I thought I'd covered 1965, but there was one moment I overlooked. It left a permanent scar - both literally and metaphorically. It was the night of my 16th birthday and there was a dance being held down at Blawarthill Church. The aforementioned foursome - Iain Sloane and I, plus girlfriends - went down there.
We were innocently dancing away on one side of the dancefloor, when suddenly, out of nowhere, whack! Something hard hit me just below the eye. I didn't know what had happened until, after a few seconds, blood started spurting out in a fountain. It transpired that a fight had started on the other side of the hall and bottles were flying, one of which just happened to catch me full square - fortunately just missing the eye itself.
I'm not sure of the exact sequence of events from there - we may have headed home first, but I know I ended up in Casualty at Glasgow Western Infirmary. Of course, it was Saturday night, and the staff there were well used to trouble then - it was their busiest night of the week, and many of them were, frankly, a bit cynical about a 16 year old boy coming in with a cut under his eye. Another scuffle, or gang fight perhaps - innocence was not presumed. Eventually, I got treated - I forget how many stitches they put in, but it's still visible almost half a century later - albeit faded somewhat now.
The medical staff weren't the only suspicious ones - Dad wondered whether I'd been in a fight, and it took independent verification of the facts before he fully accepted my explanation.
Anyway, I think it's time to leave 1965 behind now. I've already mentioned that I skated through my first year's exams at our Institute in the spring of 1966 - and, indeed, second year in 1967 - but there were a few other events I recall from that time.
Robert Fraser & Co merged with another small firm, Alexander Martin & Co, and the name changed to Fraser, Martin & Co. I think this must have happened about the time that old Mr. Hewitt retired - or was about to. Basically, all it meant was that we had a new partner - I've forgotten his name now, but can picture him clearly - a bit bookish, but nervous looking - he didn't last long - a year, maybe two. Eventually, our senior apprentice, Alex Gourley got through his final year successfully and became a fully qualified C.A. and he was then taken on as a partner.
We moved office as well - to much more pleasing surroundings at 30 George Square - the beating heart of Glasgow city centre. Our office window overlooked the square - very nice. We gradually took on new students each year - Iain McCusker, Austin Donohoe, Ian McGinley, to name a few. We still exchange Christmas cards with the latter two, and Austin, of course, eventually became our Lucy's Godfather. The former was a really nice guy - a gentle red haired, skinny lad, who would have been a bit of a school swat. For some reason, he was given the nickname "Ski" - partly derived from the end of his surname, but I suspect that sport was one of his hobbies as well.
Duncan Crawford was, by now of course, the senior partner. He used to come out of his office and lean on top of the partition that created a mini corridor from the partners' offices to the secretaries - he was a tall man - and summoned me to his office with the call of "Renshaw!". He was far from an ogre, however - I liked and respected him, and I think he quite liked, and saw some potential in, me.
Jean Anderson had joined the firm as another secretary, and Matt - I forget his second name now - had also joined as a slightly older assistant, who didn't have the qualifications to undertake C.A. training, but hoped to one day - I don't think he ever did. Matt was a perennial latecomer and used to get a lot of grief for it. He started going out with Jean Anderson, but we all thought it would eventually end in tears - and it did - his, I recall.
As I write these Chronicles - I try to plan some of it beforehand, but a lot of it just comes to mind at the time - the strangest memories come back. One of these was how much ear wax I seemed to be generating in my late teens. I seemed to spend a lot of time in the toilet at 30 George Square with the end of a pen, or a paper clip, or even a pin, extracting endless amounts of gunge from my ears.
The late 60's - a bit like the 30's, when razor gangs roamed the city (try reading No Mean City) - were another era when gangs were around. It tended to be territorial - the Fleet were from Maryhill, and the Tongs were from Calton - they were the two biggest names I can remember, but there were others too. I'm pretty sure there remain some places in Glasgow that still bear the most famous gang graffiti of the times - "Tongs, Ya Bass"
We didn't have too much trouble where we were, but we were always conscious of where we were going and the threat that existed in certain areas - and occasionally, some marauding groups - usually the Fleet - ventured down to lower Knightswood. We were confronted on a couple of occasions, but, fortunately, none of us ever felt the blade of the knife or the razor.
Through my old school pal, Donnie Gemmell, I got to know Roddy MacLeod, who worked beside him at Grahams Rintoul and went to the same Institute classes at the weekend. I was still very friendly with the local lads - Colin McKay & Johnnie Duncan, who I'd first met at primary school - but, with classes on Friday night, we started going for a beer together on Thursday nights instead. We often travelled up to Byres Road in the West End - usually Tennent's Bar (before I knew better). This wasn't far from where Roddy lived, so he would occasionally join us, along with his pal Chris Douglas - we nicknamed him "Cadbury's" - why? Well, his middle initial was M, so he was CMD, which we corrupted to CDM - one of the big adverts of the time, standing for Cadbury's Dairy Milk. A bit childish, I know, but there you go.
I had stopped playing football since I left school, but some of the boys from the year behind me at school - who were ages with me, or older, anyway - encouraged me to go along to Woodside Amateurs, in Maryhill - not far from Firhill. I did, and I eventually made captain in that team, which was one of the "feeder" teams to Partick Thistle in those days. I was never "spotted" - not good enough - but I remember captaining a team that included Colin McAdam (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colin_McAdam_(footballer)), who was a year behind me at school, and who went on to play for Dumbarton, Motherwell, Partick Thistle, Rangers, Adelaide City, Hearts and then PTFC again before retiring in 1988. He had a younger brother, Tom, who played for Celtic, but I never really knew him.
Also in that Woodside team was Colin Jackson (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colin_Jackson_(footballer)), who had just signed for Rangers, and went on to win 8 caps for Scotland. I forget who played right back in that team, but I was left back with the two Colins as centre backs - a formidable barrier to opposition centre forwards.
I'm conscious that, after 15 paragraphs of dull prose, without any photos from this period to break it up, that this particular blog posting may be a little bit of hard work reading it, so perhaps it's time to call it a day for now, and pick up the pieces another time in the next exciting episode of Renshaw's Chronicles!
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