have known dies. In most of my own personal circumstances involving the death of a person or persons that had known, I did not grieve so much, I was not desperately sad of the death, I was only sad that I had lost a friend, I was not weeping or wailing, I was not a broken person. I remained exactly the same as I was before. Others have said to me, “Why do you not show any obvious outward emotion at the death of your friend?”

Ordinarily it is the logic of people; that if you love a person so much then you will grieve that person’s demise too much. That judgment is misleading; the logic has a deep flaw in it. The thing in fact is; if you have loved a person really, when they have gone, they have gone; if you have known but not loved that person when they deserved that love, then you will grieve that person much more. Why? In my case My father dies/my mother dies, if I had loved him/her very much then I did not grieve, but I did not know them very much in my own specific circumstances, I have very little feelings for either of them. I was seven years old before I even saw my father for the first time, he rarely ever spoke to me, I never even saw my mother and never knew anything about her other than her name, her religion, when and where she married and subsequently love therefore was never was an issue. (Incidentally to the best of my knowledge she died in childbirth)

If on the other hand my mother and my father or a friend had died and had I known and loved them all very deeply as is generally the norm, then I would have been able to say my farewell to them easily and without much grief, nothing is left undone, nothing hanging over my head, whatsoever possible has happened; now I could accept it. What else could I do, what more was possible? The experience is complete. I could say my goodbye easily; I have done absolutely everything that I possibly could have done. But on the other hand, if I had not loved my parents as much as I wanted to do, as much as I felt that I should have, as much as was possible under my personal circumstances then I would now feel guilty, I would grieve, and I would grieve deeply.

Now my parents/friends have gone; there is no way that I can fulfill my commitments to them now, there is no way that I can show my respect or love if they had deserved love and affection from me. But, if I loved a person and have done as much as I possibly could there should be no misery in the persons passing. I know that I have done all that was in my power to do.

If on the other hand I have failed in my human commitments toward the person, if I have sidestepped my duties for whatever reason, that is the greatest problem, these unlived experiences just keep piling up, they become heavy burdens, the problem now is that I am forever saddled with the after effects, they pile up and I become even more heavily burdened. I cannot do anything to relieve the pressures because the person/persons are dead and I cannot communicate with them, I am left with the mind burden. In my own personal circumstances, I firmly believe that under the circumstances that I found myself I know that of all the people that I have known who died with the exception of just one, I know that I did everything that I could possibly have done to rid me of the pain of grief. The one person otherwise involved I could not avoid not doing everything that I wanted to do, it was out of my hands.

Whenever an experience is complete then the result is exact, when bio degradable material such as ourselves for example falls, it eventually decomposes , it fertilises future substances, there is no scar left behind, completeness has been achieved. All of the countless billions of atoms that a person is made up of will always continue to exist long after we die, the atoms do not die, they simply connect with other things, or people, and so the state continues. When I die my atoms will go on to make other people and things, and knowing that, I will not grieve because I know that I have fulfilled my reason for being in the first place.

I can live peacefully with myself. I believe that have done what was the correct thing to do. No overpowering regrets, just a feeling of completeness. I know now that I, just like everyone else will have begun to live again, just as the countless billions of people who came before us live on, and in us and hopefully, without undue grief.

All Jocks?

In the army as anyone who has had any experience along that route will know that the language is rather more colourful than in Civi Street, in fact as my friends will confirm, I fit into that group of unfortunates, it is also common to address ones friends according to the accent, county, or country which one belongs, I was Jock, so we had Paddy, Taffy, Scouse, Geordie, Yorkie, and so on, indeed there were many other colourful descriptions for particular persons but it would be better if I were to ignore those as they would not be suitable for insertion, nor would they be found in any thesaurus or dictionary.

One of my many occupations in the army was as an outward bound instructor and this obviously took us to all areas of the country, and on one occasion I was down in the Plymouth region, it was a rest day and having set my lads off to see the film ‘Jaws’ which was showing in the town (I had seen it previously) I and another Scottish sergeant decided to visit the local Public house and indulge in a pint or two of the local beverage. Having been seated at the bar for a time we were eventually accompanied by a young local lad who having seen our uniforms decided to come over and have a chat with us, well we had been gabbing on for some time and he disclosed to us that he was himself going to join the army. I have to admit however that I already had some misgivings as to the guy’s mental stability, perhaps it was just the local brew, however it was mostly confirmed after about an hour or so when he suddenly chipped in with “Hey that’s odd, just fancy me meeting two guys with exactly the same name.” I was somewhat puzzled at this remark and asked “what do you mean the same name?” Now he with a puzzled expression retorted seriously “Well, you’re both named Jock”. My friend and I decided that he would be better going back to school and forget the army career.

My first real Army lesson.

I was just seventeen when I joined the army as a junior soldier (JLRRAC) I was eighteen at the time when I first joined my regiment; I knew very little about anything and my first introduction to tragedy occurred within a very short time of my arrival there. I had chosen this particular regiment because it was at the time the one closest to Scotland, Hadrian’s Camp; it was just a few miles east of Carlisle. There were no armoured Regiments actually in Scotland otherwise I would have joined one of those just to be nearer to my Gran as she was now getting very old, was on her own in Cambuslang and for obvious reasons I needed to see her as often as I could. However stationed there I then took a course in Gunnery on a Saladin Armoured Car, after a time spent in intensive instruction came the time to go to Warcop military ranges for our first live firing instruction.

When I was going through the normal non military activities I became very good friends with many of the other soldiers there and there were three in particular, these were on the same gunnery course as I, so there was myself, Roy ‘Scouse’ Mckone, ‘Geordie’ Atkinson, and Jimmy ‘Jock’ McLinton (pseudonym). Prior to departure for the week or so of the gunnery event in Warcop, we had made the arrangements to ‘Gang up’ and share the same accommodation, which turned out to be a battered old Nissan hut with the back wall missing and this was in late autumn.

At last the great day came and we set out for the ranges, I was in the back a 3 ton truck with a few of the other guys and the ammunition, rations, bedding and other necessities for the week ahead, the Saladin was leading the convoy followed by a Saracen armoured car, I am not sure what the Saracen was there for, radio contact perhaps? In the Saladin was the driver and in the turret the commander and in the other side was Jimmy Mac (as he was known), who along with the Commander was half in and half out of the turret. I suppose we had gone about thirty miles or so when the Saracen AC commander decided to overtake the Saladin and the result was that the Final Drive Hub in the front left side caught the hub of the Saladin which spun into the deep ditch on the side of the road and landed upside down. Everything understandably came to a halt.

At first the sergeant in charge there kept everyone away from the upturned vehicle and I saw the driver being led away along with the guy commander supported by a few others from the truck. There was no sign of Jimmy but eventually we were allowed to go down to the upturned vehicle, I remember that one of the older guys advised me not to go there but I was adamant that I should go, and I did. Looking down to the far side of the turret I saw the top half of Jimmy’s body sticking out, he was laying on his back and was looking up at me, there were gurgling noises from his mouth. I said to him something like, “Don’t worry the recovery team is on the way we will get you out. In my youthful Ignorance I just sat on the bank ad continued to burble on some nonsense or whatever. Eventually the unit was upturned and as I looked down to Jimmy and still talking to him, I saw only then that I was and had been all along wasting my time, his body was in two pieces the lower part from the waist down was about a yard away from the top half. “That bloody gun will never fire again’ was the on looking sergeants comment. I then hated him, but it was some time before I realised why he had come up with that comment, quite simply he was taking away from his mind the actual tragic consequences of what had happened, a bit like a badly camouflaged tank, an escape from the reality of life’s little inconveniences. However, that was my first introduction to that particular side of military life.

Just a few odd memories.

In the army again, and on this occasion it takes place on one of the coldest training exercises that I have had to endure. Now I am not quite sure as to the purpose of the following exercise: We were all Royal Armoured Corps personnel (Tankies), there were around thirty or forty assorted guys from the regiment who were selected to go on a ‘Winter Warfare’ jaunt.

As the name would suggest to the more intellectual of my readers, it was done at the coldest time of the year and it was to take place in northern Germany, I cannot remember exactly the place but I know that it was reasonably close to the East German border somewhere north west of Berlin. We incidentally were not allowed to go anywhere close to it of course, I often wonder if they were afraid that we would invade East Germany without official military authorisation, after all we were armed with our machetes which were taken from our tanks in our barracks in Hohne, Belsen Bergen, (Near Hanover). Sometimes I now wonder what would have happened if the East Germans had attacked our regiment in Hohne, all those tanks without their machetes, and forty men missing - the regiment would have been slaughtered, West Germany or perhaps even the rest of Europe would have been lost to the communists.

I am sure that few if any of the guys there had ever worn snow skis, it was hilarious to watch the futile attempts to walk or use them at all, most ended on their bums within seconds of doing so. I was somewhat surprised however; to see that by the second day we had all managed to manipulate these contraptions reasonably well. On the other hand, it is worth mentioning that some were very obviously not going to get the hang of it at all and in particular a good friend of mine, he was a Fijian guy and it was noted that his other Fijian friend was equally ill-at-ease with these contraptions.

Two incidents instantly come to mind at this juncture, and the first involved Sitaveni Beracusa, or Steve as he was generally known (the Fijian guy). We had been let loose from our individual instructors and were just messing around and at one point we crossed the track which was just a few hundred yards from our base and ventured into the opposite field. Initially it was a fairly gentle downward slope towards a small path which led to a narrow footbridge over a small river. Most of us, and I mean the more adventurous of us, headed for the little bridge and were heading towards it at a fair pace.

At some point I could hear what I knew to be Steve’s voice shouting out, “Jeem, Jeem”, that was his interpretation of my first name, i.e., James. I did manage to pull up and turn around just in time to see Steve heading for the one and only tree in the whole field, he was right on target, one ski each side and arms wrapped around it in what seemed to be a very fond embrace. It was an intense enough embrace to make his nose bleed profusely.

Now, after that little episode you would think that a person would decide that enough was enough, but no, Steve collected himself and with help from me and another guy, and we set off, this time however I along with another guy remained behind Steve, I thought that being behind him would give us a better chance of helping him if he got into trouble again, but as it turned out this proved to be a mistake because It soon became obvious that Steve was again completely out of control, there was just no way that he was going to get centrally to the footbridge.

There was at the time very little that I could do or could have done, but now I think that if one of us went in front of him and the other to the rear we might have been able to do something, I just kept shouting “turn, turn” but to no avail, he kept on his straight line and was heading at least five or so metres to the left side of the bridge and for reasons unknown his sticks flailing all over the place. If only he had just thrown himself down, but no.

When he was just a few metres from the edge of the river I actually thought that he was going to try to jump across. After all it was only about three or so metres wide and with a slight upward slope on this side if he springs up he might just make it, but no, as he sailed majestically upwards toward the edge his ski tips dropped downwards and went into the deep snow on the opposite side of the river, they were buried right up to the point where his boots had just disappeared into the bank. Arms outstretched, he embraced the embankment almost the way he had done with the tree.

When I and the rest of my troop had stopped laughing we had to come up with some kind of rescue plan. There was now no way that Steve could remove the skis and climb up the few feet to the top, and no way we could simply pull him up, then a great (at the time) idea from someone, probably myself, at the bottom of the ski sticks there is a round plastic covered ring (The Basket) which prevents the stick from going too deeply into the snow when you are in the langlauf mode. We had been shown the method of joining the sticks by passing another pole through the ring and connecting two or more poles together in order, for example, to pull another guy along if he had a problem. This was done and three or more sticks were swung across to Steve and when he had managed to grab the end of the stick the guys started to pull him out.

