Chronicles Part IV - 1965 onwards (5)

From http://renshawschronicles.blogspot.com/

Jo and I were going out regularly from April, 1970 onwards. The usual routine was to meet on Saturday night, plus one midweek night - usually Wednesday. On Saturdays we would often go to  a fairly new place just off Bath St - I think it was called the Cellar or something similar. It was always mobbed and there was loud music playing - it was pretty hard to converse, but that was the way of things then.

Jo was studying at Notre Dame College in Bearsden/Milngavie and occasionally, when I had Dad's car (by now a Vauxhall Velox), I would run her back to college in midweek. (At weekends she went back to Paisley and her Dad would run her back to college on Sunday evenings). I don't remember much about the Velox, other than it had bench seats and a column change - I think it may have been green and must have looked something like this:

At Knightswood Amateurs, we would usually train one night per week - I think it may have been a Tuesday - and it was indoors in a hall in Scotstoun. One night, we were playing a 5-a-side match at the end of our training session and I went in for a tackle and my right knee gave way - it bent the wrong way. I should have realised it was pretty serious, but I tried to shrug it off and we walked - or hobbled in my case - all the way up to the Lincoln Inn, which was then the nearest we had to a local. I don't know how I made it - it must have been a couple of miles and took forever.

The Lincoln Inn was the first pub in Knightswood and was, for a while, the place to go, with bands appearing in the back lounge regularly on Saturday nights in particular. It's gone downhill - a long way - since then, but this was what it looked like:

That's the entrance to the bar at the front.

Anyway, back to my knee injury. I got home somehow but slept fitfully that night and could tell when I got up in the morning that things weren't right and I would need to go to Casualty. The Western Infirmary it was and they immediately diagnosed it as a rupture of the medial ligament - the big, bootstrap one that runs down the inside of the knee. No keyhole surgery in those days - the operation needed a large incision, necessitating a full leg plaster from hip to toe.

I forget how long I was in hospital but I was eventually let out on crutches, although obviously out of action for ages. I remember Jo coming to visit me and I also remember that my first visit to her home in Storie St. to meet her family was also in crutches - obviously going for the sympathy vote.

I also remember my boss, Duncan Crawford, bringing some work out to Foxbar Drive for me to do when I couldn't travel. I think I was in plaster for a few months and my leg was fairly emaciated when I eventually got the plaster off. It was almost a year before I played football again, but I had lost some of my enthusiasm - and possibly, confidence - and gave up playing not long after.

I was at least fit enough to go on holiday with the Scouts.I was a Scout Leader by this time and we had planned to take the boys to Switzerland that year. In fact, I think we went twice to Switzerland - I'm pretty sure we went there in 1970, but can't remember whether the other time was before this or afterwards. I do remember (I think!) bringing Jo back a purple suede, fringed bag one time.

Vic Beattie was the Scout Leader and Ian McQueen and I Assistant Scout Leaders on one of those trips. Here we are at Euston Station in London on our way to Switzerland:

Ian McQueen, Vic Beattie and me

I remember being in Zurich, where we went in to a record store and listened to the new Frank Zappa album, Hot Rats. (Wikipedia lists this as being released in October, 1969, but perhaps this was in USA and it wasn't until 1970 that it was released in Europe?). I also recall visits to Berne, Basle/Basel and Lake Geneva, but our main residence was in large chalets in the mountains in Kandersteg (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kandersteg). It was warm and sunny and you could almost set your watch by the daily 4pm thunderstorms as the pressure built up, then blew.

Another photo from one of those Swiss holidays was taken on a boat on (I think) the Rhine:

John Duncan, me, Ian McQueen & Vic Beattie

So that was 1970 - or at least what I can remember of it. 1971 next.