We’d seen the coloured test card at Auntie Mary’s house and it looked brilliant

Nicknames were almost entirely the preserve of the boys at school and only one girl was not called by her Christian name. For some obscure reason Eileen Beck only ever got called Beck. My personal favourite was the one I helped establish when playing football over the field on South Road.

One lad from a few closes up the road was Ian Webster, a year or so younger than me and his name Ian was gradually replaced by Cooch after I spotted his passing resemblance to Coochee Bear on a TV show.

The teachers at Lawside of course had their fair share of nicknames too. The diminutive head of English, Mr Ferrie, was known as Tich while his always perfectly-dressed colleague Mr McIntosh was Mac the Mod.

Jimmy Chaplain often went by the name of Chappy, Mr Mahoney from languages was Slip (Goodness knows why), Mr Paterson was Piggy, Mr Devine was Gummer and Mr Adams the headmaster was always called Ted. And so the list went on. Probably the cleverest nickname was the one awarded to the head of classics, Mr Burns.

His bald head naturally meant everyone knew him as Eggo but the name was also a brilliant pun on the Latin word Ego for I. TV domination TV was beginning to dominate our evenings at home. While Mum wouldn’t miss a single episode of Coronation Street, Peyton Place, Crossroads or Z Cars, Dad had a particular liking for a war series called Hogan’s Heroes.

Joe and I were, of course, huge fans of Top of the Pops with a chance of seeing our own musical heroes but we were also big fans of The Monkees, a crazy show from America featuring four young musicians modelled not too subtly on our Beatles, doing mad things and singing their songs.

Another show from America that made us laugh was The Beverly Hillbillies, with oil millionaire Jed Clampett and his family causing mayhem in upmarket Los Angeles.

We particularly liked his tomboy daughter Elly Mae, played by the absolutely gorgeous Donna Douglas.

Joe was also an avid fan of that strange series The Prisoner but I couldn’t understand it.

Television took a big step forward later that school session with the introduction of colour via new sets with 625 lines as opposed to the old 405 lines ours had.

We’d seen the coloured test card at Auntie Mary’s house and it looked brilliant so we were hoping that we’d soon be able to afford one.

As usual, we’d have to be patient and continue for now to watch the world in black and white. And what a world it was turning into.

There were half a million US troops fighting Communism in Vietnam, the boxing hero Muhammad Ali was put in jail for refusing to fight there, British farming was devastated by an outbreak of foot and mouth disease and Israel had a short but vicious war with Egypt.

We seemed to be pretty safe living in Dundee but once we heard that China had tested a hydrogen bomb, we realised that nowhere was really safe and never would be again.

Thankfully there were things to cheer us all up in music and sport and not just the wonderful goings-on in Scottish football.

Francis Chichester successfully sailed singlehandedly around the whole world and returned in triumph to Plymouth to a fantastic reception before being made a knight.

But it was music that was unbelievably vibrant as my second year at school came to a close.

While other bands strove to challenge their supremacy, the Beatles brought out a studio album of innovative songs on the first day of June.

Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band was intricate and wonderful and it’s a lovely thought that I was around at the time to listen to what I believe was the most important album in the history of modern music.

Dad really liked table tennis because he thought he was great at it. He claimed to have beaten Mum 100 games on the trot and put this remarkable run of victories down to his vicious spinning serve.

The truth was that Mum was useless at all sports and had the eye-to-ball coordination of a blindfolded drunk.

I knew why Dad won so often: it was simply because he was left-handed. That put you off a lot, especially when he served. At the time, I found it strange that Dad was a southpaw in sports like darts and tennis but wrote with his right hand.

I eventually found out that he wanted to write with his left hand as a child but had been absolutely forbidden by teachers who were determined to rid him of his handicap.

The folding dining-table was the venue for our regular table tennis matches and it served the purpose quite well, except for its rounded corners, which caught an inordinate percentage of shots and sent the ball flying off at sharp and irretrievable angles.

In the early years at South Road the game sometimes came to a premature conclusion when the ball shot off the corner of the table and landed perfectly in the middle of the coal fire, where it melted to nothing.

For a long time we either had only one bat or none at all but this didn’t prevent us from enjoying the family tournament. Literary bat Mum had discovered that her hardback copy of Treasure Island doubled as a rather fine table tennis bat. She even used it at times when a real bat was available.

She was, of course, then able to blame the lack of proper equipment for her innumerable defeats by Dad, Joe and me.

A level playing field was only reestablished if there was an accidental breakage of the one bat we had, in which case Mum’s opponent had to avail himself of Swiss Family Robinson or Kidnapped.

Three equal-sized books standing with raised horizontal spines also served as the net when circumstances dictated, allowing us to play away happily at table tennis with nothing but a diningtable, a ball and five books. My parents’ skills of improvisation were remarkable and a source of inspiration for Joe and me.

Dad even had the ability to rescue the ball if it went under someone’s foot and emerged with a dent in it.

He would simply strike a match and hold it under the unfortunate dimpled ball, displaying awesome ingenuity as the plastic expanded and the dent disappeared – wonderful.

However, there was a downside to these idyllic family evenings indoors.

Because the table had to be placed between the back of the settee and the sideboard, there was very little space on either side, although plenty of room at each end where the players stood. (More tomorrow)