As Steve gradually started to slowly reverse, so to speak, I started to have further thoughts as to the wisdom of this move and this was proven before I could intervene. Steve was slowly moving backwards and of course was leaning forwards, naturally this was to prevent him from falling backwards and landing in the freezing water, it occurred to me at this point that there was a flaw here, how would Steve turn, get up, or whatever when the skis were clear of the snow bank? However the problem never occurred, it was inevitably the sad event that when the skis were less than half-way clear the leverage weight of his body loosened the snow covering the front of the skis and inevitably Steve fell backwards and into the freezing river, and, as is the normal result and response from military personnel, everyone fell over themselves in paroxysm like fits, (Which is the sudden onset or intensification of a pathological symptom or symptoms, especially when recurrent, of uncontrolled laughter).

However we got him out of the river eventually, I have never seen a person so cold, wet and miserable as Steve did at that time. After this series of little incidents, Steve much to his delight was reassigned to brakeman and he wore climbing tricons (metal spikes clamped to the sole of your boots) on those exercises when we had to pull the supplies sled or when ice climbing and such like.

On another occasion we were on some kind of Escape and Evasion exercise and for the first time we had to stay out for a couple of days, this of course included an overnight survival exercise which I have to admit I was in no way looking forward to, I hate cold weather, not just the normal dislike, but loathing and total detestation of anything less than about 15o C, that is the main reason for my home in India which I now use during the cold European winters.

We were broken up into groups of 5 or 6 guys I seem to remember, we had the leader, who did the map reading and chose the route to our objective, two guys with 5 metre ropes pulling the supply sled with our equipment etc, a brakeman (Steve) at the rear with a slightly longer rope who kept the sled from going out of control on the downward slopes, generally except when going uphill he had to run like the clappers to keep up, oh yes, I forgot, Steve was a real athlete, played rugby and football for the regiment, also an excellent boxer, made the BAOR finals, anyway behind him a lookout followed, not sure what he was supposed to be looking out for though, we weren’t at war with anyone ? Yet! The sixth was there just to make up the number or to give a break to one of the others, like the spare wheel on a car I suppose?

During the daytime at that time of the year the sun was out most of the time and in uniform we were very hot in our uniforms and protective gear during the daylight hours, but in the evenings when the sun went down it was way below zero C, and as any further movement was out of the question we ‘camped up.’ No that sounds bad, we made camp to eat and then crash down for the night.

Where we camped up for the night on this occasion was a fairly large plateau and it was surrounded by fir trees it looked ideal but the snow cover was very deep, well over a metre on average, to me anyway putting up our green two man tents was futile but most of the lads did, much to their regret in the morning they were soaked and freezing and they tried to get a fire going from the lower branches of the surrounding trees. However, before that I have to explain, as anyone who knew me then soon came to know that I am never satisfied with anything, I just have to change, modify, move, etc everything, and I am still like that to this day. Anyway I came up with yet another ‘Great idea’ Using our machetes my mate and I cut large square chunks of compacted snow which were then made into four square walls about one metre high, we crossed our skis on top of this and flattened our canvas 2 man ‘bivy’ over it and a few more blocks on top to keep the canvas in place, pulled one block out from the side as an entrance and I am sure were the only two guys who slept fitfully the entire night. Incidentally, under those conditions our ‘Igloo’ as it came to be known was up and occupied long before any other of the simple two man bivies were, just try to erect a tent in one metre deep lightly compacted snow?

OK, back to the failed attempt to get the fire going, it never did get going, at least that evening it simply did not go, most of the lads in the morning were stiff with the cold and looking around I have never seen such a sorry bunch. We are ‘tankies’, this kind of thing is for the foot sloggers, they are trained in this kind of thing, and we are the Crème de la crème, the icing on the cake so to speak.

Then came the biggest crime that I have ever witnessed in my life, our troop leader, Lieutenant McDonald, (Scottish name, educated but somehow sort of a real Scottish accent, and I suggest of dubious ancestral/lineage/pedigree/parentage) stepped to the fore, and in front of the whole troop, opened a full litre bottle of Glen Morangie, or Glen Fiddich, I’ve forgotten which, whisky, I straight away thought, and I know that the rest of the lads were of the same mind, ‘we were going to get a good swill of gods own liqueur, but no, he just poured it over the smouldering embers of the fire to be, it worked, a great blaze but in the minute it took to die out all attempts to kindle the wood was futile. I suggested to him that it would be better if he had simply given the lads a mouthful each it would have served a better purpose, his reaction, “Sergeant Harvey, they are not Scottish” at the time I laughed out loud, but on reflection afterwards, I actually think that he was serious. I knew him for many years; he was a nice guy considering he was an officer.

I remember some of the lads occasionally used the term “Aaf a Jock” when referring to him.

A sad moment

I am now going into another story, albeit a very short one and it concerns Steve again, this time however it is and will remain one of the saddest episodes in my life. I cannot and indeed never want to forget it.

I was summoned to the RSM’s office one morning, (he was also a good friend of mine, we were ‘The Rat Pack’ and he gave me the following news, which I believe to be the worst that I have ever had. “Sit down, Jock” was the first words I heard and I knew at that point I was in for a shock, no one ever gets to sit down in the RSM’s office, and I mean ‘No One’. He also used the term ‘Jock’, ordinarily it would be Sarge, or Sergeant Harvey but the term “Jock” put me further into a state, I instinctively knew that something bad had occurred, or was going to occur.

“Bad news I’m afraid Jock” By now I was frozen and prepared for the worst, but it was not completely the worst as it turned out. “Your friend Sgt Sitaveni Beracusa was involved in a car accident last night; he is dead.” (The Fijian guy from previous incident) I was stunned and could only stare. I have faced this kind of thing before but this was different, this was not a KIA (Killed In Action) thing, this was a bloody car accident. My mind was racing wildly, I could only stare. We remained quiet, stunned for a long time and then came the worst shock, “His own three children and two of his next door neighbours kids were also killed in the same car, a German couple in an oncoming car were also killed.”

Eventually I went back to work in the tank park but I could not get over the shock. I was like a Zombie, I just sat in the commander’s seat of my tank and in the end I am sad to say I cried. I vaguely remember an officer, I forget who, climbed up onto my tank and told me to go home, and then “That is an order Sergeant Harvey”. Eventually I got down. The duty driver was there and I just climbed in and went home.

The following day I was again summoned to the RSM’s office, “OK Jock, I know that you and Sergeant Beracusa have been good friends for over ten years and for that reason I want you to be the Funeral Guard Commander, It will be with full military honours and the ten or whatever gun salute, you and I will pick the men to be involved.”

This is the grand finale. The day came after some rehearsal and I and the guard waited just alongside the church. The area of the grave was fairly high up a steep slope and I had not been there before. On getting the signal after all the pomp and circumstance from the padre, I went through the drill to get my firing party to their position above the graveside; I of course marched there with them. As I approached the graveside I noticed how large the mound of earth was on the upper side and how wide the actual grave was. I was simply not prepared for what I saw next, as I halted the men into position and prior to giving the firing orders I glanced down into the grave.

It was not what I had expected. Steve’s coffin was on the left side of the grave as I stood to attention alongside, his brown berete with the 11th Hussars crimson band around the base was in place about a third of the way down from the top of the coffin. It was not a brand new beret, it was the one that he generally wore when working in the tank park and when on exercise. This actually added to the sadness of the situation, his scruffy old beret, but, what I had not envisaged seeing was the five tiny children’s coffins alongside; I had thought that there would be only the one, that of Steve.

I have to admit that the sight of those small children’s coffins affected me more than almost anything that I have ever experienced in my life, and now I hope that I will never ever have to see such a sight again, ever. The RSM, when I eventually got to speak to him about the circumstances there, admitted that he had simply forgotten to explain to me that the children were to be lain alongside Steve and had assumed that I had already known of the full funeral arrangements. In later years, of course, I did encounter many horrific situations but none affected me as much as did the sight of those five tiny coffins alongside the large one of Steve.

My Double

In my unit in Germany there was another Scottish guy, a sergeant just like myself. When I say just like myself, I mean almost exactly physically like me - size, weight, colour, everything, even our children had problems recognising us and this led to so many hilarious situations. Originally Jim Samson (pseudonym) was in the 10th Hussars and I was in the 11th Hussars, the two regiments amalgamated and we became the Royal Hussars. Well, just like the time before the last two wars, the military was cut to breaking point and the same thing has started again, we will soon have no military at all. However that is another story. “But it’s ‘Tommy this and Tommy that and Tommy get your gun?” Remember that?

I suppose the very first time it struck me that there was something very odd about the situation was when Dawn, my eldest daughter said to my wife “Mum, there is a picture of dad on the top of my school friend’s television in her house”. Some time after this my wife Myra told me of the picture on the TV. I could not come up with an explanation at the time, because up till then I had not even met my double, he put in an appearance some months later having gone off on a course somewhere in the UK. Dawn was asked “what does your friend’s dad look like?” her reply of “I have never seen him, he is never at home” did not please my wife for obvious reasons. At the time I simply forgot the incident, but I later found out that my wife had not forgotten it.

The first time I saw John and after the amalgamation we were stationed in Lipspringer in Germany and John had just returned from his stint in the UK. I went into the Sergeants’ Mess around NAAFI (1000hrs) break and as luck would have it he was just on his way out. We both stopped and just stared, we were both in similar uniform of course and we just stopped dead in out tracks, to me it was just like I had just walked up to a giant mirror, I was looking at myself. That was our first introduction to each other but our paths crossed many times after that.

I suppose the first of our little escapades concerns the Sgt’s Mess. I asked the guy behind the counter for a sandwich of some sort and a coffee. “Another one then Sarge” commented the guy.

“What? that’s my first!” “You just had a sarnie and tea a minute ago”

“B***s” I gently commented. “I have just come in.”

Then the penny dropped, as I looked round I saw John with another Sgt and they were laughing their heads off. When it was time to go and get back to the tank park, I went to pay my bill and the guy said “Name?” “Sgt Samson, I said, put it on my bill” and off I went.

It was sometime later that the funniest thing happened, this is true, I absolutely swear this. I went down to John’s Pad (Military terminology for Married Quarters) with him; there was some kind of do going on, a birthday party or something. s John was about to open the door, he stopped and left me on the top step and walked back to get a child’s bike from the end of the pathway, the door opened and his wife just came to me and hugged me, then she suddenly stopped as she looked at John who was walking towards us with the bike. I have never seen anything so funny as she looked at me then back to John and “Ahhhhhhhh, you buggers” she exclaimed, she thought that we had deliberately set her up, no one ever forgot that one.

This kind of carry on went on for years. One of the games we got up to was to march towards an officer who was coming towards us. As we got closer we would separate and would go one on each side of the guy. Then, as is the standard custom, when we were about three yards from him we would go one each side and with him in the centre, we would salute smartly together “Good day, Sir.” It was a joy to see the expression on the officer’s face as he tried to look both ways at once and return the salute; they did get wise to this and sometimes would just give us the royal finger. The more adventurous of them would stare straight ahead, but would salute with both hands.

