New Arrivals

1 February 2013 20:16

A couple of months ago I mentioned that we were expecting an addition to our extended family, and not long after Victor arrived safely I got a card with the news that I have a new great-niece in the Netherlands. That one was a complete surprise to me, and strangely enough it’s another V, for Valerie this time. Honestly, after never having any Vs in the family before I’m half expecting a third one to turn up now. Anyway, after years and years of never visiting the kids department of any stores, I found myself back in them and having the problem of what to choose.

The trouble is that there are so many gorgeous dinky wee things around for babies and youngsters but as often happens it was Marks and Spencer which came up trumps. If you have a look at their new collection you’ll see what I mean. I’m especially partial to dungarees for boys, I just can’t resist them. Anyway, I eventually made my choices (too much) and even got the cards and wrapping paper. Job done.

As I had two boys myself I missed out on buying girls clothes and you might not believe it but the only time I’ve ever felt the need of a daughter was years ago when I saw a particularly pretty dress in – yes, it was Marks and Spencer again.

I must admit that I was one of those soppy mums who held on to things as reminders of my wee ones, not so much memory boxes as memory suitcases, just small ones mind you. It’s normal to keep their first shoes and their fancy shawls but I also couldn’t part with so many other things and as I’ve actively been trying to get rid of ‘stuff’ recently (we’re empty nesters and are hoping to downsize soon) I had a look at my stash of memories. I still have favourite babygros, dungarees, sun hats, winter pom-pom hats and teeny wee mits and of course definitely not forgetting their first matinee jackets and the most gorgeous multiple tartan patchwork shirt which belonged to my youngest when he was three years old. They still smell of baby, in a good way. Oh and I had forgotten that I had kept their first snowsuits. So sweet, especially when I think that my two are great big hulking men now.

I wonder if any of my recent purchases will end up in memory stashes, they’re certainly cute enough.

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Categories: Family, Nostalgia, Personal

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Tickets for Gaberlunzie

18 January 2013 23:20

Speaking of Gaberlunzie – back in the dim distant past when I worked in the local library, the folk duo Gaberlunzie was due to play a gig at the local community centre and the tickets were on sale at the library. We had all been told to expect members of the public to be coming in to buy tickets.

This was the early 1970s and computers hadn’t arrived at the library, it was all cardboard tickets and card indexes, with everything filed in alphabetical order, I loved it, we were faster than computers. Readers often left their spare library tickets at the library for safe keeping, asking for them when they wanted to borrow something. We just needed their name and address, although most of the time we already knew it.

Unfortunately, my friend was off the day we were told about the Gaberlunzie tickets, so when someone came in and asked her for tickets for Gaberlunzie – she immediately said – What’s the address? Which was followed by a blank look from the woman and gales of laughter from the rest of the library assistants. Ahh simple days, but Gaberlunzie still makes me think of that time.

Something else which makes me nostalgic for those days at the library is this old Smirnoff advert, which apparently wasn’t a success, especially with potential librarians. But I love it, as well as the image, it just shrieks ’1970s’ – which was supposedly a style-free zone, well so the kids of the 1980s claim. But for me it was a great time for fashion and design. What’s your favourite decade?

old Smirnoff ad

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Categories: Nostalgia, Personal

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The Last Dandy

5 December 2012 00:17

Or should it be the first Dandy? DC Thomson, the publishers of The Dandy sent me an invitation to attend their pre-launch do for the digital version of the famous comic, unfortunately I couldn’t get to Dundee on Monday so I had to decline.

The Dandy was a staple in most homes with children since it was first published in 1938. In my very sexist home it was my brother who got it every week, he was partial to the Topper and Beezer too, whilst I got Mandy, Judy, Bunty and latterly Jackie, but of course I still read The Dandy and in common with most folks my favourite character was Desperate Dan and his cow pies. I seem to remember that he used to chew rusty nails too. Have a look here at the amazing amount of different comics and magazines which they’ve published over the years.

I must admit though that my boys weren’t interested in the comic at all although they enjoyed The Broons and Oor Wullie annuals at Christmas. In fact it wouldn’t have been Christmas without them and we still have them all.

DC Thomson tried to update The Dandy over the years to appeal to the modern generation but the readership still dwindled, and I suspect that more adults read it for nostalgic reasons than did the youngsters, so it was probably a bit of a waste of time trying to modernise it as the older generation would no doubt have been happier with more of the usual fare.

So, The Dandy has gone digital and will have interactive games and such to attract a new generation of readers. I really hope it works, from what I’ve seen on TV it looks good, the bright colours are perfect for viewing on an e-reader or computer, so fingers crossed for them.

