– the actor, has died. So it goes.

He was best known for The Prisoner, a deeply surreal TV series which McGoohan was instrumental in bringing about. I didn’t see the first showing in the 60s but caught up with it on a late-night repeat during my first year at University.

Portmeirion, Clough Williams-Elliss’s fantasy village, was a perfect setting for this tale of paranoia and imprisonment, harking back to Orwell’s 1984 and, in a way, forward to TV’s Big Brother today, cleverly adumbrating the suspicion of authority which is now widespread and the way in which (some of) the masses can be kept quiet by diversionary entertainment.

In the programmes McGoohan resigns his (secret service?) job but is drugged, kidnapped and wakes up in “The Village” as Number Six. All together now, “I am not a number. I am a free man.” In each of 16 episodes he tries to escape. He always fails – or is brought back.

While having the trappings of a thriller or spy type story there was more than a hint of Science Fiction in the treatment, not so much Portmeirion itself, though that is a surrealist’s dream, as the famous bouncing white balloon guards and the behind-the-scenes activities of Number Two and his minions. (What was that seesaw thingy with the cameras at either end all about? We already knew the village’s inhabitants were under surveillance.)

I did think the 17th, final, episode – which was apparently made up on the hoof – was a bit bonkers, though. “Them Bones” sung chorally as a background to a kind of trial of Number Two? Eh?

I saw an episode a few months ago and it was striking how 1960s it looked. But the premise behind it held up well.

The whole thing would never see the light of day now. Schedulers would run kicking and screaming at the thought.

I never really watched McGoohan’s earlier success, Danger Man, – but remember him playing the Earl of Moray, Lord James Stewart – Mary Queen of Scots’s illegitimate half brother – with a fine display of impatience towards his feckless sister. McGoohan also made a marvellous Edward Longshanks in Mel Gibson’s Braveheart.

Patrick McGoohan 1928-2009.

Be seeing you.

– who was a member of the most distinctively named 60s pop band Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick and Tich has died.

The band’s name was supposed to be a conflation of their nicknames. Curiously my class at school had a Mick too and a set of other nicknames which were eerily similar. Nowadays we might have set up a tribute band (No. We wouldn’t. Really.) but we always joked we could call ourselves J D, Hodie, Dreek, Mick and Worm. The similarity broke down a bit at that last one, though.

The real band made it big with a series of tersely titled Ken Howard and Alan Blaikley songs, Hold Tight, Hideaway, Bend It, Okay, Zabadak among them, before morphing away from the teen market slightly with a series of wonderfully over the top tracks like Legend Of Xanadu, Last Night In Soho, Wreck Of The Antoinette and Don Juan. Because of the Top Of The Pops appearance with Legend Of Zanadu Dave always thought he’d be remembered as “that guy with the whip.”

When he left the band I had thought he had subsequently become a record producer but various sources including The Independent says he was actually head A&R man for WEA.

After Dave Dee left the rest carried on as DBM&T, changing their sound to try to achieve musical credibility, an endeavour within which the single Mr President wasn’t entirely a failure.

They apparently all got together again latterly to tour the nostalgia circuit.

Dave Dee, 17/12/1941 – 9/1/2009. So it goes.

Here’s Last Night In Soho in memoriam.

Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich: Last Night in Soho

Today Woolies in Kirkcaldy ran its shutter down for the last time.
A fixture on the British High Street for nearly 100 years, a lot of Woolies’ shops were in Art Deco style buildings. Though the Kirkcaldy store shut for a while (its location was at the “wrong” end of the High Street, which ironically has recently undergone something of a regeneration: that’ll probably Credit crunch to a close) it reopened in 1998 in a mall location, The Mercat, which runs off the High Street and back round again to the rear of Marks & Sparks.
I remember the Dumbarton and Helensburgh stores fondly from my youth. They had fantastic wooden floors, their bon-bons and rum and butter caramels were a delight to my young sweet tooth and more recently it used to be good for buying cheaply singles that had recently fallen out of the charts.
I can’t say I made the Kirkcaldy store a destination every week but it was good to have it available for all those things it sold that nowhere else in the town centre did and it held a better selection of sweets than the local Tesco.
It was sad to see the state to which the administrators reduced it in its final days – ugly reduced posters plastered everywhere, as many laundry hooks as you could ever wish for (plus hundreds more,) empty spaces galore on the shelves.
I think it could have been viable but the latest high-ups allowed no leeway to local managers and as a result some of the items for sale verged on the bizarre (though it wasn’t actually in Woolies I saw racks of England tops for sale in Kirkcaldy.)
It will leave a big gap in the Mercat.
Doctorvee has recently posted about Woolies history and has another post planned.