I suppose the funniest caper was in the Sgt’s Mess when we had visiting senior ranks from other units for darts competitions or some other function. John and I would keep well apart until the later part of the evening, then we would advance toward someone who had obviously over imbibed too much of the old falling-over water. Then a well practiced “Good evening, how are you, I hope you are enjoying the hospitality of the evening” The stunned look on the faces of the ones that we had managed to catch out was unbelievable, the rest of the mess went into stitches.

I will not go into any detail on this one; I was sitting in the Tel Bunker in the Long Kesh prison compound in Northern Ireland around 1964ish, one of my 6 phones rang and the call led to yet another tragic moment in my life. John along with another five soldiers had been blown up by an IED in a field whilst checking out something reportedly suspicious, only one survived the explosion, he was very badly injured, John died, this was yet another blow to my already diminishing affaire with things Military, as I have already stated, we were tank soldiers, a few months training for this kind of warfare against local terrorists was simply inadequate. I suppose it was something like sending a Veterinarian trainee to a hospital to carry out brain surgery on a human being. Because this was a part of the UK, we were just pussyfooting around, trying to keep happy both sides of the situation. We did no pussyfooting in the Falklands, nor are we pussyfooting in Afghanistan. We should have given all the politicians a rifle and sent them along with the soldiers, just to let them see reality for a change. Poli( menyl) and tics(very small blood sucking insects).

When I first arrived in Northern Ireland, my job meant that I had to wear civies rather than my uniform most of the time, as I arrived there just over a month prior to my regiment arriving in order to get the lay of the land so to speak, I was attached to another guy whose task was to enlighten me in things local to our particular area, it was a couple of weeks after my unit arrived that I was presented with an old Morris estate car, peculiarly there was no floor between the front seat and the rear seats, Odd? However undeterred I got on with my job of exploring the local areas by myself and eventually with another Irish lad form a different regiment.

My first inkling that something was amiss was when I was in any of the small local towns. That was when I noticed that many of the locals waved towards me when I was passing through. Initially I paid little heed to this and went about my job. After a time I became somewhat more suspicious about the waving and grinning populace of the locals and I went into the civil police side of our base. I gave the full details of the car to the constable at the desk and a day or so later got a message to call in again. On doing so I learned that the car had belonged to one of the top IRA guys in the area and had been sold to a local garage, one of my officers had purchased the car as my run-around? And what about the missing floor plate? Easy; things could be planted on the ground underneath without getting out of the car, it is a common saying that “you live and you learn” but; some people just live.

Colour Perception?

It actually was a mystery as to how I managed to remain in an active service role in the army in the first place; I have very bad colour perception, again it is a long story, but on this occasion I will give the basic gist.

Having applied to join the army at just over sixteen, I failed the eye test for colour perception at the military recruiting centre in Glasgow. I was dispatched to Cowglen which is just outside Glasgow to have a full eye test. After waiting for ages in a dark room, I was led into another room and in the dim light I could see an aged octogenarian doctor seated facing me He was somewhat gruff and produced a right angled torch with a series of holes having an assortment of coloured lenses. “What colour is this?” he growled, shoving it into my face. To be honest I was not sure, but it looked like the fluorescent colour of a traffic light on stop, oh well here goes; “Red” I said, “and this?” he said turning the lens again, this time to be honest I did not have a clue, but I hazarded a guess “er, yellow” I suggested, “and this” he again had turned the lens, and again I could only guess. I simply chose the ‘Go’ colour of the traffic lights - “Green”. “Nothing bloody wrong with your eyes, get out of here.” Back in the other room and giving my paper to the guy at the desk he said, “you should have said anything daft to get a fail” It was quite some time before I tumbled to what had happened; all the other guys there in the waiting room were trying to get out of ‘Call up” at 18 years of age. I was trying to get in.

I had many odd experiences in the forces due to my distinctly odd sense of colour perception and I have at this point to admit that I narrowly avoided the occasional catastrophic consequence due to this. Incidentally, as is sometimes the case, the colour problem often leads to a condition called Low Luminant Myopia (cannot see too well in the dark), again that is me. In India I never drive at night, cannot see the edge of the road, no lights or white lines. On the other hand, my driver has had four accidents in my car; he has excellent colour perception but like all other Indian drivers he has the mistaken perception that there are no other drivers on the road, there are no bends, or stray dogs, cattle or whatever on the roads and he is invincible. Incidentally these colour maladies still affect me and frequently cause me embarrassment. Some people just cannot accept that colour blindness is a real problem; they think that, for example, by showing you a red card and explaining to you “THIS IS RED” they have cured you of all of your perception problems? On the other hand, when they see you produce the clenched fist with the two vertically upward pointing fingers?

So; again I am in Germany, and it is very late in the evening in the Sergeants Mess. Sgt ‘Wilf’ Morris has just been promoted from Corporal and now after midnight he is well and truly plastered. I am approached by Nietzsche (At the time he was our RSM, a wonderful guy) (RSM Wherton) he was my friend’s elder brother. Quoth he “Sgt Morris has over-imbibed, take him home”. Wilf had crashed out on the floor under one of the benches. So, with Dick Brady (another Sgt) we dragged/carried Wilf out to my VW camper, dumped him in the back and I rolled off down to the married quarters at Mozart Strasse with him. As I got to the bottom of the road leading to the quarters I shook Wilf and asked him “Which building is yours”, “The green one” was the reply. I got Wilf out and onto his feet, he seemed to be OK, but I sat in the car until I saw him get into the front entrance of the block of flats then I went home.

The following day, I remember as clearly as if it were yesterday, I was in the tank park with my guys and prating (Dictionary; to behave in an unintelligent way, especially if/when this causes exasperation or leads to time-wasting) around with one of the tanks, the ‘squadron runner’ came up to me and said, “Hey Sarge, the RSM wants to see you”.” Oh B***** what now?” And off I went to his office. Knock, knock, “Sir” from me, “Come” from within, I went in. Much to my surprise on entering I was confronted with the RSM seated on his throne and two large military policemen standing in front of his desk. “Sergeant Harvey, I am given to understand that you were entrusted to escort Sergeant Wilfred Morris to his married quarter last night, will you now explain exactly what sequence of events took place”?

“Yes sir.” Quoth I, you entrusted me” and then I explained exactly what happened and how I watched Wilf go into his pad. “Ah” from RSM. Case explained, march out”. I did leave at this point, and it was only a short time before I realised what all the fuss was.

Later that day I got the full story, It would appear that I had dropped Wilf at the yellow Pad, not the green one, Wilf in his over-imbibed state could barely see anything at all never mind the colour of the building, he banged on the door of the flat which opened, he stumbled into the bedroom and crashed out on the bed. He eventually awakened and found himself on a different bed, but this time it was in a cell in the guardroom.

I can say that I as well as Wilf became the butt of many jokes involving colour for a long time after that one, from Steve for example, “Hi Jock, have you noticed me, I’m the black guy?” or when I was doing an explosive recognition thing “This yellow one is H.E, or for Sergeant Harvey, the one with ‘High Explosive Tri Nitro Toluene’ stamped in large embossed black letters on the outside of the casing’.

At the main crossroads In Bergen I had stopped at the traffic lights and noticed a policeman who had held his hand up and all the cars stopped. This signal meant ‘Clear the crossing’. I remained where I was and waited. My wife and children were with me and obviously impatient to get home or to wherever we were going. Eventually the traffic moved again and after a minute or so the policeman again held his hand up and again the traffic stopped. At this point the policeman approached us and when he was alongside he tapped the bonnet with his baton; this means get out of the car, which I did. He then said something in German which I did not understand, “Nicht Verstehen”? I said, at this he went to the front of the car, looked at the number plate and noticing the British Army number plates asked in his broken Germanic/English way “Was ist los, haben wir keine Farben die Sie mogen? (What’s wrong, don’t we have a colour that you like?) I moved, and much to the hilarity of my children when I explained. In my defence, the sun was on the lights and I simply could not see if any of the three were lit. The Germans are generally too polite to angrily blast their horns.

There were so many other incidents where my colour perception gave me (and others) a problem, thankfully never a great problem, but I will pretend they never happened.

My Joke

Frank Istead was a great guy, and I knew him for so many years. He was a very clever lad and the odd thing about him was that for someone so clever he never seemed to need to aspire to anything else, he seemed content to be a normal ‘run of the mill Squaddie’. He made Corporal I think before he disappeared off to the Intelligence Corps and ended up in Cyprus, sadly that is the last that I heard of him. I remember one thing in particular that would describe his type of attitude, that is, aside from a great sense of humour he was so casual about everything, very laid back. I on one occasion was walking toward the camp in Hohne Bergen (around 1965ish) when he pulled up beside me in an old Fiat 600, “Hey jump in Jock.” In I jumped, there were now six of us in the car, it was a four seater, and off we went towards the camp gate. Crushed as I was I could not help but notice that the accelerator pedal was missing from its normal position and that Frank was actually controlling the progress of the car by a piece of curtain wire which was held in his right hand outside the side window, apparently the cable from the foot pedal to the carburettor had broken and this was franks answer to the problem. Needless after thanking him as I got out I made the vow not to be seen walking toward the camp if there was the slightest chance of being spotted by him or indeed any other Fiat 600 in the future.

Another memory for example, I remember so well the time we were sitting in the NAAFI during a break and he was very absorbed in something that he was reading. At the time I was just trying to get my head around the Cryptic crossword in the Daily Telegraph for the first time. Frank was absorbed with something far too intellectual for me to understand at the time but after a time I became very cross with a clue that I simply could not make any head or tail of, ‘A musically inclined paternal parent’ What in heavens name? I could hold back no longer, “Frank” I almost shouted “what in hell’s name is ‘A musically inclined paternal parent? He neither paused nor did he look up. “Whistlers Mother” he said. I gave up the Telegraph at that point and for me it was back to the Dandy and Beano.

OK, his best mate at the time was Geordie Liddle. Geordie will give you a clue as to his roots; anyway he was the SQMS’s assistant and was well known by all, as of course was our little rotund Scottish SQMS (Squadron Quartermaster Sergeant). He was however a Staff Sergeant. And a Scottish one at that, he was a really nice fellow, as of course all Scots tend to be, however. I remember we had some kind of Squadron ‘Do’ going on and at some time of the evening someone suddenly started the Chant Sing, sing or show us your r*** etc, etc. anyway it started with the more senior ranks and worked backward, I remember for example D.A.N. Strike S/Sgt came up with:

"It was on the good ship Venus - By God you should have seen us"

The rest was unsuitable for insertion here and those who have heard this will understand exactly what I am on about. Eventually it came my turn and quite out of the blue it came to me, I think that I heard this one a long time ago anyway it went something like this. Remember the SQMS and his Corporal? I got up onto the stage and – well OK, it went like this.

“On an exercise some time ago, the squadron was laggered up in a wood as is the norm after an exercise, when all of the normal drills had been completed, refuelling the tanks, maintenance and so on I was sitting on top of the turret and at one point heard the SQMS say to Cpl Liddle, “Liddle, fetch me my canvas bath, Liddle went off and returned with the said bath and just as he was walking off again he heard the SQMS say Liddle fetch me the water for my bath, again the water was fetched in a couple of jerry cans, these were then emptied into the bath, now The SQMS asks, get me some warm water Liddle it is too cold to get into, after a time Liddle returned with the warm water and emptied it into the canvas bath. Now having undressed the SQMS slowly and carefully lowered himself into the water, but, just as his bottom went into the water he broke wind, a long one at that. Liddle disappeared and after a time he returned and attempted to hand the SQMS a rubber water bottle”.


