IN 1973 Douglas Johnston and some other adults took a group of children from the less salubrious part of Woodlands, Glasgow, to the Police Tattoo to broaden the youngsters’ knowledge of the constabulary.
As soon as the little mites entered the Kelvin Hall they scattered in all directions.
When they were finally located it was noticed that these fine examples of Glasgow youth had managed to accrue some keepsakes from the day.
“It took some time to convince them that stealing motorcycle gloves from the back of a police motorcycle was not a good career move at a Police Tattoo,” sighs Douglas.
With some reluctance the pint-sized pilferers replaced the items before they were missed.
The numbers racket
A DIARY mention of Manfred Mann’s 1960s pop hit Do Wah Diddy Diddy reminds Brian Logan, from Langside, Glasgow, of another of the group’s songs, 5-4-3-2-1, where the numbers were repeated multiple times with precious few lyrics in between.
Brian recalls Larry Marshall, of TV's The One O’Clock Gang, saying he had been offered the chance to record the song first, but declined as he couldn’t remember the lyrics.
Furball throw-up
PHILOSOPHICAL thought of the day from Russell Smith, from Largs, who asks: “Can a cat be as sick as a dog?”
Nasty knees-up
UNFORTUNATE reader Bob Jamieson received knee replacement surgery recently. His recuperation involves exercise (yeuch!) and stretching (urgh!) three times a day (ooyah!).
Bob’s no shirker, so a few days ago he got to work putting his knee through its paces, and (hooray!)
the exercises suddenly felt much easier.
“I put that down to my strict routine,” says Bob with some pride. With slightly less pride he adds: “Then I realised it was the wrong knee. Perhaps it’s the brain that needs exercising.”
(Drat.)
By royal decree
THE Queen has stated she would like Camilla to be known as Queen Consort when Charles becomes King. We recall Glasgow comedy writer and director Armando Iannucci saying the full title should be Camilla, Queen, dynamite with a laser beam.
Gone to putt
WE continue celebrating the arcane lingo of golf. A reader tells us that when putting, the etiquette is for the person furthest from the hole to go first. If the putt is short the same player goes again, which is known as a dead sheep.
The reason being that the other player gleefully announces: "Still youse"
Handling a hero
CONCERNED reader May Chandler gets in touch to ask: “When Superman was a child, did he always have supervision?”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here