Hogmanay bash that never was...
Tucked up in bed to end a crazy year
I was reading a Sunday magazine interview with a famous musician – just about my age – and it included one of those ‘ either/ or’ quickfire questionnaires.
You know the kind of thing - McDonald’s or fish and chips?.. Mallaig or Malaga? . . . Jack Reacher or James Bond?
I was quite in tune with the old rocker until the final question – Christmas or New Year.
He went for sleigh bells . . . I went for THE bells!
And isn’t it bizarre that while I can remember lots of things I’ve done on Hogmanay and Ne’erday – the one I’ll probably remember most is 2020 . . . when I didn’t do anything at all!
Last Thursday night, I was tucked up in bed by 11.15pm – and calculated it was the first time I’d missed ‘ the bells’ in fifty years!
I reckon I was probably about ten years old when I was first allowed to ‘ stay up’ – and that was probably only until the first footers arrived at 12.15.
Before that – I was regularly in my jim- jams and off to bed by eight.
But I must have been aged only four or five when I first ‘ cracked’ Ne’erday.
Woken up by the noise, I had wandered bleary- eyed downstairs and was smothered with hugs and kisses from half- sozzled friends and neighbours.
Even better, some of them stuffed a sixpence, shilling or even a halfcrown in my pyjama shirt pocket. And it worked year after year.
Aha! Maybe THAT’S why the old rocker in the interview choose Christmas.
He didn’t have a pocket in his pyjamas!
As child changed to teenager, New Year changed with it. At fourteen, I got a sip of advocaat and lemonade. At fifteen, it was a glass of Sweetheart Stout and aged sixteen, a proper can of Tennents lager.
By seventeen – my old dad had given up on me!
But even right through to young adulthood – there was one Ne’erday rule that remained inviolable.
I had to be home at the stroke of Big Ben . . . to kiss my mother and wish her ‘ Happy New Year’.
One year, I left the Gartferry Hotel’s Ferryboat Bar at 11.41 and jogged to Belmont’s Burnbank Place for 11.55. But I got there. And so did the sentiment.
Aye - a guid New Year . . . and I’ve had a few of them.
I remember I used to wonder – probably over decades – where I would be for the last seconds of the last day of the century.
Times Square in New York? Sydney Harbour Bridge? Copacabana beach in Rio?
It turned out to be Glasgow’s George Square – clutching a Daily Record notebook – asking revellers if they were having a good time.
Whatever their answer was – it was a better time than I was having!
For my favourite Ne’erday story of all . . . I have this one. And regrettably - or perhaps thankfully – I’m not even it!
But one of my old mates – let’s call him John Wilson – was a student teacher at Ayr’s former Craigie College.
He worked part- time as a barman – in that Ferryboat Bar I mentioned earlier – and the Festive season offered him extra hours, some at double wages and excellent tips.
With some regret, he called his parents in the Borders and explained he wouldn’t be home for Christmas or New Year.
On New Year’s Day, he was lying in bed around noon when he heard a car outside . . . and familiar voices.
He peered from the curtains – to witness his tee- total and devoutly Catholic parents arriving by surprise. John dressed swiftly and began hiding dirty underpants behind sofas and kicking empty beer cans under them.
He welcomed them in, sat them down and was quickly pouring tea to go with the shortbread his mum had brought for him.
“Where’s Harry?” his dad asked of his flatmate. “Still in bed?”
“He’s sleeping – he was up all night studying for exams,” said John, hopefully creating an aura of scholarly endeavour.
What he didn’t know was that Harry had arrived home late from a party – and hadn’t arrived home alone!
In the midst of their tea – the room began to fill with strange noises. The kind of noises you might associate with a virile young man, a consenting young lady and a cast- iron Victorian double bed that cost two quid from Callan’s saleroom.
The noises came louder . . . and faster.
As they all looked uncomfortably at each other, John suddenly came up with an explanation. And for years later, claimed it was “sheer genius” given the challenging circumstances.
“Did I tell you Harry got one of those fitness machines for Christmas? He can cycle, row or lift weights. Heck of contraption!”
And as the noise from six feet above his parents’ heads subsided – John thought he’d actually got away with it.
Then . . . he heard Harry’s footsteps coming down the stairs. And then from the hallway . . . Harry’s voice. “John – you got any more . . .” Harry opened the lounge door, stood completely stark naked and finished his sentence - “. . . more of those condoms?”
“Oh . . . Mr and Mrs Wilson . . . a happy new year to you . . .” was all he could bluster before fleeing upstairs.
Mr and Mrs Wilson fled a few minutes later. As John recalled the story, I said I couldn’t think of anything worse.
“Well . . . I could have been my dad - stuck in the car with my mum - for the three hour drive home!”
I calculated it was the first time I’d missed the bells in fifty years