“What on earth do I want with that? Said the SQMS?

“You asked me for it” said Liddle.

“I did no such thing said the SQMS.

“Yes you did, I clearly heard you as I walked away “said Liddle.

“What did I say then” from The SQMS

“Well, as you lowered yourself into the water I distinctly heard, and as everyone else in the lager also can testify heard you call “WATABOUTARUBBERWATERBOTTLELIDDLE”

That joke went down so well and was even posted alongside the Squadron orders the following day.

Every now and then I remember some little thing that takes me back to something that I had forgotten so long ago, and as I age my mind sort of stagnates. My cousin mentioned something about her sisters encouraging their mother to “have a fag mammy” when she was 40 years of age. Then I remembered something that Shuggie Coyle told me in my latter days in Cambuslang. He was talking I am sure about Owen Coyle, a lad that I knew well and he was in my class at school, but it could have been one of his other local friends.

Apparently Owen (or whoever) having taken to the delights of the ‘fag’ at an early age, decided that having no money to buy even a tuppeny single fag, took to gathering the discarded dog ends from the sidewalks and gutters in the main street of Cambuslang. Whilst without any attempt at covertly collecting the buts and putting them into a Jeely Jar he felt a hand on his shoulder and a stern voice, “And what do you think that you are doing young man?” Looking up he saw that he had been apprehended by a police constable who was now scowling down at him. Quick thinking here:-

“we are playing shops and things and we use this as the sugar”

From the constable “well I shall just take this to the station and we will put it to good use” (or something similar)

From Owen: - Putting his hand into the pocket of his pants and pulling out a small pack of cigarette papers says ‘You can have these papers for tuppence if you like”

I am unsure of the eventual outcome.

Another little thing that used to make me laugh, even in my younger days, and this was the ‘Bookies Runner’ Down in Kings Crescent, the fellow could regularly be seen standing on the corner that led down to the Circuit, It was just beside that large oblong patch of scruffy land central to the houses, It took me quite some time to figure this one out.

It would appear that sometimes some of the men folk with young sons would Send the boy out to the runner to put some money on a horse, the dad or ‘big brother’ would put a coin or coins into a piece of paper in which he had written the name of the horse, the race, and the amount staked, the lad would then go up to the runner keeping his hands in the pockets of his pants and ask him the time. The Runner would make a show of pulling the sleeve of his jacket up a little and taking a short step forward, the boy would look at the wrist and then continue his onward journey towards the ‘Circuit’ and disappear.

Eventually I found out what had happened, as the boy had moved closer to the runner, his leg would go alongside the runners leg, the boy would release the paper with the coin or the paper money in a small stone weight, this would drop through a hole in the material of the boys trouser pocket alongside the runners foot, that would then push the money backwards into the small gap in the fence, eventually he would bend down in the pretence of tying his shoelace or whatever and would collect the money. It never fooled anyone, and certainly not the local police, they were also in on the scam.


Odd Bits ‘N’ Bobs (Animals)

The funny thing is; that as I have speaks with my cousin or my children, also when I see something like a Budgie or a Pigeon or other simple things it reminds me of something that happened a long time ago, so I have been taking some notice of these to see if any of them would be worth adding to my blabbering. As it happens I have a little to add here.

I have seen over the years that I have a particular affinity with animals (I think that’s why I married my last wife.) I remember so well that as a wee lad in Cambuslang I had a black and white tom cat, it name was Bitey. I know that when he was a kitten he seemed to take great pleasure in chewing my little fingers with his first set of little sharp teeth, hence the name. I think that I was about two or three when Bitey entered my life, I cannot remember where he originally came from but possibly from the dairy at the top of Cairns road. The old Kirkhill School is just below it. To be perfectly honest the only reason Bitey was tolerated there was because of the problems at the time with mice, Gran had an unreasonable aversion to rats and mice so Bitey apparently enjoyed his stay with us.

I know that this is naughty, but as Bitey and I grew older and hygiene improved the mice became less of a problem and of course Gran would come out with things like, “We don’t need a cat anymore, it will have to go, we cannot afford to feed it, it is messy and unhealthy” and so on. Well in my little head there was no way that ‘my’ cat was going to be gotten rid of, and so in my diminutive little brain I started to develop the means of getting more mice and if possible even rats into the back garden. Our next door neighbours, the Leighton family and in particular Joseph Leighton, kept Guinea pigs and rabbits which I later found out were not pets, these were for the Hospital in Glasgow where they were used for experimental purposes. On the other hand, the good side of this was that Joseph had a problem with rats and mice, so he would lay the traps down under the cages and when he managed to catch one he would give it to me and I would take it in to show Gran and tell her that Bitey had caught another mouse in the house. In later days as I grew older sometimes I would get the odd mouse from one of my friends in the big tenement block in Kirkhill, no shortage of mice there, I suspect there were more mice than people living there, however Bitey was saved.

There were times when I managed to sneak Bitey up into my room. I would get him into my bed, and he would sleep fitfully until morning. I remember one morning when I would have been about five or six I wakened up and Bitey was sound asleep, his little head was on the other pillow beside mine, both of his front legs stretched out in front of him. I had not heard Gran come into the room until it was too late, she saw him and with the towel she had in her hand swiped Bitey with it, all that I could remember was the cat desperately climbing over me to make good his escape. I suffered the most out of this little incident, as he scrambled over me his claw nails digging into me, Bitey screamed and I screamed, the blood was all over the place and Gran just laughed her old head off. “That will serve you right” she said “perhaps you will keep him out of your bed now, and I am going to get rid of him anyway.”

At this point in time I believe that Gentle Jesus, Buddha, Ganesh, Kali or one or perhaps even all of the other three million or so Indian Gods intervened, the very next day Joseph found me a rat, this I simply left on the back door step, Gran found it there and that was the last time that Bitey was threatened with eviction from number 15 Meek Place, Cambuslang. I ceremoniously buried the rat with full military honours the following day; well I wish I could have.

I am told that you cannot train cats, dogs’ yes, as surely everyone knows, but cats, an emphatic No! But I beg to differ. As I was the only one that Bitey had to hug and comfort him he would follow me everywhere. When I was sent to Myrtles in Kirkhill for potatoes or something, Bitey would on occasions follow me, everyone thought it was really strange, but to me in my youthful days I thought it quite normal. I think that in those days it was I who was strange and the cat that was normal. Anyway on the odd occasion a dog would appear and if the cat was spotted the attack then started. Bitey would simply with claws extended jump up to my short trousers and climb up to my shoulder and cling on to whatever I was wearing at the time. This would bring forth howls of laughter from anyone who saw the spectacle. In the end I had to prevent Bitey following me as I was beginning to look as if I had been dragged over barbed wire fencing.

Another little oddity was that in my early days Bitey would follow me down the road from the house as I was on my way to school (St Brides). I only allowed him to follow me as far as No.2 Meek Place which was Joseph Cannon’s house; he was another friend of mine. A strange thing has just occurred to me even as I write this; even though we were in the same class in the early days, neither he nor my other friend there just across the road, William Montgomery, I can never remember even once walking down to the school with either of these. (My other friends there were prodies) I suppose that if I had revealed my real religious beliefs to any of these I would have been drowned in the Borgie. Anyway back to pussy, at No.2 I would put Bitey down If I had been carrying him and tell him to go back home. He would watch me for just a few moments and then turn and go back up the road to our house.

Almost without fail, when, come four o’clock, school is out and off I would go home, at the bottom of the road and again just as I turned into Meek Place I could see Bitey sitting in the outside sill of the little pantry window beside the front door. I would stop and then Bitey would virtually run down the wall, jump over our gate and run to the bottom of the road, stop and as I stood still he would climb up my trousers onto my shoulder, wrap himself around my neck and lick my cheek. This would happen virtually every day, and it was much to the enjoyment of Mrs McLinden (No.5 I think) who used to call me “The cat boy,” I loved my cat. This incidentally reminds me of something else.

I have honestly never in my life understood the reasoning behind the strange fact that the great majority of females love cats with a passion which is sometimes almost bordering on insanity.It is a well known fact that cats are normally passionately independent, they never listen at all, they show little love or even acceptance, they generally never heed even if it is to their advantage to do so, they don’t come home when you call, they like to stay out all night and every quality that woman consciously and subconsciously hate in a man they love in a cat? On the other hand my cousin Isobel hates cats, but I am still working on that?

It is a well known fact that my family and many other people of course know that I am very fond of all animals’ even snakes, hedgehogs, birds of all shapes and sizes, dogs, horses, cows, in fact virtually everything that lives and breathes. The following are just a few of the little events that have happened to me over the years. Starting in Scotland of course, where else? For reasons that I simply don’t know or understand, animals also seem to be attracted to me and for that I will be eternally thankful, but as with everything in life there is normally a portion of sadness there.

Once again, at the top of our garden there is (or was) a huge willow tree, and I mean huge, at the base I could not even get my arms to wrap even half way round the tree. It came up from the ground and after about six feet or so bent forward towards the house and then rose vertically again, it rose to a height that was well above the house itself, it is probably still there. Anyway I was messing around in the back garden one day and I heard the oddest noise coming from somewhere amongst the trees at the top of the garden, so, as my natural curiosity kicked in I investigated and low and behold I saw the oddest little bird peering down at me, multi-coloured and its beak was bent downwards as if it had flown into a wall at great speed. As I climbed closer to this diminutive little creature I was gently holding my hand out and I was thinking that if I got close enough I could grab it. It turned out to be unnecessary because as my hand got about a foot away it jumped over towards me and landed on my hand, the nails on its little feet holding on tightly.

Well I eventually got the bird into the house and showed it to Gran, she could not make head or tail out of it, even suggesting that I just release it and let it fly, that was out of the question of course, and even at that young age I knew that there was something odd about this diminutive creature. This was one of those rare time when my father was living at home and was working up in Cathkin Quarry. When he came home he took charge of the bird and next day even produced a cage from somewhere, between him and myself the bird spent most of its time fluttering around the living room, it was quite content to sit on my head or shoulder prior to doing a few aerobatic circuits around the room, it became a good pet.

Getting home one day from wherever, on entering the living room I saw the cage door open and no sign of the budgie (as we eventually realised that it was indeed a budgerigar). The next time I saw my father I asked where the bird was. His reply was “I am going to kill that f****** cat. After that I made sure that Bitey was locked in an old rabbit hutch whenever he was at home. He got over it, (as did Bitey).

My next pet was a pigeon, and where this came from heaven knows. Again I was sitting in our back garden and it simply dropped from the sky onto the grass beside me, it was also making odd noises just as the budgie had done, I put my hand out expecting it to fly off but no, it just sat there on my hand, I had no idea what to do in this case. This bird showed no intention of leaving and I eventually asked Joseph Leighton next door what should I do? He explained looking at its feathers that the tiny fluffy bits all over it showed that it was no more that a couple of months old. Subsequently the bird was put into the old rabbit cage, which after having a large plank of wood nailed onto the back of it was stuck into the soil just behind the lawn. The oddest thing, this pigeon also showed absolutely no need to fly away and it was quite happy just to sit on my shoulder in front of the fire in the living room. I named it Shuggie, by the way.

