The staff at Renfrewshire Council must have been bullied and harrassed by the family we were exchanging with (the Gallaghers?), as the house was barely fit for habitation, which contrasted with the sparkling condition we had left 19 Landseer Court in. Dad spent the next few months re-painting and re-papering every wall, ceiling and door in the house - all of this done in the evenings after work and at weekends.
The little leisure time he had was usually a Saturday afternoon when he would take me to see the local football team, Johnstone Burgh. They played in the "Junior" leagues (as opposed to the higher paid "Seniors" of the Scottish Leagues) and were a newly formed club who were hugely successful and, as a result, attracted large crowds, which most of their Senior neighbours could only look at with envy.
I went to the local Primary school, which was newly constructed. In those days, as is still the case now, the religious divide in the West of Scotland was huge. It wasn't something I understood or was familiar with, even although I'd lived most of my life up to now in what became known as Little Glasgow - the majority of Corby's population were transplanted Glaswegians, and, to this day, many of the locals, several generations on, still speak with a Glaswegian accent, albeit one tainted a little nowadays by the flat vowels of the East Midlands.
As I was saying, it was a new school - or rather, two new schools - one a Catholic school, and its identical neighbour the so-called State - or "Proddie" - school, as those of opposite persuasion called it. The two schools were divided by a common square which had a row of shops on it. At break and meal times, all the kids from both schools used to congregate in this square and all I can remember is the hatred they used to have for each other - I was gobsmacked - I couldn't understand the hostility. Remember, these are still kids from 5 to 11 years old!
There was always trouble brewing in the local streets and it didn't take Mum and Dad long to realise they had made a major mistake by moving to this area. Our house was end terrace and we lived in the upper floor, with access via outside stairs. The crunch came, I think, with an incident around Guy Fawkes' night, when some of the local worthies decided it would be a good idea to put some bangers - or "squibs", as we called them - underneath our car. We were, I believe, one of the few families on the estate with a car, and we suspected this action was a bit more than just a schoolboy prank.
I hadn't been at the school for even a full term, but already we had decided we had to get away - and the opportunity came along before Christmas that year. Uncle George was doing rather well in his lecturing job at Stow College (http://www.stow.ac.uk/), an engineering educational establishment, and he had decided they could now afford to buy a house of their own in Jordanhill, one of Glasgow's better-off districts, and thus move out of Foxbar Drive, where they had been sharing with Grannie Barr since George and Nancy were married. As they moved out, we would move in - a good short-term fix for us, but one that, in the longer term, would not prove to be such a good idea.
So, come the New Year, it was yet another new school for me - this time it was Bankhead Primary. I mentioned accents earlier - I don't quite know why I hadn't been too concerned about it at Cochrane Castle, but I was now very conscious of the fact that, to me at least, I had an accent that was so different from the other kids at school. My first conscious task was to rid myself of this thing that made me different and I soon developed an exaggerated Glasgow accent that must have sounded a bit like Denis Law (footballer, born in Aberdeen, who has lived most of his life in Manchester) on a bad day.
I made pals with Colin McKay & John Duncan and we would hang around together after school. It was the days of the dreaded 11+ exams however, when your whole future was decided at what now seems to be a ridiculously young age. Despite being a lazy sod, I wasn't totally stupid, and there was little doubt that I would pass my 11 + exams and go on to what was called a Senior Secondary - and I did. It was a different case for both Colin and Johnny however - they weren't academically minded at all at that time, and they failed, so their fate was to go to a Junior Secondary - in their case, Yoker - and join all the other cast-offs who would do 3 years' of education there and then leave school at 15 and take up an apprenticeship somewhere as a Joiner, Plumber, or Electrician etc. Nobody ever seemed to come out of there and get a chance of developing academically at all later on - and University was beyond the pale for them. In hindsight, some might say they got the better deal - wouldn't we all love to be tradesmen now? - but it just seemed so unfair to me - that's what I thought even at that tender age - and still do now.