Got your steak pie, black bun and shortbread at the ready have you?

Me neither – except for the shortbread. (I was given a tin of shortbread as a Christmas present. It was for the tin really; I have a small collection of nice tins and this, a good example, was one of five tins I was given this year. Three even had things in them.)

Despite the tradition – which the good lady’s family used to uphold – there will be no steak pie at Son Of The Rock towers this New Year. I haven’t knowingly eaten meat from a cow or bull ever since I heard about BSE. Nor will there be black bun: I’ve never tasted black bun in my life. Were it not for The Broons I doubt I’d have heard of the stuff.

We now have to prepare for “The Bells.” The house is supposed to be clean and tidy; lots of hoovering and dusting to be done. Then we’ll lay out the booze, shortbread and cherry cake in case there’s a first foot.

For the last few years we’ve had some of our sons’ friends around to bring in the New Year but they may be going to someone else’s this time around.

Is it my imagination or is Hogmanay TV now utter rubbish? It was fine when we had Scotch And Wry but Rikki Fulton has long since gone to the great Last Call in the sky and taken I M Jolly with him. Instead we’re stuck with the BBC Scotland-given-right to watch Only An Excuse? for the single laugh it will provide and the awesome naffness of the show that ushers in the New Year – usually with an inappropriately dressed Jackie Bird, some pretty crap Scottish entertainers desperate for the exposure plus an extremely po-faced fiddler and an accompanying accordionist. But STV’s efforts are usually even worse.

I suppose everybody is too busy to notice. There are more organised events than there were in my youth. Edinburgh and Glasgow’s Hogmanay dos are no longer the only ones. They even had one in Kirkcaldy one year but I think they’ve given that up.

This New Year, what with Credit Crunch and recession, is likely to be a sickly child. Not much to celebrate really.

But celebrate we will. It’s what we Scots do to light up the dark winter and forget the troubles of the world for one night.

*Hogmanay

I’m old enough to remember when the 25th December wasn’t a holiday in Scotland. My dad went to work in the morning, as I recall, even though he had a “white collar” job.
I don’t remember if the shops were open – local and paper shops likely were, I should think, but not the others.
It was the influence of radio and more especially TV emanating from England – with its different from normal programming at this time – that tipped the balance towards Christmas and away from New Year – which always was a holiday here, but not in England, then – as a focus of celebration.
As kids, of course, we always got presents, though not the floods some children may receive now (which the Credit Crunch may have stemmed a bit.)
Sometimes the good old days weren’t so good.

Certainly by the time I was a teenager, however, the present arrangements were the norm and Christmas was the juggernaut we all know and lo……

New Year was made a holiday in England by Ted Heath’s government, recognising the fact that there was so much absenteeism on Jan 1st – hangover induced or not – that making it a holiday would make little or no difference.
In Scotland we therefore got Jan 2nd – “Ted Heath’s day” as it was called for a while – and the tradition of the New Year’s Day football derby withered on the vine.

Despite its drawbacks and burdens, all the more so for those who’re struggling financially, the prospect of a holiday and respite from the daily grind is welcome at this dark time of year. Perhaps if Christmas didn’t exist, it would be necessary to invent it. Oh, wait a minute, Saturnalia…

(My thoughts do go out to shopworkers who have to ramp it all up again on Boxing Day.)

Seasonal felicitations to one and all: especially those who have been kind enough to comment on here in the past half year or so.

If you enter Kirkcaldy railway station on the War Memorial side, go past the ticket office, and make your way up the stairs to Platform 1 (Trains for Edinburgh and the South) you will see hung permanently on the wall of the waiting area a poem, of all things. It is cut into an unusual material for such a display, linoleum – the origin of one of the queer-like smells I posted about recently. This is partly a celebration in verse of the town of Kirkcaldy and its most famous product, but more, it must be said, of the halcyon days of the railways. It is called The Boy in the Train and was written by Mary Campbell Smith.

