The students seemed to live on cigarettes, pasta and large trays of scones

On the second day we were divided into groups for our first hike, a 15-mile stroll through Glenmore forest around the area of Rothiemurchus.

Just before we left, Jimmy Chaplain came over to our group, commented that “Burton” would be smart enough for the role of group leader, and handed me a map and compass. I nodded confidently, called the lads together, explained the route we’d be taking and off we went. Fifteen minutes later we were hopelessly lost in the forest.

To our great misfortune, not only was I useless with the map and compass, but so was every other person in our group. Naturally we all sought to blame each other. I think it was Dodge who suggested that we could find south by looking for the sun, but we were in deepest Glenmore Forest and it was raining.

We spent the next three hours wandering around looking for paths that weren’t there, or finding a path that just took us somewhere equally baffling.

The worst part was trying to cross a huge area of uprooted tree trunks that looked like a gigantic ploughed field with drills three or four feet high.

Persuasive powers

It took us ages to work our way laboriously through that tree cemetery and several of us considered giving in and just sitting down to await rescue. I did, however, use my persuasive powers to get everybody to the other side, where I suggested they rest for a while.

I decided to move ahead with Dougie as a partner, looking for a possible way out of this Highland hell. Amazingly, just 100 yards further on through the trees, we found ourselves on the edge of a huge clearing filled with canvas tents and jeeps and military equipment. We had discovered Rothiemurchus military camp.

While Dougie walked back to get the others, I went down into the camp and explained my plight to some soldier or other who quickly organized a transport vehicle to take us back to Loch Morlich.

We were ecstatic and boasted to our friends in the other group how we had been driven home and hadn’t had to walk at all. Jimmy Chaplain obviously noticed our cockiness over tea and resolved to teach us a lesson. So, when everyone on the trip prepared to leave the following day for some leisure time on Loch Morlich beach, our group were called over by Chappy to hear the good news that we were going to try the walk for a second time!

This time we were a lot more careful. We got back safely just as the rest were returning from the beach, happy and a bit sunburnt.

Our week at Loch Morlich was to be quite idyllic, giving us plenty of time to bond and to discuss our different options for the future. It would be the last time for many years that I would see my Lawside school friends together, and indeed it was the last time I ever saw quite a number of them.

That school trip was unforgettable, particularly because it marked the end of the first part of my life.

In mid-June of 1971, just after my return from Loch Morlich, I persuaded Joe to let me come over to visit him at university. I’d recently attended a “taster” overnight stay with Charlie Maclean at the new Stirling University campus and we’d had a fantastic time charming two Geordie lasses.

Portraits

That year, Joe and about a dozen of his fellow students were living the bohemian life in Crail Castle. Interestingly, when I went over to visit him, I noticed that the whole castle smelled of cannabis and the students seemed to live on cigarettes, pasta and large trays of scones. Oh, I nearly forgot: there was alcohol too!

The castle’s wine cellar was, unfortunately, empty so the students had converted it into a kind of Gothic discotheque. Joe had painted huge portraits of Jimi Hendrix, Bob Marley and Mick Jagger on the walls and there was a very loud sound system in the corner.

Upstairs in the huge lounge, there was a grand piano on which a Jewish lad called Andy could recreate the latest tunes of the up-and-coming Elton John. Various musicians would bring along their instruments to the lounge for long jam sessions, with my brother as lead vocalist, and many of his first songs were recorded on reel-to-reel tape right there in that room.

Having taken a long bus ride over to Crail from Dundee I spent most of that Saturday wandering around the castle confirming all that Joe had described to me. There was little or no food, it was freezing and most residents were sleeping, but the atmosphere began to change as more and more came back to life. Soon there was a serious party.

After a few drinks and some conversation with a girl wearing a headband and an afghan coat, I was bold enough to persuade a guy called Robbie to sell me a cube of Acid.

Dougie Reid and some others of my wilder pals in Dundee had been taking the drug on and off for quite a while, but I had always resisted the supposed mindbending trip produced by LSD.

So, deciding that I had to try this experience just one time, with a bit of trepidation I swallowed the cube. Joe was furious as he’d warned his pals not to give me anything psychedelic. This upset me too, and I said I didn’t want to do it anymore – but it was too late.

A little later, I looked out of the castle window and saw a French fishing village, complete with ‘Onion Johnnie’ in beret and stripy top on the quayside, and I was unperturbed, as was the case when I walked through the poster of Stonehenge and waved back to the party-goers in the lounge.

Switched off

I got fed up with apparent hours of Led Zeppelin’s “Moby Dick” bass riff and drum solo blaring in my ears, took it off the turntable and put it back in its sleeve, and I didn’t worry when Robbie told me the record-player had already been switched off.

But when I looked down into the room from the corner of the ceiling and saw myself slumped in an old armchair, I decided that this was enough hallucinating to last me a lifetime.

A week later, at home with Mum and Dad and with my last days of schooling at Lawside Academy beckoning, I considered my night in Crail Castle. I concluded that, although a lifestyle of sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll was undoubtedly available at university, it probably wasn’t for me, given my background and upbringing.

I decided that, when I wasn’t studying, I’d just concentrate on the sex and rock ‘n’ roll.

The End.