Again just like Bitey, it appeared to be quite content to sit on my shoulder when I went outside and it became quite a talking point amongst the locals, it would occasionally take off and do a few circuits of the area but would always return to my shoulder. The only problem here was that it would occasionally vacate its bowels as it sat there much to my annoyance and to Gran’s laughter. For whatever reason Bitey showed absolutely no interest in this bird, I never understood that, it is in a cat’s nature to grab birds even if they are not hungry. Sadly again I lost Shuggie, Going into the back garden one morning I found that the Hutch door had been jammed open and held in place with a piece of wood, Shuggie had gone. Obviously someone had eyes on him, or possibly her, I never found out which.

After that I was in the army before I got any more pets. Eventually after I married and got a married quarter I got my first dog, it was a Doberman and was the first of three that I had over my service years. It is a wonderful breed of dog, afterwards in the Police I got a Shiatsu which was more my wife’s pet than mine and I also got two cats, one black and one white. I retired in 2005 and moved to India. One of the first things I did even before I had finished rectifying all the builders faults was to get myself another dog, I am going to let Whisky, That’s my dogs name tell you her story, I will just sit and listen in. (At first I was going to name her Glenfiddich but it sounded too masculine, she is like my wife, a bitch.)

Whisky’s Story

“Namastey” that’s Hindi for “Hello how are you.” I am telling you this short story because James, they call him Barry here in India is not feeling so good right now. I have been having some health problems and it seems to upset him so much. I am not sure what is happening right now so I will get on with telling you of our history together.

As James has already informed you my name is Whisky. Not Whiskey, that’s the Irish spelling. However, I was only six weeks old when I first saw James, I was playing with my little brothers and sisters under a fishing boat which was sitting on the sand outside ‘WAW’ which was Batislees bar/restaurant in the fishing village of Dando in Goa, India. I thought to myself at the time ‘What a nice guy’ so I left the shade of the boat and went out to have a look at him and to see him better. What a surprise I got, he picked me up and carried me into the restaurant where he had been having lunch and he then started to give me bits of his food. As I later found out, the reason he decided he wanted me in particular was because I was black and white. (My brothers and sisters were all sorts of shapes sizes and colours. James is so colour blind, but don’t tell him that I told you that. I remember him asking Battislee how old I was and when he was told “six weeks” he said “Good, keep an eye on her for the next two weeks and I will come back for her” I had almost forgotten about him (I am a dog, two weeks means nothing to me) when to my surprise he suddenly appeared one day and said to Battislee, “OK I am going to take the dog now” and that was it.

Without as much as a ‘by your leave’ I was picked up and bundled into a large 4X4 (it’s a big kind of box on wheels) and off we went to his kennel, well he calls it his ‘house’. Now this was a change, it had some kind of machine that kept the place cool, wind-making things on the ceilings and I even had my own bed, my own plate with my name on it for my food, another for my water, I no longer had to battle with another five dogs to get a share of the food, (The food was the left over from Batislee’s restaurant). Now I thought ‘I could really get used to this life and no mistake.’

Life with James was indeed great in the fullest sense of the word, every morning we went up to the big hill to the old Portuguese church and we would play around there for a couple of hours or so, it would depend on whether it was monsoon time or not. Back at his big kennel we would eat and then wander down to the beach, or to WAW to see my family, James would sometimes go swimming and we would have a snack or whatever. One day James went out and I stayed at home, this was quite normal, but on this occasion it was different. When he came home again he was carrying another dog in his arms it was a little hairy thing, although I was a year old by now and fully grown this other interloper was eight weeks old and was already the same size as I was. He said it was an Alsatian and he was going to name it Jyoti, which means ‘light’ whatever that is. Anyway we got on so well and as Jyoti grew up we became good friends. Usually Vikram took us both out, sometimes Mary and Vikram but usually James stayed at home in the morning, it was afternoon when we all went out.

I suppose I would have been about three when I first became a little ill, I spent a lot of time at the vet and I was taking all sorts of pills and things. James took me to three different vets’ hospitals but nothing seemed to help, my skin was affected now and I had to stay away from Jyoti in case I passed on the problem to her also. It was a strange thing, but I found out that all of my little brothers and sisters died very young, poor things.

Well as I lay here in the vet’s little bed in the little hospital in Colva, I can see her preparing yet another needle for me, it’s a big one this time. James is there with Vikram now, and as I look up at him he looks so sad, I wish that I could speak to him and tell him not to worry, I don’t mind the needle that she is putting into my hip, I have become used to them now. I don’t know why but James’s eyes are watering, it must be the heat, but it’s strange because Vikram’s eyes are also watering, I am now feeling so tired, I need to sleep. When I get better I am going to enjoy again our walks with Jyoti, she is not here this time,

I cannot see so well now and all the pain seems to have gone. I hear James suddenly let out a loud cry, Vikram is holding him, he must have bumped into something, I will comfort him when I waken up after my sleep, now I cannot see and it feels like I am floating away amongst the clouds, it is a nice day, I am with James, Vikram and Mary, my little brothers and sisters are now there with us, Jyoti and I are happy, but it is now getting darker and dar….

On a lighter note

There are some things that one only learns with time and experience. If your dog is barking at the back door and your wife is yelling at the front door, who do you let in first?
The dog of course, the dog will shut up once it gets inside.
With sincere apologies to my mate Rupert. (Not the Bear)

When I die, think only this of me:
That there is some corner of a foreign field
that is forever Scotland.
There shall always be
in that rich earth a much richer dust concealed;
a dust whom Scotland shaped and loved, then made aware,
gave, once, her flowers to love, her wondrous ways to roam;
a gentle body of Scotland’s and breathing Scottish air,
washed clean by the rivers, blest by warmth and suns of home.
And think, this that is my heart, all evil shed away,
a gentle pulse in the eternal mind, no less
gives back somewhere the thoughts by Scotland given;
her sights and sounds; many dreams happy as her day;
and strong laughter, learnt of friends; and gentleness,
in hearts at peace, under a Scottish heaven.

Rupert Brooke -- (1887-1915)
Amended and updated – James Harvey (1940-Soon)

I am sometimes so very surprised at the lack of historical knowledge of their homeland that some of my fellows Scots have. On the other hand I have to blame the schooling that was given them in their young and informative years. St Brides School was at fault here, Mr, I think that it was McMeniman the history teacher, possibly? Anyway he seemed to think that The English kings and queens were much more important than our own good people? For example, how many Scots realise that it was on a river on the East coast of Scotland, or as it was then some 2,500 years prior to the time of the The Pictish Kingdom of Alba that one Mr Noah, (no surname?) was instructed by some entity or other to build an Arc? And an Arc for the as yet unenlightened is simply a ‘Big Boat.’ Sadly it would seem no one other than my own good self it would appear knows any of this.

Now here is what actually happened, I shall enlighten you, and at this point it would be a good thing that you should just forget the version that has been put around by the English, it was they who invented the erroneous version that is commonly put about. Bah and Humbug! The simple reasoning behind this was their great need to aggrandise the Egyptians in ancient times in order that they would be able to have a lead in claiming some, if not all of the oil reserves to be found in that region at a much later date for themselves. After the Scots had invented petrol, diesel fuel and bicycle pedals of course.

Now then; before I enlighten you about the Noah whatshisname or other guy, let me inform you as to ‘the very beginning’. Seated in his/or her/or its giant throne somewhere in the multiverse, the great being, who invented everything that ever was or is, was getting just a little browned off with inventing minor universes, solar systems, black holes, Higgs Bosons, Whisky and so on, he decided to invent planets. He said the word and so the great deed was done. It was just a short time before he got fed up with looking at this; what to him appeared to be a large smooth floating green table tennis ball so he decided to make people, but first, obviously with majestic foresight he made a kind of ‘Botanical Garden’ for the unenlightened it was like the (As yet to be invented) Hanging Gardens of Auchtermuchty.

Then; and also for reasons as yet not known, he made Man, Dictionary: A virile person: the personification of qualities traditionally associated with the male sex, including courage, strength, and aggression, or somebody with such qualities. OK don’t giggle, it was his first attempt at this and it was not as good as he had thought it would be, “Oh I just don’t give a damn”, and that is where the name came from in the first place. After a short time, and seeing ‘Adam’ getting browned off just wandering around looking at the trees and everything else, he made a woman You can forget the rib business, he simply snapped the godly fingers, and it was done. “Right then” from his majestic magnificence, “This can be the start of a term which I will call a Year, and as it is the end of the last day of the old system and is the ‘eve’ning, it will be a New Year so the bit of crumpet can be the New Years Eve”. And so that is where Adam and Eve came into the picture. Now, for reasons that are beyond me and I am quite sure everyone else also, he made a snake. It has been put about that his reasoning was that the snake could be used to count the number of apples on the tree, so called he it an Adder? Well he needed to know if any of his ‘Golden Delicious’ had been plundered, anyway, It was a very big snake, and what is also very strange, it could speak; naturally it had a strong Scottish accent.

At this point I have to admit that I cannot fathom out his reasoning behind all the rest of his bit. He, (The Big Yin) after producing this great apple tree told Adam, “Do not under any circumstances eat any of those apples, they are mine”. The snake all this time had been evesdropping in to the conversation and as we all know, told Adam to go ‘up a plunder’ (for non Scottish readers, this means ‘to enter uninvited into premises belonging to another person and to ‘in this case’ remove a selection of fruits which would then normally then be stored down the front of ones jumper and then subsequently to abscond with same) which he did. That was a big mistake. After that The Great Deity made him and his ‘bit on the side’ (they were never married) work and that is why we all have to do so now. That is with the exception of politicians, illegal migrants, school music teachers and similar scrounging malingerers.

Then came the greatest miracle of all, the Wizend Wiser made Scotland and the scottish people. “Now then” Quoth he, “I have made them a country with the best land, the best weather, the best rivers, the best trees, food, animals, and everything that they shall need to keep them in a manner that is befitting them, these the greatest of all beings that shall inhabit this planet, they shall indeed have the best of everything” And so it was done.

At this point in time a snivelling little minion by the name of Gabriel entered grovelling before the awe inspiring presence of the great architect of all things and said, “Just a wee minute big yin, are ye no goin a wee bit ower the top wi all the goodies tae these wan people”.

 
“Aye” chipped in the great ‘Jock on High’ “And you are depriving some future village of its idiot, but in compensation for them jist wait an see who their Neighbours ta the South are.”
And so; It’s back to Noah,

It would now appear that The Magnificent Magician after some time had become a bit browned off with the antics of the people that he had made, like ‘Boozing, wearing funny patterned skirts, saying things like “Och the Noo” Eating the salted porridge before the bacon and eggs’ and so on. (With the exception of Noah and his little bit of crumpet of course,) so he called upon Noah to complete his Big Boat (remember that bit?) anyway when he had finished it he was to get two of every kind of animal on earth and herd them into the boat, then he was going to create the biggest downpour ever, there would be a great flood.

Well, it becomes a little odd at this point, there was only Noah and his bit of stuff and the two wains. As I see it, he was going to have a small problem travelling around every country in the world and herding two of every kind of animal in existence into one small place? However Noah did as he was told and after some 300 years (remember he was on foot, no cars yet) he returned to his big boat.

