60 thoughts on “ALL OUR YESTERDAYS”

  1. Can’t see all the pics, but, here goes – Pic 1 – an Albion lorry, no idea which type or age (1930s?). Pic 3 – Kenny Lynch, had a couple of big hits in the 60s – died last week. Pic 6 – the truly execrable Morecambe & Wise with Shirley Bassey. Pic 10 – easy – a deid tractor. Pic 12 – Ford Zodiac ?, 1970s. Pic 19 – the Searchers – Chris Curtis, John McNally, Frank Allen, who replaced imho the far better Tony Jackson, Mike Pender.

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    1. First out of the blocks again, Andi. AOY was posted at12:08 your time and your answers followed at 01:35. What took you so long !?! (I’d insert smiley face if I knew how…) Danny and I have some excuse. We’re in earlier time zones – already a civilised 08:30 here.

      Wish I could give you more details on Pic 1, but can only add that it was MacBrayne’s first lorry, carrying mail and freight between Fort Augustus and Inverness. It’s taken from a history of MacBrayne’s involvement in providing Royal Mail services, but no more details given other than the company being known as David MacBrayne (1928) Ltd at the time of adding road haulage to its shipping service, so we can take that as a minimum date.

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      1. John……For future reference.
        I find that a colon/hyphen/parenthesis transforms into a smiley face when the message is posted. (But if it’s at the end of an ellipsis, this confuses the situation, and it doesn’t transform into the smiley face.) For a winking face, substitute a semicolon.

        smiley face 🙂

        winking face 😉

        after ellipsis…:-)

        BTW, all the pictures came through for me just fine. Andi couldn’t see some of them.

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    2. Re Albion Motors: they were made in Scotstoun in Glasgow until c1990s, when, as part of the Leyland Group production ceased. There is still an ‘Albion Automotive’ on part of the former Albion site, adjacent to BAe Systems’ Scotstoun shipyard.

      There are a number of Albion trucks kept by individuals and some museums and, an Albion Motors Museum in Biggar.

      As a boy, Mark Knopfler of Dire Straits lived in Scotstoun and knew the Albion site well and, indeed, wrote a song about Albion motors.

      On part of the Scotstoun site Heart of Scotstoun Community Centre has been built and has been flourishing as a community enterprise for quite a few years, with a number of former Albion workers, now retired, but still living in Scotstoun, Whiteinch, Jordanhill, etc popping in, to swap memories and contribute to an exhibition about Albion whivh Heart of Scotstoun put up, earlier this year.

      As well as the building and associated car park there was a large area of waste land, which a group of volunteers, and helpers from a number private businesses, Glasgow Warriors Rugby Club, Community Payback, Green Gym have built a community garden. There are still things to be done and aditional helpers are welcome. If you are ever in the Scotstoun area, a visit to Heart of Scotstoun is well worthwhile and you can get teas, coffees, sandwiches and lunches, which uses community garden grown fruit and vegetables, when these are in season.

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      1. Great Alasdair. What a brilliant idea to have a community centre so that ex-employees can meet and reminisce. Also the community garden sounds fantastic.

        I’ll certainly try to make a visit with Munguin when summer comes around.. Maybe he’ll buy me my lunch… or maybe I’ll buy his!

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    3. I met them when preparing papers for my delivery round in Gourock, back in the 60s. They were playing Cragburn pavilion (many 60s bands did), and they came in to the shop for mags/newspapers the afternoon before the gig. Nice bunch of guys

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      1. Pet Clark once said to me that the REAL talent was almost always very nice. She didn’t say it, but the assumption is that it’s the here today, gone tomorrow bunch that are full of themselves.

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  2. As for the passage to New Zealand on the Bengal Merchant, the food was apparently not great for the passengers with cheap accommodations.

