We learned that, despite our education, our opinions were not required

The mice in the factory were kept at bay by a couple of champion mousers. These cats were well cared for and held in quite high esteem by owners and workers, but were rarely fed to ensure they did their main job. Unfortunately, after various romances, a litter of kittens would appear and one of the full-time labourers had the job of disposing of all but perhaps one of them. I saw him do this that summer and I was appalled.

My friends and I learned a lot during that first working summer, discovering what really was expected of you when you were employed by someone to carry out specific tasks.

We learned that, despite our education, our opinions were not required. We learned that not instantly doing as requested could lead to dismissal. We learned that long hours of hard graft were expected by employers who had no obligation to thank us when we were being paid to do the work. And we learned that a punch in the face resolved disputes between workers as often as a conversation round a table.

Initiative

By my third summer at Scott’s woollen mill I was a temporary boss, charged with regulating the invoices from the farmers when they brought in their fleeces, ensuring the amounts tallied and signing off their deliveries.

I was paid slightly more for what amounted to less physical labour and that point was not lost on me. If I could impress any future prospective employers by my attentiveness and initiative, I might just be able to avoid the worst excesses of physical effort.

Of all that happened down there on Dock Street, the thing I most disliked was the awful smell that would swamp the factory day after day – a dreadful odour of things unseen and best unspoken emanating from the adjacent slaughterhouse in Market Street.

I never went in; I never saw anything, but that smell spoke volumes as to what went on there.

We were all very excited when we heard there was an escaped cow charging up and down Dock Street one day, causing havoc and bringing traffic to a standstill.

We were allowed to go out briefly to take in the scene. It was absolutely brilliant watching this poor beast, clearly clever enough to have realised what was about to befall it, determined to do all in its power to get back to quietly munching grass. In the end however, the authorities gave up trying to catch it and shot it.

Around the beginning of 1968, I started going to the dancing along with Charlie Maclean. Now that I’d actually had a proper date, I felt a whole lot more confident about being in the company of girls and I was discovering that making them laugh really did get you somewhere.

Better looks would have helped but, failing that, I had to rely on my patter to get a girl interested in the first place.

Quite often it was Charlie who made the first move on some unsuspecting female and I was expected to distract her pal enough to let him apply his seduction techniques. He did the same for me but not nearly as often as I did that job for him.

Requirements

The main venue for our chasing of girls was the JM Ballroom on North Tay Street.

We had started off by attending “The Tufty Club” (named after the iconic road safety squirrel) on Tuesdays from 7-10 pm which was the venue for younger teenagers to meet up. We quickly tired of that, thinking we were all so mature and looking for older girls.

So we started going to “The Rave Cave Club” on Monday nights and soon we couldn’t wait for that session to come around each week.

By fifth year at school we were going there on Saturday nights as well. Of course, there were specific requirements for going to the dancing, and these essentials started changing us even more.

To get into the JM you had to be smartly dressed. This meant that I had to get some decent clothes to wear, so I had to work hard on Mum and Dad to cough up the price of a shirt and tie or new shoes to go with the suit I’d be wearing.

My wages for delivering papers were lasting me no time at all.

At that point, my pals were all buying made-tomeasure suits from Burton’s or Jackson’s and I was no exception. I was measured up for a grey doublebreasted suit with a Regency collar, all a bit Carnaby Street, but it had the desired effect and improved my chances of pulling a girl.

It went without saying that I also had to be clean and tidy for going out so I was constantly scrubbing my face to keep the spots down to a mere plague.

My now shoulder-length hair was being washed every night to counteract the grease in which it appeared to love to coat itself.

Wasn’t puberty great fun? Luckily for me, Mum came up with an old Indian trick one night when I was short of time and hurrying to get ready.

She told me to sprinkle talcum powder on my hair then brush it through. In desperation I gave it a try and would you believe it, it worked! No more greasy hair. From then on I always had some Johnson’s Baby Powder in the bathroom just in case.

Mr Universe

Actually getting into the JM wasn’t as easy as you might imagine because they always had a squad of bouncers on the door and these guys had to be taken seriously. One of them had even been a contestant in the Mr Universe competition.

Their main job was to ensure that no-one got in if they appeared to have been drinking, as the ballroom had a strict “no alcohol” policy. As the queue reached the entrance, you had to climb three or four steps and go in by the middle door of three, then turn right as directed by the first bouncer to reach the cash desk a couple of yards ahead.

To the right of the cash desk there was another door through which you’d be conducted if the second bouncer on duty suspected that you’d been drinking. That door brought you back out at the top of the steps, exposed to the ridicule of those still in the queue.

If you resisted or objected, you were “assisted” out. On more than one occasion after two or three pints in the Ascot, I found myself flying down the steps.

On one particular evening I had waited with Charlie Maclean and Ricky Gierelo, another close friend and JM-goer, for almost two hours in a long queue in the cold and wind to get into the JM for the hugely-anticipated Morgan School Dance, where there was always an exceptional array of unattached girls.

Unfortunately, I’d been suffering from a by now rare attack of hay fever and had applied Optrex in an eye-bath to afford myself some relief before going out.

The cold wind in my face did nothing to make the situation any better, meaning that when I reached the entrance door, the bouncer took one look at my eyes and nodded to his colleague two yards away. I gasped in horror as the dreaded second door was pulled open and I was invited to leave.

How unfair was that?

(More on Monday.)