Now had already made a bridge so that he could get to the north area as well as the south. At his point I have to say that it is a bit of a mystery as to how Noah, on foot and by himself managed to herd all these animals together and drive them to the river where he had parked his floating animal menagerie ship, the Polar bears for example? And how about the animals that were on the Islands, could they all swim? How did he stop the lions and other animals from eating each other? (how did he feed them) It was at his poind that he noticed that after he had got all of the animals into the boat, that the bridge that he had built was just too low for the boat to pass under. “Bugger” quoth he, I will have to make a bigger bridge at least three metres higher or I will never get under it.”

After the second bridge was completed, he was just prepairing to lift anchor when he from the clouds spake forth. “Pillock, you will never get the Arc under that, you have not got the elephants on yet and they will have to be on the top” “Well bugger me” from the by now knackered Noah, so off he went and after a long time, and that was after having made yet another bridge, (Not that long though, I am running out of time) returned with a couple of elephants. These were duly placed on the upper decks and he again prepaired for cast off. But that was as far as he got, it was obvious that the boat would never get under this bridge either. So another one was made.

Again thundered forth the Big guy in the Sky, “Where are the Giraffes? Well stone from Noah the crows, I forgot them”.

Returning years later with the two Giraffes and getting them on board he was again astounded to see that the water level had risen to a height that meant that he was not ever going to get the boat under neath this fourth bridge.

“Idiot”! Cried the Angry Architect of all things, “I said get the animals in two by two, I intended to you to get one of each, a male and a female”.

“OK”, from Noah “that is it, I am not going to make another bloody bridge, I have made First, the Second, the Third and the Fourth River Bridge and if another one is needed you are going to have to wait untill 2014 when I know that they are going to make a Fifth one.
Just a final thought; Why did Noah not swat those two mosquitoes?

An Old Scottish Soldier

On leaving the Army around 1978 I moved to Wantage in Oxfordshire and started work at the Atomic Energy Authority Harwell. After the army hustle and bustle my free time was now abundant, and if I was not actually teaching, I was studying. I now found that I had so much time on my hands that I volunteered to help the local aged people with their gardens where it had become a problem for them. One of the guys that I met was a lovely old fellow; he originated in a village somewhere near Halfway in Scotland, but had not lived there since leaving to join the army, I am almost sure that it was the Argyle and Southern Highlanders, but I could be wrong. After WW1, he married an English lady and settled in Wantage in Oxfordshire. My wife and I first met him in a local pub (Where else?) (The Lord Nelson) which was a very short walk from our house. He lived in Larkdown Road which was also just a short distance from the pub. His Christian name was Tom although I cannot absolutely guarantee that, but I fear I cannot remember his surname in spite of having gone through a telephone directory to see if anything came to mind; his Wife’s name was Agnes, definitely Agnes, I tried so hard not to call her Senga. (Why do they do that in Scotland?) She incidentally normally referred from calling me Yrrab Semaj Yevrah in return, for which I am also very grateful. Tom generally spoke very little (For a Scot) well that was until he had imbibed a few pints of the ‘old local falling over water’, and then it was hard to stop him. The first story I had from him really stuck in my mind, it was to both my wife and I so very funny. I say funny but not everyone would think so, he himself showed no emotion whatsoever after he had finished the story.

Incidentally before I go any further the military mind is so very different from the normal civilian one as any time served soldier will tell you. One way in which this is shown is by the colourful language that would make Satan blush, especially under stressful conditions. Obviously the mindset would normally set up a self-protective attitude under tremendously testing conditions. As one may have noticed, I have refrained from using such dubiously colourful expressions, well in my writing anyway.

Tom’s unit had been in these particular trenches in Normandy for just a short time, but sadly had lost quite a lot of their men already, but it took a relatively short time to get used to the conditions there. I am sure that everyone is fully aware of the conditions that were prevalent there most of the year, from the Movies, TV and so on. Invariably everything was soaking wet and with the accompanying deep mud everywhere most of the time. It would appear that on one occasion the night before what was to be yet another fruitless charge over ‘no mans land’ the normal routine was to have something to eat and have a large mug of tea, the tea being then, and probably still the most important beverage, this was of course done under the cover of darkness.

One of the many problems unfortunately was that there was always a shortage of clean water, for drinking purposes I mean. The water was generally extremely polluted, let’s face it, and without a ‘cludgie’ a putrid stench was the normal situation. On this occasion it was tom’s turn to get the water. But from where? Well the normal thing was to crawl forward from your trench through the mud until you find a deep shell hole that was a reasonable a distance away which was more often than not, half full of reasonably clear still water. Point to note here; there was always a mound behind the trench, which had been excavated to make the trench in the first place. Behind the mound where people could scuttle around and subsequently the ground was mire. In front of the trench not so bad, not many played around there.

Tom getting fully dressed and with rifle in hand had to crawl through the mud and debris until he found a suitable shell hole. But first he had to collect the issue water bottles from his friends, then they were all subsequently tied together in a long line, and as Tom slid to the top of the trench the bottles were then tied to his boot. Progress was slow and very messy, he had to keep his body fully flat and push the mud slowly to each side as he moved very slowly through it. It was a very muddy slow journey, and every now and then a flare would fly over and if he had been spotted a volley of bullets would shower him. He did eventually find a sudden dip in the earth in front of himself and realised that he had found a hole. The next job was to pull the water bottles from behind and slowly push them, still all connected down into the hole, and then he would follow, as he eventually reached the water he could not see a thing, it was even darker down here, he had to be so careful not to plash, not to get dirt in, make any noise and it took quite a time, having filled the bottles, his next task was to somehow turn clear of the water and reconnect the bottles to his boot, having done this it now took a very long time to get back to the trench following the little deep track that he had made on the way to the shell hole.

That then was his part in the by now; after midnight meal, he got himself as tidy as was possible and eventually had his ‘possibly’ last meal. Everything was done quietly and everyone knew that there would be less rather of them for the next evening’s meal.

The following day dawned and by 0800 hrs they were all standing to attention in the trench awaiting the off, when it eventually came there was the inevitable sound of whistles blowing frantically and everyone scrambling to get over the top, and sadly for what was for many to be the last time. As Tom set out he automatically found and followed the trench that he had slithered through the previous evening and then the shell hole came in site, as he had just started to go round it he looked down at the water and stopped dead in his tracks. In the hole and half filled with water lay the floating, bloated and so obviously festering body of a German soldier and against the opposite slope half of a mutilated dead horse, the other half was just on the other side of the hole itself and as Tom said to me. “James; it is an odd thing, but I really had no particular feelings about the German and his blood and bits and pieces in the water but it took a long time for me to come to terms with the accusing look of the horse’s eyes that appeared to be staring at me. But on the other hand the tea the previous evening was very good. I never told the lads what I had seen; they had enough on their minds without that”.

It was now 1917 and Tom had been injured, not badly though, it was not going to get him a medal for ‘Wounded in Action.’ Apparently when carting an injured guy back to his own trench site his left leg went between the rungs of the trench ladder and he fell backwards fracturing some bones in his left foot. The oddest thing was that the guy he was carrying had also fallen and broken his right leg after falling over some rubble from a fallen wall, but the oddest of all was that when he had fallen over the rubble he himself had been carrying his own mate back from the front. Someone else had to carry his mate back, I thought he was pulling my leg, but no, he was serious.

Having recovered somewhat but still in plaster he moved with his unit a fair distance south of the bulge, the regiment had been decimated by frequent blind charging into the German lines before a new strategy had been enforced. In my opinion the new strategy should have been to return to the UK, however. This new area of operations involved Tom and other wounded, but not so badly injured that they could not be put to some good use, and in his case it was to wait until the action had abated, the survivors had staggered back to their own areas and the dead lay dying. It was Tom’s lot with a mate and stretcher of his to go over the battlefield and collect the wounded then to take them back to his own lines where they would be repaired and sent back in again to give old Gerry some more shooting practice.

When the wounded were returned he would then go back and pick up the dead. Another odd thing at this point. When I remarked to Tom about the chance of ‘Old Gerry’ now taking potshots at him when he was picking up the wounded, his reply was “Well it was almost an unwritten rule on both sides that after the battle it was normal to ignore guys with a stretcher or when carrying a body in the direction of their own trenches”.

On one occasion he had been searching for ages and found none of his own lot, neither alive or dead, when he came across a body that was struggling through the muck and dirt, the uniform showed that it was a German. Most of the guys at this point would have simply left the body where it was after checking for grenades, weapons, his watch or whatever; sometimes they would even use their bayonet to finish him, if he was very badly injured, thus putting him out of his misery, however In this case after an argument with his mate Tom and his mate decided to carry the guy back to their own lines in the stretcher. Basically his reception on arrival was not too welcoming and the medical officer in charge gave him a sound verbal thrashing, “He is a F****** German” from the Medic. And from Tom “He is a human being who has been pushed into this F******mess just like I have”. He never heard anything about this particular action after that, but some years after demobilisation he did receive a commendation from a military department for his actions over that particular incident, he told me that he treasured that more than his medals. He really was a great guy.
He had many other stories and some like this one but they were mostly too grim to record, I know that many people would be sickened by the antics of the soldiers on both sides of the conflict; I will refrain from recording these. Sadly it was just a few months after we had first met that Tom and his wife were visiting me at my home that Tom had a stroke. He never fully recovered and died a short time after that and sadly his wife also died shortly afterwards. I did try to contact some of his relations but sadly all in vain. Perhaps they had already found out about Tom and had gone to his funeral, maybe even seen Agnes, I don’t know, it would have been a good thing had some of them appeared, but I fear that was probably not the case.

Jim’s Wee Dug

As I already mentioned my first job after leaving the forces was as a Police Constable in the UKAEA. (United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority) The job was very high security and as such I will of course say nothing regarding that side of things, a good friend of mine there was another ex soldier, as indeed were all the police, his name is Jim Dalzieal he was Scottish of course but I have no clue as to where in Scotland he originated from, other than that it was way up north somewhere.

 
Jim was a ‘dog handler’ and a good one at that. The dogs on the other hand were nutters in every sense of the word, generally at the time quite untrained and usually having come from people who could not handle them. (Or had died trying to do so?) They were of course all Alsatians, although I suspect some had mixed parentage. Sasha was Jim’s dog, and as such no one else had any dealings with this one, it was nuttiest of all the dogs, and this one had to be kept on a very short lead all the time that it was not in the kennels. Candy was another dog of note, a gentle soul and nothing like Sasha, but when the two were in the kennels or passed each other outside (always on the leash of course) they became maniacal and virtually uncontrollable, heaven only knows why they were like this. Perhaps Sasha had been unfaithful, who knows? On the odd occasion that I had accompanied Jim to the kennels, one had to be in uniform of course, Sasha would not accept civilians under any circumstances and only tolerated his handler, if I was with Jim, Sasha seemed to be somewhat calmer, the dog not Jim. Over a period of time I gradually became more accepted by the dog, as long as Jim was there of course I even took to giving Sasha a small piece of white chocolate and she loved it. (Note here: - do not ever give a dog normal dark chocolate it is very poisonous to them) Sasha gradually came to look forward to this little naughty treat, and even wagged her tail when she saw me; even my wife never paid me such a compliment. When I was on ‘Gate Duty’ and Jim and Sasha would approach and I by now was used to putting the sweet between my lips, Sasha would go all coy as she approached and her head and tail would drop in submission as I crouched down and she would take the sweet from my lips.

