You may be asking yourself why "Renshaw's Chronicles"? Well, I'm sure you know that Renshaw is my middle name, and that it was also my Dad's. Everyone knew him as Rennie but his real first name was Swanson. I've no idea where that came from, and Dad never liked it, nor used it. Like all names of more than one syllable, it's often shortened and, in Dad's case, it became Swanee, which in his era was synonymous with Al Jolson's famous Swanee River song. Dad quite liked Al Jolson, but perhaps didn't want to be called after this song, so he reverted to his middle name. (Check out http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nhavaXOynO8 - about 2:20 in to this clip, he starts singing the song).
I was always Ian of course, but, for some reason, other kids at school often sniggered when my full moniker was read out in class, and this made me a little sensitive about using, or revealing this name in later years. That didn't stop my first boss, Duncan Crawford, from calling me Renshaw all the time - he took great delight in it, in fact - he must have found it amusing. I have, however, always used the middle initial when signing my name - Ian R. Stewart - so I haven't been avoiding it at all. So Renshaw has always had a prominent place in my life and my upbringing, so there you go.
Anyway, back to the years when I was at Secondary School. I can't remember when exactly it was that Mum was packed off to the Southern General Hospital, but I do recall visiting her daily after school - Dad was still working away from home with Beanstalk, and Barry and Dawn were too young, so it was up to me to go and see Mum every day.
The Southern General was on the other side of the river from Knightswood, but, fortunately, the Clyde Tunnel had recently been opened, and there was a foot tunnel as well as one for cars, so I could walk there and back. It must have been several miles, but it didn't seem too far to me at the time. My only concern was the potential of getting mugged by some of the seedier characters from the Govan area - and I was confronted a few times, but managed to get away each time - mostly when they realised I had nothing to steal - but at least I didn't get done in.
In fourth year at school I passed my O-levels (as they called them then) OK, despite increasing competing attractions. By now, it was 1964 and the Stones had released their first album. We had a boy in our class whose house was right next door to the Annexe at Victoria Drive and his parents were both out working - and he had a record player and the aforesaid iconic album:
Although I was a great Beatles fan, this album was something different - primal - we hadn't heard music like this in the UK before this. I can, to this day, still remember the running order, and all the lyrics to all the songs, starting with their great version of Route 66, which, years later, as Jo, Ross and I were heading to the Grand Canyon, we stopped in Flagstaff, Arizona and I bought a CD of this to play in the car as we drove along Route 66 with the music blasting away!
For several months in the spring and summer of 1964, a group of us would troop round to Kenny Dalton's house at 4pm every day and listen to this album non-stop. Incidentally, Kenny Dalton was a ballroom dancer who competed regularly and appeared in the old Come Dancing TV show.
I never had a record player, but, as I was approaching my 5th year when I had to sit the all-important "Highers", Mum and Dad promised me one if I passed them. I don't think they specified how many and what grades - it was left kind of vague and discretionary.
Despite being at separate schools, I'd kept up my friendship with Colin McKay & Johnny Duncan and we still played/went out together regularly. Another friend of ours was Edgar ("Eggie") Fairbairn and we often played football down at the little park beside the prefabs, with our ball regularly going in to their little gardens. This photo of Eggie and I was taken down there about 1965, I think:
I had friends in my class at Victoria Drive as well, of course. Tom McWhirr was our local hero as he played for Scotland under-15's against England at Ibrox. We thought he would go on to be a superstar, but, after one season with Bradford (I think), he returned to Scotland and Junior football with Kirkintilloch Rob Roy. Another classmate who was pretty useful was Donnie Gemmell, who went on to play Senior football with Albion Rovers.
I got on well with little Robert Rowan from my class and he became pals with Colin and Johnny too. We ventured out in to the big bad world alone when we went on holiday together - without parents for the first time - to Morecambe in, I think, 1965:
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| Me, Robert Rowan & Johnny Duncan in Morecambe |
Don't we look cool? No? Well, we thought we did, anyway. We stayed at a Bed & Breakfast place and I think this photo may have been taken outside the establishment.
I'm jumping ahead again, because there were still a couple of school terms to complete before we could think about holidays. I recall we also got dancing practice in the school gym prior to the end of year ball. This was largely about learning the steps to traditional Scottish and Ballroom dances, but we always seemed to manage to get a couple of modern records on at the end of the class - the Stones' Under My Thumb sticks in my mind - check http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wxarN-c-Z6U
Of course, all of these activities had to be funded, and I found myself a paper round on Sunday mornings. It was run from a guy's front room, just around the corner from us. It was a pittance, but it helped.
At Foxbar Drive, relations between Dad and Granny Barr were strained to say the least. It can't have been easy for any of them, living under one roof with 3 adults and 3 children, who were growing up rapidly. It's not the biggest of houses and when Dawn got a little older, she had to have her own room, which meant Mum and Dad sleeping in a pull-down bed in the living room, with Barry and I sleeping upstairs in the back bedroom, while Granny Barr became a virtual recluse in the upstairs front room.
In the back garden, there was an old air raid shelter, which, after the war, became where we stored our coal. We had to take the coal scuttle from the front room, go round the back garden, fill it up with coal and bring it back in to put on the fire. We used to have fun climbing up on the roof of the coal shelter, which was about 5 or 6 feet high. We had an apple tree in the back garden and this was a convenient way to get to the apples.
In summer, our bedroom window would often be left open and I still have shudders at my Mum waking me one morning and saying what's that in your ear? It was an earwig - I've always hated the things ever since.
In early spring 1965, it was time to sit my Highers. I remember the exams were quite early that year and I actually sat my first Higher when I was still 15 - just before my 16th birthday. Once the exams were done, there was little to do at school until the end of the summer term, and I was seldom there for classes after that. I did attend when it was sports - especially when I was asked to take a trial for the Glasgow Schools football team - which came to nought.
Having turned 16, I went out with my first proper girlfriend - Margaret McGarrigle was her name and she went to the same school as me, but was a year (or was it two?) behind me. My classmates kept pressing me for more information about her and I could see trouble brewing, so I lied and told them she was at Knightswood School, a few miles away, but, of course, they eventually found out and there was the usual schoolboy teasing going on.
It was about this time that Iain Sloane joined our crowd and he started going out with Moira McKay, who was the younger sister of my pal Colin. The four of us often went out together:
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| Me, Margaret McGarrigle, Moira McKay & Iain Sloane |
So, I think that's me finished my reminiscences for the 5 year period I was at Secondary School. The next part of the Chronicles will pick up the story again from late Summer, 1965 and will cover the period of work and tertiary study until Jo and I got married in December, 1972.
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