When the Trades Fortnight nears, I get this pungent, nippy niff of soot in my schnozzle.
I’m back to Julys of the 1950s and – like hunners of Aberdonians – heading off to a holiday on a toot-tootie, diddly-dum-diddly-dum steam train. How we loved ‘em. But dinna dare stick yer heidie oot the window towards the engine, or ye’d get gobs o’ stingy soot in yer een!
Joint Station hoochin’ with happy families – shooder to shooder, battered case to case, lined up in queues for their various journeys to the north, south and even west, thanks to the spectacular Deeside line up to Ballater, tragically axed by butcher Beeching. The Simpsons would be off for a week to the myriad excitements (and I’m not being sarky) of Montrose or Abroath, or further doon sooth and “up the watter” to Dunoon or Rothesay.
Then, the highlight of my young life, a week at Butlin’s holiday camp at Ayr. Paradise on earth, especially for an only child desperate to make friends. Constant entertainment, total supervision for kids.
Mind you, looking back, certain bits of camp life make me shudder. Like, every evening, parents putting their bairns to bed, then heading off to the ballroom while Redcoats patrolled, announcing over the tannoy the numbers of the chalets with crying tots. I never grat – can’t imagine why not, given I was all alone in the dark. And, yes, I did make friends, with a Maureen from Glasgow, also a one-and-only, and we met up every year.
There’s zilch to love about today’s trains
Those train journeys were part of the adventure, especially having lunch on the wonderful buffet cars, glistening with polished wood, crackling with starched white linen. Fit a thrill, having yer delicious mince and tatties while diddly-dumming through the countryside.
My fascination with the white-jacketed waiters swaying towards us, balancing tomato soup without spilling a drop. Dad splooshing gobbets of it doon his tie every time the train stotted ower a rail rivet. The meal didnae half eat up the miles. No sooner had you finished yer sponge and custard than you were in Glasgow.
There’s zilch to love about today’s trains. Too often, they’re a nightmare, like mine last week. This travesty to Glasgow didn’t even have a flaming buffet trolley and no announcement that it didn’t exist. We’d just to wait, hope, then give up.
Nor did anyone tell us the reserved seats weren’t reserved anymore. On early, I clocked tickets on the backs were there none, and someone already in mine, so plonked down on another.
Not so great for the tail-enders and those who piled on to the packed train at other stations, all finding cuckoos in their nests. I actually anticipated fisticuffs as some faced-off.
Someone later told me the seat chaos was because they’d dropped one of the carriages. But why didn’t they tell us? And why is rail travel in the UK so much worse than it was more than 60 years ago?
Moreen Simpson is a former assistant editor of the Evening Express and The Press & Journal, and started her journalism career in 1970