I had not seen this, but Sgt Vic Saxby (my Section Sergeant) had at some time observed this out of the Station window, and then some time after that he remarked on it. “How come you can get that dog to amble up to you and lick you on the face like that? That dog is absolutely nuts. I just said, “If you are firm and calm and you show no fear the dog will not feel threatened and will be more at ease with you, if on the other hand you are frightened you will be giving off that aura which is the same as when you attack someone, dogs naturally sense this, the dog will become aggressive as it feels you are going to attack it.”

It was a very long time after that, over a year I think, I had already left the police and I met Jim Dalzieal again, we had a good chat, then he told me of the Sasha incident. It would appear that at some time after I had mentioned to the sergeant about the dogs apparent friendliness towards me. Anyway, he had allowed Jim to take the dog into the operations room where he was speaking to some other new recruit or other and had been saying to him something like “you just have to be firm, look the dog in the face, show no fear it will reciprocate” Vick then without warning shot his hand forward towards the dog before Jim could react, “Sit” from Vic. The dog sank its teeth deep into the hand of the sergeant and it took some time for the three of them to get the dog to let go. That was the last time the dog entered the station.

It was a long time afterwards that Jim told Sgt Saxby about the gradual introduction of me to the dog and also of the white chocolate; apparently he never lived it down.

School Days: 1

Sorry my friends, I am not as well organised as I should be, this section would or should normally be right at the beginning of my meanderings, but; my brain has always worked back to front. As I for whatever reason suddenly remember something because I see it in my own children’s behaviour or something on TV or whatever I am reminded of something that happened to me all those years ago, I occasionally make a note, and then nine times out of ten I forget it again. I am not the only one! I bet many of my ardent fans suffer the same mal administrative behaviour. As Prince Philip said recently on an interview, “It is rather annoying that as one ages ones memory diminishes, one tends to forget things, especially names.” I know the feeling; I forget my own name at times. What! You too?

So, back to school, I remember the very first day there, I for a start was only four at the time, and as previously explained “No birth certificate available, Gran got her dates wrong. However, I know that I had made my own way down there, a journey that I knew well, that was because Gran was the classroom cleaner lady and as she was on her own at home I was frequently there with her, so now back to my first day. I distinctly remember sitting right at the front, probably first or second row near the entry door, and a huge crowd of ladies, obviously the mothers of the children they were waving and chattering, but the children around me were mostly bawling their little heads off. Now that behaviour I could not understand at the time, it puzzled me and I started to get frightened, what did these kids know that I didn’t know, was something horrible going to happen? William Montgomery (30 Kings Crescent) was a few seats away from me and he was making almost enough noise to awaken the dead. Easy; these kids all had at least a mother and most of them also a father and possibly other brothers and sisters. I had nothing of this, just my dear old Gran and she was not there. I simply could not understand why there was all the fuss, to my mind this was a new adventure, something exciting and new, to the other kids this was a nightmare, probably the first time in their short lives that they had been more than a few yards away from their mothers. The teachers (there were two or three of them there on that first day) were all trying to restore some kind of calm but to no avail, this is true, I swear, “Just look at James sitting with his arms folded, what a good boy.” That I swear by all that I hold sacred, and at the time I simply did not know that what was happening was perfectly normal and acceptable behaviour for the other children, it was I who was the oddity in the group, not the others. It took me a lot of years to finally understand the bond that young children have with their parents and their mothers in particular, I had no mother or father so it meant nothing to me. The other thing was that I knew the classroom environment very well, because I always went to school with her and I would sit at one of the desks and play whilst she was cleaning the floors, the classroom to me was a playground, but to the other children bless them, it must have felt more like a prison cell.

My time from then onwards was somewhat of a mystery, it is as though I was elsewhere, I remember so very little about anything of importance, as a few of the pictures of me on Edwards site will show I was a scruffy child, for example I distinctly remember one pullover that I wore was not so much a pullover with holes in it, it was more like a collection of holes held together by the odd strand of wool. It was rather like the roads in India, not so much a series of potholes in a road, more like a load of holes surrounded by some strips of tar macadam. What was laughingly called footwear were in fact wellies, mine had holes in the soles much as so many other children had, my Gran would cut me a new bit of cardboard each day to put in the sole of the wellie to stop my feet from bleeding, “it messes the sheets” she would say. On one occasion I actually decided to wear a pair of shoes that I had found in the pantry upstairs, they were miles too big for me, probably my fathers when he was younger, or Grans husbands, (He was killed in the shipyard around 1930ish) anyway I stuffed paper down into the toe area and wore a couple of pairs of old socks and went to school. That was the first and last time I wore the shoes, I must have looked like a Coco the Clown, all I then needed was the red lipstick, a nose extension and a large pokey hat, so it was back to the old wellies again, these incidentally left a painful dark ring around the calf, and you could always tell the poor kids from that circular tattoo. The Burnside kids never had those marks, but sadly I now remember that some of the girls in the class had them.

There were of course those little embarrassing moments that occur, like when being asked “Did you go to the chapel on Sunday James Harvey?” Yes miss.” “And did you pray to Gentle Jesus there.” “No miss.” “No! James, and why not?” “He wusnie there Miss.” There would now follow a long diatribe on everyone in the class as to why they must believe and never have doubts and so on. In those early days in spite of everything that had been forcibly indoctrinated into the kids it meant nothing and I am sure to this day it still means nothing to your average five or six year old. In my own case I ensured that my five children entered a multi denomination school. What they believe or disbelieve is then their own choice. Me Personally, I have no religion as such, but on the other hand I firmly believe that the Buddhist teachings are as close that I can get to having any kind of belief, they are just about living at peace and harmoniously with your fellow man and all that, it means in the true sense of the word.

My Childrens religions:- Dawn; DiAgnostic, Michelle; Jew (and behaves like one) Carroll; Christian, Myra; Born Again Antagonist. Amanda; Church of all Holy Spirits (Mainly Gin and Vodka types.)

In Class: 2

Hand up like a National Socialist salute and wait until the teacher observes the move, and enquires “Yes James”. “May I leave the class Miss/Sir?” and then from the teacher “Why James?” The strained look on the face and the tightly crossed legs should have been enough to reveal why I needed to leave the room, but no, it had to be strung out to a point that I am sure there was a competition between all the teachers as to who could keep the child there longest before the need to go had passed because the child had already relieved him/her self. “I need to go to the toilet Miss/Sir.” The following bit from the teacher was probably the most ridiculously stupid of all. “Number one or number two James?” Now at this point I have to ask, for what possible reason in the name of sanity would the teacher need to know whether a student would be going to have a ‘number one’ or a ‘number two’? The mere fact that it had been asked would have all the other forty or so kids looking at you and wondering themselves, is it a one or a two? Are they having bets on the outcome of your answer? And what is more, why does the teacher need to know whether you are one’ing it or two’ing it? Is there a certain number of ones or twos that the system can take? It is one of the greatest unsolved mysteries that I have personally come across in my lifetime so far.

Anyway, I always used to lie, if it was to be a number two I would say “A number one Miss/Sir” and vice versa. I never got caught out on that one. There is just one small point that has relevance to that. ‘Playtime’, on entering the playground there would be a large number of crates full of little one third of a pint milk bottles. A teacher would supervise the children’s activities there and when all had calmed down and bottles returned there would always be lots of milk as yet remaining, the teacher would then allow anyone to help themselves. I was always starving and I can guarantee that I would be at or close to the front and would devour as many as I could get before the bell sounded for us to return to class. The downside of this was I was the first to be ‘Right hand up’ in the well known National Socialist Salute, followed by the “Number two Sir/Miss. (Which of course was actually a Number One.) The actual toilets themselves were those cubicles without doors, (I think that missing doors were a ploy to allow the teacher to spy on you in order to see if you were having the number one or the two that you had said that you were going to have) and no actual bowl, just two huge depressed footprint impressions on the white tiles of the floor, center of which was the small water filled receptacle hole. I personally tried so hard to not feel the need to enter this marble hall of convenience. I think that ‘Number Ones’ were all that I ever dared to manage therein.

Another oddity was the very early English lessons, (which was always preceded by prayers, I did not have a clue what the idea of the prayers were.) At my age and status ‘thick’ it took a long time before I really got used to the word ‘English’ why not ‘Scottish’? Anyway the teacher generally started by drawing a large outline of an apple on the blackboard, followed by the letter ‘A’ Capital and then ‘a’ small a. The class would then have in unison to shout out “a is for apple” at this point let me explain, even I living alone with my Gran and even being as thick as the proverbial plank, knew exactly what the letter A represented, indeed everyone knew exactly what every other letter in the alphabet represented. It is only my opinion of course, but since all the children could already speak and were using the letters of the alphabet in their normal intellectual speech, why did the teachers not just write down the whole word? ‘Amelioration’ for example, then they could have explained what the word meant; the process of improvement, e.g. the act of improving something, or the process of getting better. I may just be an old ‘thicko’ but I feel we would have grasped the language and the writing of the language better this way.

At this point I have to add something that to me seems distinctly strange. Away from the school and its teachers, the language of the children with a few exceptions was very colourful with the local vernacular taking precedence, when on being questioned by the teacher English was spoken; and I give you for example:-

Ah hivney ony mine tae yon wee flees
I find those flies rather repulsive
Ah murny gonny git oan yon bogie it’s a brekit
I will not ride on that cart, it is falling to pieces
Mah faither wis stoatin an gye glakit lookin.
My father was inebriated and looked so silly.

As we children, well most of us anyway knew the correct pronunciation of the language, why did we speak like backward nomads from some ancient Nordic civilisation who had never ventured beyond the walls of their own Igloos? On being questioned by the teacher on some trivial matter our positive answer would be “Yes miss.” The same question by your mate the answer could be “Aye so it wis” However I digress yet again.

There was ‘Sewing.’ What on earth did boys need to learn to sew for? It just defies explanation, it was not just the sewing thing, we also had darning, and a form of knitting, this involved having a piece of card about two square inches, a large needle and a small ball of wool, the wool was firstly wrapped around the card and then the idea was to weave another strand in and out of the wool already on the card back and forth until it had covered the card completely, turn it over and do the other side. Now then, what in the name of sanity was that all in aid for, the girls perhaps but the boys? I know that having been given these back to the children at the end of term, along with other junky bits and pieces, the road to the town and to other places were littered with these little masterpieces of nonsense, was there anyone who would have had the courage to take the stuff home? I doubt it.

Due to my own personal circumstances as already explained, I was alone except for my Gran I found that I simply had to work out what the meaning of things written in the newspapers, but more importantly in the Dandy and the Beano, when I could lay my hands on them of course, I had nothing else, I was like a hermit. However I did learn to read and write by myself and in doing so learned to be a little smart ass in that particular direction. On many occasions I was asked by other kids to read out something for them, and I distinctly remember ‘Our Wullie’ and ‘The Broons’ in the Sunday paper. Not that we got it at home, but I would go round the ‘midgies’ (Dustbins) on a Wednesday and could usually recover the paper (along with other things). It was fairly easy to translate the language there, possibly because that was exactly how many of the locals spoke in Cambuslang, and I am reliably informed by my cousin that many have retained that particular version of the local language. The Dandy and Beano were a different matter; they spoke a foreign lingo there.

Incidentally, Isobel has just downloaded a Glaswegian Film for me, it is called ‘The Steamie’, and it’s Brilliant, takes me hame again so it dis.