It's now late August, 1960 and off I trotted to Victoria Drive Senior Secondary. It was an old Victorian red sandstone building - I think Mum went there as a girl too. The roll had increased over the years and a separate Annexe had to be added - it was on the opposite side of Victoria Drive, 200 yards further up the road, and consisted of a quadrangle of wooden classrooms with a playground in the middle. For sports, we had the gym in the annexe, but, when it came to football, athletics etc, we had to trot another half mile or so down Danes Drive to Scotstoun Showground (where a lot of the Commonwealth Games in 2014 is going to be held).
Somehow, with the changes in schools and perhaps when my birthday occurred, I ended up a year ahead of where I should have been, so everyone in my class was much older than me. I found French and Maths pretty easy stuff in the first couple of years, but struggled to get interested in History and English - and the sciences generally left me cold too. Latin and R.E. weren't too difficult, but they were a bit esoteric. I remember at the end of first year, we had to choose which second language we would take in 2nd year. Mum wanted me to take Latin - perhaps she had aspirations of a classical education for me? - but I thought German would have been the better bet. In the end, Mum's view held sway.
Generally, when I look back, I did well when we had good teachers - ones that held my interest anyway - but, when these teachers changed, I often lost interest in the subject. Maths was a case in point, and I went from doing very well in the first few years to eventually just scraping through my Higher Maths with a C grade.
But I'm getting ahead of myself. I had moved up from the Cubs to the Scouts - 110th Glasgow troop. That was on Friday nights - the games were fun, as were the holiday camps, but some of the practical learning and working towards badges was tedious. Everyone's favourite game was British Bulldogs, which involved everyone running from one end of the room to the other, with one boy in the middle trying to tag everyone. Once you were tagged, you had to join the boy in the middle and eventually the balance of numbers went the other way. The aim was to be the last man standing. Sometimes the challenges got a little physical - a bit rugby-like.
My first Scout camp was in Arran - it must have been the summer of 1961, when I was not long turned 12. We slept 6 to a tent - each patrol had its own tent. The first week was hellish - typical Arran weather - lashing rain. It got so bad, we had to abandon our camp site and retreat to emergency accommodation - a disused pig shed! At least it was dry.
The second week was much better - the sun came out and I can remember us climbing Goat Fell. My fondest memory, however, was late evenings in our tent. Some of the boys - probably the P.L. - had radios and they tuned in to Radio Luxembourg, which was the only "pop" channel available in those pre-pirate radio ship days. Sunday evening was the time they broadcast the new Top 20. Everyone's heard the tales of how the Luxembourg signal would come and go all the time - we didn't even have FM radio in those days, let alone digital - and medium wave reception is notoriously difficult at night, especially from afar.
Somehow, all of that made it even more exciting - especially to me - I hadn't heard much popular music until this point. Number one, I recall, was the Everly Brothers' Temptation - I was thrilled when I heard it. I think Eden Kane's "Well, I Ask You" was number two.
We wore shorts at the Scouts, of course - except when we went on holiday, when it was kilts all round - very popular and you became a subject of attention, especially in England and overseas. I don't recall the exact sequence of the Scout holidays but I do recall us going to Arundel in Sussex, and also, funnily enough to Aberdeen! I'm pretty sure we camped at the site next to the Old Mill Inn on the South Deeside Road. I remember catching the bus and going in to the city and down to the beach.
I'm conscious of the fact that this posting has gone on a bit longer than I had originally planned - and without the help of an old photo or two to break up the dull prose - but, the more I write, the more I remember, and so I'll have to again break this section (1960-1965) down in to at least two separate parts.
To finish this part, staying on the subject of holidays, but this time family ones, in August, 1963 we visited St. Andrews (not for the first time, I suspect). Uncle Alex (Dad's brother) was over from America on vacation and he came with us:
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| Cousin Susan & Aunt Helen Rodgers, Mum, Dawn, me & Uncle Alex |
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