Curiously, I first came across these same verses thirty years ago when I was working as a Research Chemist in Hertford, just north of London. My (English) co-workers brought them to me because they wanted to know what they all meant! Imagine their astonishment when I told them I would be taking the train to “Kirkcaddy” the very next day. (I was coming up as part of my holiday to visit the good lady’s parents who, at that time, lived in Glenrothes. Kirkcaldy was the nearest suitable railway station if you didn’t have access to a car; which at the time I didn’t.) I only moved to Kirkcaldy myself twenty years ago.

The poem has stuck in my mind ever since. (It is not only cheap music that has potency.) By one of those strange word association things that probably shows what kind of brain I have, whenever someone muses on what they’ll be eating for their evening meal I always mutter to myself, “a herrin’ or maybe a haddie.”

I very much doubt that the town’s name was ever pronounced Kirkcaddy as in the poem. That usage was clearly adopted to fit the rhyme scheme.

The Boy in the Train by Mary Campbell Smith

Whit wey does the engine say ‘Toot-toot’?
Is it feart to gang in the tunnel?
Whit wey is the furnace no pit oot
When the rain gangs doon the funnel?
What’ll I hae for my tea the nicht?
A herrin’, or maybe a haddie?
Has Gran’ma gotten electric licht?
Is the next stop Kirkcaddy?

There’s a hoodie-craw on yon turnip-raw!
An’ seagulls! – sax or seeven.
I’ll no fa’ oot o’ the windae, Maw,
Its sneckit, as sure as I’m leevin’.
We’re into the tunnel! we’re a’ in the dark!
But dinna be frichtit, Daddy,
We’ll sune be comin’ to Beveridge Park,
And the next stop’s Kirkcaddy!

Is yon the mune I see in the sky?
It’s awfu’ wee an’ curly,
See! there’s a coo and a cauf ootbye,
An’ a lassie pu’in’ a hurly!
He’s chackit the tickets and gien them back,
Sae gie me my ain yin, Daddy.
Lift doon the bag frae the luggage rack,
For the next stop’s Kirkcaddy!

There’s a gey wheen boats at the harbour mou’,
And eh! dae ya see the cruisers?
The cinnamon drop I was sookin’ the noo
Has tummelt an’ stuck tae ma troosers. . .
I’ll sune be ringin’ ma Gran’ma’s bell,
She’ll cry, ‘Come ben, my laddie’,
For I ken mysel’ by the queer-like smell
That the next stop’s Kirkcaddy!

Since it is not in Standard English doctorvee considers the whole thing to be written in slang, though it is of course in a variant of Scots, which, while now declined, was once one of the great languages of mediaeval Europe, capable of producing a classic work such as Ane Satyre Of The Thrie Estatis.

I make no literary claims for the poem in question, however. Since it is written from the viewpoint of a child its language is, no doubt deliberately, debased and the “poetry” is really no more than doggerel. (Though it is more than several degrees above McGonagall.)

Since those far off days in Hertford I have always had a hankering to provide a cod English translation. So to my old colleagues at MRPRA, to doctorvee (and to anyone who cares) here is:-

The Boy in the Train 2008

For what reason does the locomotive make that piercing noise?
Is it afraid of confined spaces?
Why is the fire not extinguished
When rain falls onto it down the chimney?
What will we be eating for our evening meal tonight?
Herring perhaps, or haddock?
Has Grandmother the modern convenience of electric lighting?
Is the next stop Kirkcaldy?

There’s a hooded crow atop a raw swede,*
And six or seven seagulls,
I’ll not fall from the carriage window, mother,
It is secured as certainly as I am eleven years of age.
We have entered the tunnel and there is no light,
But there is no need to be scared, father,
Beveridge Park will soon be in view.
And the next stop is Kirkcaldy.

Is that the moon I can see in the sky?
It’s terribly small and curved.
Look! There’s a cow and a calf out there,
And a young girl pulling along a small playcart,
The attendant has checked and returned the tickets,
So give me my own, father,
Take the bag down from the luggage rack,
Because the next stop is Kirkcaldy.

There is a plethora of boats in the mouth of the harbour,
And, I say! Can you espy the cruisers?
The sweet comestible I was enjoying just then,
Has fallen and glued itself to my trousers,
Soon I shall be ringing the bell at Grandmother’s house,
She will say, “Enter, my fine young fellow,”
For I know myself, by the strange aroma,
That the next stop is Kirkcaldy!