In Class: 3

Anyway I digress, as I usually do. One of my own personal tricks in later years (when I would be about nine or ten I think) would be to look up complicated words in the papers, or wherever, but; In my midgie (British spelling of the word) exploration activities I came across a small well worn dictionary, a real treasure. I would memorise a complicated word and try to fit it into something, for example if the teacher asked me a question I would try to put the word into my answer, it was not a good idea however, I did not always come up with the correct meaning. Example, our English teacher, a lovely man ‘Big Jimmy’ as he was known having asked me or had put a question up for an answer, I forget which but I was selected. This was to be my big moment, my coup de grace, His question was something like; “What happened to Sir John Gilpin on his journey from Aix to Gent? My answer was something like, “As he was carrying the weights people thought he was riding a race and lampooned him” and then from Jimmy “OK James,” and to another of my classmates he said, and how do you think that Sir John was lampooned?” the answer went something like this, Well sir they threw the harpoons at him.” It took a while for Big Jimmy and a few others to stop laughing at that answer, he then said to me “James where did you find the Lampoon connection to the story” and from me, much to my regret, “it comes after lamplight in the dictionary sir.” Big Jimmy with I am sure with tears in his eyes had to leave the room, so much for me being a smart a**.

In Class: 4

In yet another class where the teacher was a rather aged lady, she had already retired but due to a shortage of staff she returned to teaching again for a time, she knew my Gran quite well. I remember that the desks were designed for two pupils; I was seated beside William (Billy) Macintyre who was my best friend at the time right in the front row. This particular teacher would generally get the pupils who had the best behaviour to sit up close to the front of the class and the ones with the more rowdy behavioural patterns to go up to the rear of the class. Rather than the other way round as would be the normal, Big Jimmy and Mr. McKenna would have it the other way round. The unruly would go to the front where he could keep a close eye on them.

I am prepared to bet that there is not one school kid who does not wish that he/she had written down the names and a short description of the people they met in their school, not only the teachers but everyone, a camera then would be out of the question of course, if only one could rewind the years, Yes? However, this particular lady teacher had a slightly different slant on her method of controlling the lads, never the Girls, just the boys, and I suppose that it worked, at first anyway. As already stated there were usually forty seats in the class, half were for the boys and half for the girls, looking from the front the girls were always on the left and boys on the right. The younger classes were usually quite full but as the years progressed it was noticeable that there became somewhat less in each class, some had gone to other schools, some had simply dropped out for whatever reason, and some had even emigrated with their families. (My other pal William Lyons for example went to Canada) As it then turned out that this particular lady teacher chose a slightly different manner of getting the boys to behave, or so she thought. Her new method just suddenly started and she would just say for example “Charles Coyle, you are a noisy boy, now go and sit with Maureen Megan until you learn to behave.” The class would generally start giggling at this and Charles would appear to be muttering and reluctant at this; to him anyway, inappropriate and questionable action.

After a fairly short time I started to realize that what had occurred there was not a punishment, it was a reward, and the more that I thought about it the more envious I became and it was not so long before my scheming little brain started to work out method of getting a similar recompense. First I had to wait until I saw a seat that was vacant and next to a comely lass, well at the time to me almost all of the lasses were comely, the day eventually arrived and having colluded with Billy I pretended to have an argument with him, and rather childishly I suppose started to push him away from me. “James Harvey” from the teacher, “Stop that at once, and for being a bad boy you will now sit there by yourself.” Billy was despatched elsewhere, I was devastated.

It was a long time later; Billy was reinstated back to the front alongside me and another plan was hatched. This time we just tried by laughing out loud at some imaginary joke or incident, again the teacher told me off but I just slowed it down a little and then started the laughing again. This time it worked, well almost worked. James Harvey, go and sit beside Margaret? (I am still trying to find her correct name on Edwards site) this was not the grand plan, this was a different girl. I think everyone in the class was now laughing, with the exception of me of course.

On the other hand, as I have already stated in my ramblings, I was a very shy boy (as Helen Kerr has already stated) and on sitting down beside her I was petrified. This is true, the fact was that I had never been so physically close to a female of that age in my life, initially I simply froze, but after a week or so I began to relax, she never attacked me or scratched my eyes out or anything as good as that would have been, but on the other hand we gradually became able to whisper to each other, nothing romantic of course, ‘how do you spell this word etc, what does that mean? Lend me your sharpener, and so on, if only I had the courage to tell her how lovely she looked. After a time though I relaxed, and I have to say that I found the girl absolutely enchanting and was so sorry when I was reseated in the boys section of the class. The teacher had noticed that I spent more time chatting to my new friend than I did in doing my class work. What was for me another turning point in my young life was that we could chat in the playground, and prior to this episode I could not even look at a girl without getting a hot flush. The sad outcome was that after the school holidays were over she never returned to the school, I got Billy to ask one of the girls in the class where had she gone, it turned out that she had gone to a convent somewhere. My cousin tells me it was probably Elmwood Convent, sadly I never saw her again.

Rugby?

It is again another odd thing, as I write and remember one small and insignificant thing; it seems to lead me onto something that I had completely forgotten over the last 60+ years. From the classroom suddenly my mind is redirected to the gymnasium. I knew that it had existed but I had never been there, it seemed to be the select few who were allowed into this holy of holies, this sacred area. To be honest I personally never knew anyone who had been there, certainly none of my class anyway. I am now hoping that someone who was there on the day that the following little incident happened, I would love to be able to positively identify the main character. I have just realised that I cannot remember if we were still in the Primary or had moved over to the secondary, but I feel that we may have just entered secondary.

I suppose that there were around forty or more kids seated cross legged on the floor at the rear of the room. At some point a teacher started to explain some of the activities that were available for our physical education. The wall bars of sorts and these were now attacked by a fellow in tight black track suit pants and the normal white vest with bulging muscles who ‘did things’ I think there were ropes there and other exercise objects, these were all demonstrated by the muscleman. All this was accompanied with a running commentary from someone, probably one of the many teachers who were there at the time.

Now, I cannot remember ever going into the gymnasium after that one time, so what follows I think may have occurred at that time, I may be wrong of course. As we were all sitting there on the floor, a teacher led one of my classmates to the front of the seated multitude, he looked like John McKeegan but I know that it was not him, I knew john very well. The kid then faced us and standing started to sing, not nervously but confidently and unhesitatingly. It was the Al Jolson song ‘Mammy’ as it went on and he sank to his knees nearing the end of the song everyone was ecstatic and the applause was thunderous. That was the only song he did and strangely I never heard of the event again, other than from my own little palls of course. What became of the lad, Can anyone help?

As far as sport was concerned I was not in anyway so inclined, at least not until one of the teachers marched all our class (just the boys) up to the public park. I have to admit that by the time I got half way there I was exhausted in every sense of the word. I think that I was the least fit kid in the class, looking around me I did realise that everyone was in a much better state than I was, I actually felt personally ashamed and I made the promise to myself to get fitter. I had no idea how to do that though. I then for the first time joined in when the lads played football, I did not like the game and I still don’t like it. My reasoning here is possibly flawed, however, prancing around, twenty-two guys shouting at each other “here” “there” “Jimmy to me” and so on. Sorry it just does not fit my temperament, on the other hand there is ‘Rugby’ in that I could see the point, the skill and more so the personal effort that goes into it all, that is my first sport. On the other hand I am of a rather diminutive status and tend to get trampled into the earth frequently. Remember Steve Beracusa? It was he who crippled (by accident) my right knuckle playing rugby in the army, it was there in the army that I took up boxing, I was no good at it but I loved it, Steve and I would spar for hours in our free time, he was good and fought for the BAOR. When in my last three years I was back where I started my army service 20 years earlier as an Instructor, it was here that I also became the regiments boxing coach until I retired from the army in 1979.
Back to the school days, the teacher advised me that I would be better off as a linesman because I was no good at anything else on the field.

It is Isobel’s 70th birthday tomorrow so I have just put 100 Francs into an envelope for her.

With the following wee poem, it will take her back to her homeland again:-

Haud up yere heed an dinny greet
Get aff yer bum and oan tae yere feet
Look tae the morrah an no tae the past
The seventieth year willnae last
Jist look at me an ye ken its true
Ahm still skelpin it oot at seventytwo
Use the enclosed tae get something yee missed
Hae a nippy sweety an get yeresel p***
Smarty Pants?

Well, I think that it is time to enlighten my ardent admirers and friends (All two of them,) of something that has just occurred to me. Now I am sure that we all know that a herd of buffalo, wildebeest, zebra etc can only move as fast as the slowest creature in the herd, it is a protective and a naturally instinctive thing. Now then; whenever the herd is being hunted, it is also a well known fact that it is naturally the slowest and weakest ones who tend to always be at the back that are killed first, Sir David Attenborough has proven this and has shown it on film. Now, this natural selection is very good for the herd as a whole, because the general speed and health of the whole group keeps improving by the regular reduction of the weakest members.

Now we have to look at the human brain in very much the same way, because the brain can only operate as fast as the slowest brain cells. We also know so very well that the excessive intake of alcohol kills brain cells. But naturally, it attacks the slowest and weakest brain cells first. In this way, the regular consumption of beer eliminates the weaker brain cells, making the brain a faster and more efficient machine.

 
That is a positively proven fact my friends; and that alone is the main reason why we always seem to feel so very much more verbally louder and smarter after we have belted down a few beers.

Billy C and other bits

Last night Isobel and I sat down to watch a Billy Connelly DVD; it reminded me of the first time that I heard this guy’s voice. I had just returned from a tour of duty in Ireland in 1962 and was posted to a Junior Leaders Regiment in North Wales as a driver. One lunch time as I waited my turn at the cookhouse counter for my lunch I heard this very distinctively Glaswegian voice from a small radio that one of the cooks had placed on the counter. “Who on earth is that I enquired” the cook looked at me with the strangest expression and said “I assumed that you would know him, I was going to ask you to translate for me; it’s Billy Connolly” I had never heard of this fellow but made a promise to myself to get acquainted with him. It was a very long time before I did manage that.

In our home in Cambuslang we had a very old gramophone/radio, the thing never really worked properly, we probably got about 15/20 minutes or so before it just died on me. My Gran loved to listen to Radio Athlone as the name would suggest it was Irish programme and Gran was as Irish as you could get. My favourite programme was ‘Dick Barton; Special Agent’ (Followed by ‘Batman’ type dramatic music) I don’t expect many would have heard or would have remembered that one? The machine was so old that the chance of hearing all of any programme was just not possible, it just died. Someone local said that if you take some of the valves out of the back and warm them it might work, and strangely enough it sometimes did. The other inconvenience was for me to be sent down to a shop in the town, it was an electrical appliance shop and I had to take an accumulator there to be charged up, then I had to go back the next day to collect it, the cost would be about three pence, it would last for about two hours, but that was dependant on the volume and the heat of the valves and probably a quiet prayer or two from my Gran. On the top of this ancient contraption was a very equally anciently designed dome type lid, and on raising the same would reveal a turntable where the old 78 would spin. Well in our home it would spin but only if I put my finger near the centre and spun it by hand, the mechanism for this had died many years before. The needle was of course blunt and Gran would have to hone it sharp by rubbing it on an old piece of roof tile, it worked! Little Man you’ve Had a Busy Day was the only one that I remember, I did continue to manually spin the disc for a couple of Gran's old favourites.

Last updated 22 Feb 2013