Renshaw's Chronicles: Chronicles Part IX

From http://renshawschronicles.blogspot.com/

This blog posting has been in draft for a while, so I thought it was about time I finished it off.

It's been a few months since I wrote the last chapter and, reading it again now, it's very work-dominated. I guess it was another fairly turbulent period at work and some of the memories are etched deep in my psyche. Things were getting better, however - the sorry last days of Fischer in Edinburgh were now well behind me and we were settled in our new home in Banchory and the "kids" - Lucy turned 16 in 1989 - seemed quite happy with their relatively new surroundings.

I can't completely ignore what was happening at my work, however. I wasn't working for any big company - it was clearly a family business, run by an entrepreneur who didn't see the need to keep home and work life entirely separate, and this attitude was to benefit us in coming years, particularly when it came to holidays.

Dr. Clark had a couple of weeks' of timeshare property in Florida over Christmas and New Year. I think he'd taken these on in the relatively lean years for his business. What he really wanted - and had had in the past, and would shortly gain again in the future - was a proper family villa, but, he could also use the timeshare weeks as a kind of reward to his "inner circle". The aforementioned Bill Hazeldean had been there and had told me that if the Doc ever offered me it, I should grab it.

Sure enough, the offer came in 1989 and soon we set about planning for our first ever long distance holiday - across the pond to USA - Disney World beckoned! It was also going to be a new experience for us all, being away over Christmas and New Year - and it would, we realised, most probably be the last time all 6 of us would holiday together. Ross would be 6 and just old enough, whilst Lucy was at the other end of the scale, and starting to develop stroppy teenager habits which meant that holidays with Mum and Dad just wouldn't be seen as cool.

But that was for the end of the year. We still had the spring, summer and autumn of 1989 - and I had lots of training to do, as John McWhinnie and I had entered the Great North Run, at the time the largest participant run in Europe, with 30,000 pounding the streets of Newcastle in summer. It turned out to be the hottest day of the year and everyone who took part suffered a little - including fellow participants Frank Bruno & Sir Jimmy $avi£e, no less. (If we knew then, what we know now .....) I took in 2 cartons of water at every mile and the good citizens of Newcastle were out with their garden hoses, trying to cool us down. The pace was, not surprisingly, very slow - I think I only just beat 2 hours on that occasion - and I swallowed down a few pints of water immediately after finishing. John and I then went for a few celebratory pints, but it was the following day before I was able to pass water again. Talk about dehydrated.

This was the year I turned 40 - but I was probably fitter than at any time in my life - before or since. I was putting in plenty of miles on the road, and I was playing squash (in winter) for Banchory in the Grampian Leagues. In summer, golf had become a bit of a passion as well - I was no longer the complete hacker I had been when I first joined Torphins in 1984, and my handicap had come down to slightly more respectable levels. Then there was the football - Banchory Veterans' Football Group was now up and running, with regular weekly games at the Primary school.

That summer, we were heading down to Glasgow to see newly-born Kieran. We had stayed overnight at Edzell on the Friday night and Jo agreed to drive us all down on Saturday morning - I think I'd probably had a few too many beers the night before. By this time, we had a new company car - a very nice upmarket Ford Granada, which had room enough for Lucy, Gary, Kelly and Ross in the back. It was greeny/gold I seem to recall, and it must have looked a bit like this:

This was in the days before the Dunblane by-pass was built and you had to go through the town on the way down to Glasgow. We came over the crest of a hill and were confronted by a long line of stationary traffic. Jo stamped on the anchors - and was initially startled by the sound of the ABS kicking in (we'd never had it before), but she stopped the car OK before the car in front. Unfortunately, the guy behind wasn't so successful and banged in to the back of us. It was quite a prang, but everyone seemed OK, although obviously a trifle shocked.

The car couldn't go any further however, and, in fact, it took several weeks to have it fixed. The bill, which the insurance company paid, was over £5K, which was an enormous sum at the time. It must have been very marginal whether they repaired or replaced the car. No matter, I wasn't keen on driving the repaired Granada any more - and I told Dr. Clark so. I don't think he was best pleased at first, but, eventually, he did get rid of the Granada and that's when we as a Company started to get a bit more safety conscious and we decided to start buying sturdy Volvo Estates. It had to be red of course - here's Jo with it the following year in Norway (more of that particular holiday later):

G149 ORS it was - and I think we all enjoyed this car.

Round about this time, I was made a Director of the relatively newly-created Scofish Ltd. my first official title - and this time, unlike my previous experience in Edinburgh, I was a proper Director.

Back in Banchory, we held our first "Pentathlon" tournament. Richard Simcox was the principal organiser and the event was held over a weekend, with teams from Edzell, Aberdeen, Bridge of Allan, Stonehaven and Montrose amongst others. The 5 sports were squash (obviously), bowls, snooker, darts and table tennis. I mention this weekend because it was the start of the slippery slope with Roxanne, proprietrix of the Tor-na-Coille Hotel. She wasn't too enamoured with the behaviour of some of the teams that weekend and the then Captain of the Squash Club (Eileen Cook) was called to task. For the next almost 20 years, Roxanne made our life hell - far from a welcoming landlord.

At the end of 1989, we made our trip to Florida. How exciting it was. We went to Orlando first of all to experience the Disney thing. We loved the whole American experience - drive through McDonald's - something we'd never seen before - it was a wonder to us. I also recall Jo getting quite excited about her first taste of Key Lime Pie!

Disney itself was magical, despite the fact that the weather wasn't too great when we first arrived. In fact, it got so cold by the time we left Orlando and headed south to Hollywood Beach that we could see ice forming round the oranges in the many groves on the road. We checked in at Hollywood Beach Towers where all the residents were scrambling for heaters and extra blankets! It didn't last long, however, and within a couple of days everyone was back in the pool.

We have lots of fine memories of that holiday, but I've been told not to let these blog ramblings go on too long, so I'll just finish with a series of photos: