‘Uncle Bill’ inspired a new voice of rugby
BILL JOHNSTONE REFLECTS ON LIFE BEHIND THE MICROPHONE
Broadcasting just happened. I wanted to see if I could do it or not
IT started, like many enduring romances, with a bashful wave. It had at its core twin elements that informed, enhanced and gave substance to a love. It was about family and it led to rugby.
Bill Johnstone remembers his meetings with Uncle Bill and how they took him on a journey that has something of an ending at Murrayfield today.
Johnstone, the Scottish voice of rugby, will lay down his microphone after the European Cup final between Clermont and Saracens and set out on another path.
‘I am going to take soundings,’ he says in that sinuous burr, ‘and I would like to walk the West Highland way.’
At 73, he has come some way already. Rugby and family have been his constant companions. Uncle Bill was, of course, McLaren of that ilk, a rugby commentator and designated national treasure. Johnstone’s development in life and rugby can be illustrated in three scenes, each featuring his uncle.
‘My first memory of WP McLaren was in my early childhood when I was taken to hospital where he was being treated for TB. I was not allowed into the ward. I had to stand at the door and wave to him,’ Johnstone reflects.
‘The second was as a primary kid at Trinity in Hawick. I would be about seven or eight and the head teacher told our class to go down to the gym. He was followed by this very tall, very gaunt, jet black-haired figure in a white short-sleeved shirt, blue teaching trousers and immaculately white tennis shoes.
‘My pal says to me: “That’s Uncle Bill”. He was Uncle Bill to everybody because he had all the kids playing cricket, rugby, everything.
‘So Uncle Bill says: “Now we are going to do some rugby drills”. He pointed at me and says: “Ginger, you’ll do for starters”. That was my first rugby memory.’
The third scene plays out in the douce West End of Glasgow as Uncle Bill finishes his broadcasting duties on a Saturday night at the BBC in Queen Margaret Drive and his nephew, studying physical education at Jordanhill College, cadges a lift home to Hawick.
‘It was a fairly regular event,’ he says. ‘He would pick my brains about Jordanhill and I would speak to him about rugby. There was also another aspect.’
This is the moment where rugby and family collides to produce the first whisperings of another commentator of extraordinary gifts.
‘Round about that time I was on duty in the old commentary box at Murrayfield. I was about 19, maybe older, I used to take Bill’s notes for his newspaper article. We were sitting up in a sort of crow’s nest: Bill, me and Peter West. I was terrified,’ he says with a chuckle.
There was, however, no danger of being seduced by the glamour of it all. ‘The only toilet facility was a pail,’ he says. ‘It might be presumptuous to say I got a buzz for broadcasting then, but I certainly got an insight.’
Johnstone, though, did not make immediate steps into broadcasting. He became an itinerant physical education teacher in the Borders before finding a post for his working life.
‘I am Hawick, born and bred. But I live in Jedburgh and have always taught in Jedburgh,’ he declares.
His pupils included Roy and Greig Laidlaw, and Johnstone had a few games for Jed before deciding that he wanted to concentrate on coaching and teaching. And that was that.
A happy marriage to Helen that produced three children and has subsequently delivered seven grandchildren produced domestic satisfaction. His professional duties were similarly enjoyable.
Then life took one of those jinks, akin in its suddenness and change of direction to Barry John being prodded by a Taser.
In 1983, Johnstone had a ‘wee job’ working for a BBC satellite radio station in Selkirk. This soon led to a phone call to see if he was interested in doing a rugby roundup on a Friday. This, in turn, led to commentating duties.
It seems smooth, effortless but Johnstone’s genuine bonhomie and amiability should not be confused with any notions of weakness. He knew it was his moment and he seized it.
‘I thought if you don’t put your head on the block then you will never know if you can do it or not. So I took up the challenge and did it. There has been no great ambition in my broadcasting, it just happened. I wanted to see if I could do it,’ he explains.
He then ‘toddled around the Border clubs or up to Edinburgh or occasionally through to Glasgow’. He was soon offered the inter-city game.
‘I got the phone call on the Thursday, the game was on the Saturday. It was a watershed moment. I thought: “If I don’t accept this it may never come my way again and I want to know if I can do it”.’ He could.
The rest is geography. His career for the BBC has included duty at all the subsequent World Cups, save 2007 when the broadcaster did not have the rights. He is also a veteran of the Five and then Six Nations with travel a particular delight.
‘It has enhanced my life,’ he says. ‘I have learned so much, developed new skills. I also have found friends. Yes, friendship. It has given me that.’
He is a rugby man to his microphone-attached fingertips.
The best player he saw was All Black Richie McCaw and puts Gavin Hastings and Gary Armstrong in a dead heat for best Scot.
‘I love the geometry of the game, the angles,’ he says peering over a deserted Scotstoun three hours before kick-off between Glasgow and Edinburgh.
He appears at grounds hours before matches as part of a disciplined preparation that includes the compilation of precise, detailed notes. And the provision of a packet of wine gums.
‘Aye, I always have them to hand but rarely get to them,’ he says. Peter Wright, former Scotland international and co-commentator is gently accused of devouring said sweets with the relish he once reserved for opposing props.
Johnstone has a simple philosophy of commentary, though its execution is masterly.
‘I remember when he was doing radio commentary,’ he says of Uncle Bill, his mother’s younger brother. ‘The family would sit around the radio and before kick-off he would tell us what the groundsman had for his breakfast, whether he liked his eggs soft boiled or hard boiled. He would
describe the state of the ground, detail the teams… by the time the kick-off came our pulse rate was way up. You were there with him. I have tried to do that in my own way.’
He says he has never been ‘a great writer’ but concedes he has the ability to dramatise occasions with not only fevered but accurate commentary but with observations of people in the crowd, descriptions of the gestures of the referee, or a flag lying limp on a still afternoon or a ball being tossed by a wicked, capricious wind.
His most memorable game was the Grand Slam victory in 1990 over England at Murrayfield.
‘What a day. England prance out onto the field. Guscott, Dooley, Mickey Skinner, Underwood… good team, very good team,’ Johnstone recalls. ‘And then there is the pause. David Sole leads the Scots out slowly — I get a tingle up the back of my neck just saying it — and Murrayfield erupts. Wade Dooley is slobbered in petroleum jelly for the scrummaging and he looks around to see what the hell is going on. His jaw just about hits the ground. This is a big lock, six foot eight inches of him, and he sees something special, something he does not recognise. Is he thinking: “Oh, oh there is something up here today?”. And then Finlay Calder leads the charge.’
Johnstone stares out over Scotstoun, yet he is somehow back in the Murrayfield of another century. He has brought a game to life. It is what he does.
There is little more to say and his eyes seem reddened, with no wind to blame or cold to accuse.
‘I could commentate on Langholm thirds v Cockermouth fourths and I would still enjoy it. It is addictive but it is better to go at a time of your choosing. I am going to miss it, but there comes a time…’
William Johnstone, the Uncle Bill of our days, when will we hear his like again?