As you can imagine DC Thomson had a big influence in Dundee in the east of Scotland where the firm is based, but I was amazed to discover when I met my first Dundonian at the tender age of 21, that they actually used the words topper and beezer in every day conversation. Then that same Dundonian told me that there was actually a family called Brown who live in Glebe Street, that’s nothing unusual I thought as it’s such a common name but it was only then that the penny dropped that Broons were supposed to be Browns. Silly me!

If you haven’t a clue what I’m talking about have a look at some images here.

Here’s a peek at the digital Dandy.

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Categories: Nostalgia, Scottish History

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Dumbarton from the Air

28 June 2012 22:44

Have you been on to the new site Britain from Above? I just had to go on to see what the town I grew up in looked like in the aerial photos. The houses in the top left hand of the photo below were new builds in 1939 when the photo was taken and I was brought up in one of them, albeit in the 1960s, by that time more houses had been built along to the right hand of those ones and the road behind them was bigger, in fact it’s now a dual carriageway to Glasgow.

Dumbarton east from the air.

I had to cross that road to get to the hills which are beyond the photo, and in the summertime that was where I could be found, it was the days when we were all running wild and climbing trees as kids, in the fashion of children in Enid Blyton books, we had such freedom compared with the poor kids of today.

If you want to see more photos of the Dumbarton, Loch Lomond area and even photos of the Queen Mary on the River Clyde have a look here. The very first photo is of the castle rock which is at the left hand side of my header and the town is just beyond it. Loch Lomond is an easy walk on a good day, but the best walk is the one up the hills towards Overtoun House, sadly there don’t seem to be any photos of the house though. I could spend hours looking at this site.

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Categories: Bridges, Dumbarton, Nostalgia, Scenery, Scottish History, Towns

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Irn Bru – Scotland’s other national drink

12 March 2012 00:24

A blogpal (you know who you are) has recently been imbibing that stuff which some people call golden nectar, in other words whisky, and I was asked for some advice on the matter. As I said I’m not a great one for the booze but I would plump for a hot toddy any day or night as my favourite way of drinking whisky but really for me it is honestly just medicinal. I’m sure that just breathing in the fumes kills off germs.

Otherwise I’m with the younger generation and I would mix whisky with Coke or Irn Bru, I did think of ginger beer but on second thoughts that would be piling fire on fire! I must admit though that I do enjoy a wee Baileys from time to time, definitely neat.

Anyway, I decided to have a look and see if Irn Bru has reached the other side of the pond yet and the answer seems to be that it is sometimes available at Highland Games in the US. As it isn’t all that long since it managed to make it into English supermarkets I imagine it’ll be a long time before it’s generally available in the US – shame. It’s our other national drink!

I thought you might like to see a couple of old Irn Bru adverts. My favourite is still the parody of ‘The Snowman’ one, but that’s obviously only shown at New Year.

The Crazy Yanks advert is a parody of the Coca Cola ones.

Then there’s the High School Musical parody, I never watched that programme and I don’t think it’s a great ad but it has its moments.

So what does Irn Bru taste like? It’s difficult to describe, it’s a bit fruity, some people say bubble gum-ish, slightly (pleasantly) metallic and my Dutch sister-in-law almost choked when she first tried it. I say first, but she only ever tried it once so I suppose it might be one of those things that you have to grow up with otherwise you think it’s disgusting.

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Categories: Nostalgia

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Kodak no more?!

24 January 2012 23:25

Like a lot of people my age I’ve had the sad task of clearing out elderly relatives’ homes and in each of them there have been boxes of old photos and albums to look through. Hearing about the demise of Kodak on the news the other day got me thinking about my inadvertent collection of unknown folks from the past. Annoyingly very few of the photos have any information on the back but they’re still fascinating glimpses into history. I even like the Kodak wallets they came in.

I do know the story of the people in the photos below – meet Jack and his wife Weeanna. Jack was my husband’s great uncle and he was a Clydeside engineer, working in one of the many shipyards on the Clyde in the early 1900s. Unfortunately he had a bit of a fiery temper which led to him punching another chap who just happened to be the shipyard owner’s son. This led to Jack being dismissed but worse than that he was blacklisted which meant that none of the other yards would give him work. So, reluctantly he left home for America and ended up working in Ford’s Motor Company, in Detroit I suppose as he lived in Michigan. Presumably he helped build cars, a bit of a come-down from building beautiful ships.


He made the best of it though and met his wife in the US, for years the family thought her name was (wee) Anna but it was Weeanna and I have no idea where she came from. I love these photos they sent home. Jack is obviously saying – Look Mum and Dad, I’m a success now. I have my wife and children.

Here we are again with our car this time with Weeanna, our daughter and the newest addition to the family in the back of it.

This is our house with Weeanna in the doorway, haven’t I done well! It has all worked out for the best.