*Edited to add:- “raw swedes” should be “row of swedes” – see Comments

Today, sadly, Woolworths went into administration. This looks like the demise of one of the fixtures of British High Streets (though the company started in the US) since ever I can remember. 99 years in fact. Some of their original shops were Art Deco too.

Another source of sadness is that doctorvee works part-time in the Kirkcaldy branch, so it’s like a personal blow.

It is the latest, but will not be the last, victim of the credit crunch. The company is probably viable on a day to day basis but its creditors wanted their money back. Since this has forced Woolies into administration they will now most likely not get it (or at least not all of it.)

There had been attempts to sell it to someone else for £1 and they would take the debt over, but these have fallen through.

Most likely the immediate reason for today’s administration is that the staff were due to be paid tomorrow and the money wasn‒t readily available for that; or their bank (Barclay’s) wouldn’t make it available.

Ironically, Woolies’s cash flow was probably quite good this week as they have had a 20% off offer on everything (only 10% on DVDs and electrical goods.) The Kirkcaldy store has certainly been busy. Yet I suppose these moneys would not have got through the system in time to prevent the administration.

While supermarkets have been expanding into most product areas and therefore undermining them and the rise of £ shops undercut them, Woolies was still the only place in the High Street where you could be sure of buying certain items – ironmongery and sewing thread spring to mind here and in Kirkcaldy their selection of sweets was greater than their competitors – so it will certainly be missed.

Some stores may be saved but most will soon have disappeared.

So it goes.

Yesterday, walking in Kirkcaldy town centre, the unmistakable smell of linseed hit my nostrils.

This reminded me of how, when I was young and whisky was being produced there, the air in Dumbarton at certain times was full of the smell of malt. It still takes me back whenever I get the merest hint of malting out on passing a distillery.

Kirkcaldy was once famous for its particular ‘queer like smell‘, but now, since the demise of the linoleum industry, I detect it only rarely – perhaps when the ground has just become damp after a drier spell, but I’m not really sure why. The land where the factories were sited is probably saturated with the stuff.

Nairn’s (as Forbo?) still, I believe, make Cushionflor (sic) in Kirkcaldy but that doesn’t require the quantities of linseed that linoleum did – and many fewer workers. Apparently it’s great stuff against MRSA and other hospital bugs, though. Fantastic.

Forbo also sell something called Marmoleum now, though, which seems to be a linoleum derivative. Nairn’s erstwhile main factories in the town have, however, been demolished. There was a hint that a new swimming pool might be built where they were sited but the council has opted for a location near the promenade.

The malt smell in Dumbarton has also vanished – forever it would seem, as the distillery which spewed it out is defunct and it too is for the most part demolished. Its landmark tower survives, if decrepitly, but what use will be found for that in these uncertain times is problematic.

Sadly, those now growing up in both towns won’t have that olfactory memory to bring everything back whenever they catch a stray whiff in adult life.

In Dumbarton when I was growing up I can remember branches in the town of the British Linen Bank, the Glasgow Savings Bank, the National and Commercial Bank (itself previously merged from the separate National and Commercial banks,) the Bank of Scotland, the Clydesdale Bank and the Royal Bank of Scotland. Possibly the Co-op ran a banking service in its main store and there would have been the Post Office Savings Bank. In addition there were various Building Societies – though some of them were run out of solicitor’s offices. This was in the days when a lot of working people didn’t have bank accounts! (If that was because they didn’t trust banks with their money it now turns out they were probably right to be wary.)

With the Lloyd’sTSB – HBOS merger that will bring the number down to three banks plus whatever Building Societies are there now.

Will depositors’ or investors’ money be safer as a result? Given recent events who can tell?

In Kirkcaldy, where I live now, the merger might mean two bank outlets – which are quite often queued out as it is – may be replaced by one. I hardly think the service will improve.

I have also noticed recently some Royal Bank poster adverts trumpeting the fact that they will be open on Saturdays. I believe one of the English banks is doing something similar. They’re making a virtue out of going back to something they ought never to have abandoned in the first place????

For, yes, in those days when I was growing up, banks opened on a Saturday – at least in the mornings.