    Wiki: “In 1839, Bengal Merchant was sold to Haviside & Co., London. Captain John Hemery sailed from Glasgow on 30 October 1839 with 160 passengers and arrived at Port Nicholson (Wellington Harbour), New Zealand, on 20 February 1840. The New Zealand Company had chartered her and she was the first vessel to bring Scottish emigrants to New Zealand. After their arrival, the steerage passengers submitted a letter of complaint about the food they had received.”

    The ship had previously transported convicts to Australia (1834-1838) who were perhaps less picky than the passengers in steerage on the almost 4 month voyage.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bengal_Merchant_(1812_ship)

    I finally had to look up the picture that looked so familiar. Angela Lansbury-1950.

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    1. The menu said it was fish for tea but you have to catch it yourself from the sea. The steerage passengers must have arrived with malnutrition.

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        1. I’m sorry you couldn’t see all the pics, andi. (This is where Tris was going to ask which ones you couldn’t see and Munguin docked his wages again for stupidity!)

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          1. Tris, I’ve cleaned out the computitor’s boilers and converted it to biogas operation (all-day job) and can now see all but one of the pics, so have to say that Pic 13 is a Vincent HRD Black Shadow (1950s). I think Pic 14 is a young Lucille Ball. Pic 21 is of course the incomparable Dusty Springfield.

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            1. Aye Vincent Black Shadow it was. I put it there for Conan, who’s a bit out of sorts at the moment.

              It’s actually Angela Lansbury there. Wasn’t she beautiful?

              And yes, the fabulous Dusty Springfield. No one had a voice like that!

              I’m glad you had a productive day. What number of pic can you not get?

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  3. ALERT…….Wordpress seems to have modified the way the dropdown from the message notification (bell) icon in the upper right corner operates. (At least the way it works for me.)

    Prior to a few days ago, if I opened MNR and it showed a reply (or a “Like”) had been posted on a message of mine, all I had to do was click on it to drop down the notifications and allow me to click on any that I wanted to see.

    But NOW, I can click on the bell as much as I want and nothing happens. Now after opening MNR, I find that I also have to click on a posted article….such as AOY or Soppy Sunday for example…..for the dropdown to work. It still works for ALL previous postings, but first I have to click on one. So I’ve started clicking on whatever article is currently at the top, and the dropdown then works just fine.

    At least that’s the way it now works for me; your mileage may vary. 😉

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      1. Tris……Websites make changes and don’t tell us. 😉
        It took me a while to figure out what I had to do to get the dropdown that I’d always gotten before.

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          1. Probably it’s the progress thing, involving staff personnel who are charged with constantly “improving” things or they lose their jobs. 😉

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        1. I’d have loved to have gone but I couldn’t get away.

          As I recall from what he said, it was quite expensive to go there but well worth the money.

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          1. I don’t know about “well worth the money” but I’m from Lewis so abandoned settlements/housing is normal to me, just part of the landscape and not worth paying to see 🙂

            I can see why people lived there though – it was quite the place in “warm” periods in the past which suggests its going to flourish in the new climate we seem to have caused.

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              1. Go to Lewis in May then.

                Its the best time of year as the midges aren’t so bad and the tourist coaches aren’t so common.

                Lewis & Harris has everything from neolithic stones in the shape of a celtic cross (Callanish) which pre-dates Stonehenge by 100 years to a C road (maybe not now) and beaches repeatedly voted amongst the top ten in the world.

                You know my email address if you want advice on visiting.

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            2. Vestas,

              I recall visiting the Outer Hebrides a long long time ago. I remember an utterly abandoned village that you either entered through a tunnel (unlikely) or a gorge. The village itself was open to the sea. Have you any idea about where I am talking about because it looked relatively recent – the last 100 years or so – and it hit home to me on that day, then, just what depopulation looked like.

              It was a tragedy.

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              2. Could be Stiomrabhaigh – South Lochs/Pairc was one of the areas cleared for sheep. I doubt there’s more than 200 people living in the area even now.

