Wednesday, June 07, 2006
Glasgow neuralgia
Regular readers will recall the day that the whole thing was conceived. Four dafties on a boat on Loch Lomond agreed it could be fun to have a school reunion after almost 30 years.
Two of them were left to get on with organising it; spending many months trying to trace former pupils of the High School of Glasgow. It wasn't an easy task; and at times it would have been simpler to walk away, not least when you discover the school doesn't have any record of the two who were doing all the hard work.
"That's no way to treat the school captain of 75-76," I said. "We know you weren't," said the lady in the school's development office. Darn.
By and by around 75 former pupils got in touch and on Friday, June 2, 33 of us got together again at Old Anniesland.
In keeping with the style of Glasgow in the mid-70s, it was a "people's reunion".
None of your fancy black tie for us, said the invitation, just come in whatever you feel most comfy in. That could have been dangerous, but in the end it worked splendidly and we had the widest fashion statement possible, ranging from a full Prince Charlie to lounge suits to blazers and ties, jeans and tee-shirts, oh, and one black tie.
We also eschewed a top table. Such is the style of great revolutionaries.
In the background, there was music from the days these guys were at school in the city centre; there was original footage of some of them on board the pirate ship Radio Scotland and many others having a snowball fight in the playground.
How we laughed when one young wag in the movie, carrying the largest snawba' imaginable, reacted bizarrely when he saw the camera - and tried to push the said ba' into his pocket.
There were pictures posted around the room (how they have all aged, dear reader, I'm the only one wearing well) that caused much chattering and laughter. And there was a quiz: trying to recall the real name of teachers we only really knew as Ratty Joe, Holy Joe or Psycho.
My fellow gangmaster and I were chuffed to bits by the response and the atmosphere. "The hard work paid off, then," he said. "Aye, in spades. But we stick to the plan." "Agreed."
The plan was to underline this was a one-off as we had said from the start; a never to be repeated production. And we would retire from the organising - going out on a high (school) at the end of the night. And so we did.
"Well, that plan lasted long, didn't it?" said my chum. "Och, sometimes it's best to be pragmatic and they were so nice aboot it a'. We surely couldnae say no?"
And so it came to pass that before we hud even went to the Post Office to collect oor pensions, oor fellow Former Pupils had encouraged us to come back - and organise the next one.
Pit it in the diary: 7 for 7.30 on Friday, June 3, 2011. The bookings are already coming in.
Charles Fletcher
charles.fletcher@caledoniamedia.com
Regular readers will recall the day that the whole thing was conceived. Four dafties on a boat on Loch Lomond agreed it could be fun to have a school reunion after almost 30 years.
Two of them were left to get on with organising it; spending many months trying to trace former pupils of the High School of Glasgow. It wasn't an easy task; and at times it would have been simpler to walk away, not least when you discover the school doesn't have any record of the two who were doing all the hard work.
"That's no way to treat the school captain of 75-76," I said. "We know you weren't," said the lady in the school's development office. Darn.
By and by around 75 former pupils got in touch and on Friday, June 2, 33 of us got together again at Old Anniesland.
In keeping with the style of Glasgow in the mid-70s, it was a "people's reunion".
None of your fancy black tie for us, said the invitation, just come in whatever you feel most comfy in. That could have been dangerous, but in the end it worked splendidly and we had the widest fashion statement possible, ranging from a full Prince Charlie to lounge suits to blazers and ties, jeans and tee-shirts, oh, and one black tie.
We also eschewed a top table. Such is the style of great revolutionaries.
In the background, there was music from the days these guys were at school in the city centre; there was original footage of some of them on board the pirate ship Radio Scotland and many others having a snowball fight in the playground.
How we laughed when one young wag in the movie, carrying the largest snawba' imaginable, reacted bizarrely when he saw the camera - and tried to push the said ba' into his pocket.
There were pictures posted around the room (how they have all aged, dear reader, I'm the only one wearing well) that caused much chattering and laughter. And there was a quiz: trying to recall the real name of teachers we only really knew as Ratty Joe, Holy Joe or Psycho.
My fellow gangmaster and I were chuffed to bits by the response and the atmosphere. "The hard work paid off, then," he said. "Aye, in spades. But we stick to the plan." "Agreed."
The plan was to underline this was a one-off as we had said from the start; a never to be repeated production. And we would retire from the organising - going out on a high (school) at the end of the night. And so we did.
"Well, that plan lasted long, didn't it?" said my chum. "Och, sometimes it's best to be pragmatic and they were so nice aboot it a'. We surely couldnae say no?"
And so it came to pass that before we hud even went to the Post Office to collect oor pensions, oor fellow Former Pupils had encouraged us to come back - and organise the next one.
Pit it in the diary: 7 for 7.30 on Friday, June 3, 2011. The bookings are already coming in.
Charles Fletcher
charles.fletcher@caledoniamedia.com
# posted by scotcast @ 4:58 pm 