And we still have these images, thanks to Kodak. It’s all we do have now as Jack and his wife are long dead and even the children are probably gone too, they didn’t keep in contact after their parents’ death.

Now it looks like the end of Kodak, for photos anyway. I’m glad that I have loads of albums of my own boys when they were wee, but photos seem to be a thing of the past. It’s a bit of a shame really.

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Categories: Nostalgia, Personal

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Braintree, Essex

11 November 2011 23:51

This is the one place which we were determined to get to during our recent road trip to the south of England. We moved from the west of Scotland to Braintree over 33 years ago when Jack got a job as a research chemist. This is the first house that we ever bought but it was really too far away from his work in Hertford but house prices there had doubled the year before and were unaffordable. It was brand new when we moved in and Braintree was deep in snow, we had never seen anything like it in Scotland!

Our Old House

The amount of commuting involved to get to work was just ridiculous and what with that and my dad being terminally ill we ended up going back to Scotland after a couple of years so that I could help my mum to look after dad. But we had always wondered what the place was like after all these years, it hasn’t really changed very much but we were really surprised to discover that the rough ground in front of the house hadn’t been built on. In fact it has been turfed and there are nice trees there now and benches looking over to this view.

The River Blackwater

Of course the River Blackwater has always been there but the trees were much smaller then, you would never know that the village of Bocking is at the other side of them. It’s quite scenic really and we were lucky to be living right on the edge of the estate but we didn’t realise that at the time as we had always lived on the edge of the town and had a view of hills where we lived before. I wish we had that now!

Anyway, they always say – never go back – but we enjoyed our trip down memory lane and we’re hoping to go back to visit Essex again in the future.

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Categories: Nostalgia, Personal, Scenery, Towns

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Halloween circa 1995

31 October 2011 00:06

This is Gordon our youngest son just about to go out ‘guising’ with his turnip lantern, I think he’s about eight years old and his brother Duncan, who was all of nine and a half had decided that he was too old to get dressed up for Halloween. It’s a shame that they grow up so quickly. Gordon is a pirate in these photos and trying to look fierce in the one on the right but in previous years he was a wizard, long before Harry Potter. He’s supposed to have a beard rather than look dirty. When I was wee I usually dressed up as a witch but I remember one year around about 1969 when I was ten I went as a flower power hippy.

The word guising obviously comes from disguise but it’s only used in Scotland, in fact until quite recently people in England didn’t celebrate Halloween because it’s originally a Celtic thing.

There have been lots of people in the media complaining about it all because they see it as an Americanisation but they’re comnpletely wrong about that. They don’t seem to quite understand how it’s meant to be celebrated either. People have been having trouble with kids who are using it as an excuse to behave badly and cause mayhem around their neighbourhood, throwing eggs at houses and the like. They should just be visiting houses that they know they’ll be welcomed at and after singing a song or reciting a poem or something then they might get some sweets or if they’re very lucky a small amount of money.

I think it’s strange that the parents in my neighbourhood decided to celebrate Halloween on Saturday, surely the whole reason for doing it is that it is done on All Hallows Eve which is definitely October the 31st. Would they change the day of Christmas?!

Anyway, have a good Halloween. Don’t let the ghosties get you!

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Categories: Nostalgia, Personal, Scottish History

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Virginia Plain – Roxy Music

26 September 2011 23:40

I’m still engulfed by that hell which is Gordon’s old bedroom, the decorating is taking a lot longer than it used to, must be my age – or maybe I’m not being so slap-dash now. Anyway, I’ve not had much time for anything else but on Friday night I took a bit of a break from it and watched The Old Grey Whistle Test programme which was on. Most of the clips were at least 40 years old but I can hardly believe that.

I loved Bryan Ferry and Roxy Music when I was a teenager so I enjoyed the clip of them doing The Strand but I fancied hearing Virginia Plain again, have a look if you want to see some glam rock from a 1972 Top of the Pops.

Honestly – what do those dancers in the audience look like?! I just hope that the 13 year old me wasn’t that awful!

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Categories: Music, Nostalgia

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The Rumour by Andy Stewart

7 September 2011 23:48

I was watching the Scottish news earlier tonight and there was a report about some men who had tried to lure children into their car using a glove puppet. The incident happened in Glasgow and luckily no children were daft enough to get into the car.

Apparently in no time flat there were reports of the incident on the internet but the action had moved to Dundee, Aberdeen,Edinburgh and Fife – where no such thing actually took place according to the police. It’s amazing how things get out of hand so quickly, even without the help of computers. It reminded me of the ancient monologue by Andy Stewart called The Rumour which was really a vehicle for him to show off his skill at different Scottish accents.

The question is: Can anyone understand him because I had some difficulty with parts of it?!

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Categories: Nostalgia

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