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  5. 2nd last photo taken late 1950’s or early 1960’s at the junction of King Street and Cowgate Dundee. The building up King Street on the left was King Street Arcade.

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  6. I’ve had a closer look at Pic 16 and thinking back to last week’s AOY with the pic of the steamers with a large grey building above the town on the hillside to the right, I conclude that this is a picture of Oban railway station.

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      1. Well done, Andi. Bang n form today, even if there was a clue from last week. Oban it is, and the official opening of the Callander & Oban Railway in June, 1880. The pic is from the same MacBrayne history as last week’s steamers, which got a great boost in traffic from the new rail link direct to the pier.

        Your comment made me take a closer look as well – and realise there’s something missing from the hilltop… Oban’s best known landmark, McCaig’s Tower. Building that didn’t begin till 1897.

        Railway arrival in Oban has now reverted to its 1880 origins. Open air. So much for progress.

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      2. Leoidheseach? Agus mise Sgiatheanach! C0 a chriodeabh e! Caiet an Leodhais a bha sibh?

        Excuse the eileanaich lapsing into the vernacular. And, Vestas, if my spelling of the Gaidhlig has got a bit meargach over the years.

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        2. My mothers family are Morrisons so as you can probably guess they come from Ness – Skigersta/Port of Ness/Eoropie mainly.

          My gaelic is appalling after all these years – I blame Glaswegian teachers trying to beat it out of me 🙂

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            1. I’ll believe it when I see it Tris.

              In the late 70s/early 80s BBC Scotland got heavily involved in Gaelic learners programming – probably more than a few people who remember “Can Seo”, but do they also remember the book/tape/record that went along with it? There was a lot of money & resources pumped into gaelic learners but it only stemmed the tide for maybe 5 years. By the end of the 80s gaelic learners O grades were virtually non-existant outside the Western Isles (Na h-Eileanan Siar) again.

              I understand a lot of people have signed up to the course on Duolingo, but signing up to a free course rarely results in anything other than 95% dropouts as the initial enthusiasm wanes 😦

              The problem is that outside Na h-Eileanan Siar there’s pretty much nowhere you’re ever going to use Gaelic. The last time I spoke Gaelic (apart from Lewis) was in Eire. That was an “interesting” (confusing) experience, probably not helped by my rusty language skills 😀

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              1. Yes, I know that there is always a massive drop out. I’ve taught a few evening classes and you start off with a roomful and within weeks there are only half. Then the weather gets bad and you lose more.

                The idea always seem good, but the reality of learning a language is very much more difficult.

                The shame of it is that, whilst you are right, there is very little need for it, it is so good for your brain to speak two languages or more.

                I guess the trouble with learning Gaelic is that if you have no one to speak to, you probably forget it pretty quickly.

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                1. Its not really a question of “need”, its more a case of “why bother to learn?” if you live on the mainland. You statistically have more chance of meeting a Russian speaker in Scotland than someone who speaks gaelic 😦

                  As an aside… Even in the 1970s it was virtually impossible to find anyone on Skye who spoke gaelic. I remember my mother being quite surprised to find a gaelic-speaking woman who ran a B&B just outside Uig. I also remember her being quite scathing about the “Irish” (she meant South Uist/Barra) dialect the woman had. Non-gaelic speakers might not understand that but it is/was quite pronounced 🙂

                  No doubt the college on Skye helps now but last time I was there (mid-00s) most of the businesses seemed to be run by English people (especially B&Bs). Unbelievably expensive in housing terms compared to Lewis where if you build a new house you’re immediately into negative equity.

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                  1. I suppose, except there is more to a language than communication.

                    There’s the culture, for example.

                    I can’t imagine any of the Scandinavians wanting to ditch their languages in favour of another. Virtually everyone speaks English, mainly, it seems, thanks to Netflix. But I’ve never heard of anyone in Iceland, Faroes, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, suggesting that they should just adopt English.

                    Other nations seem to be proud of their languages.

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