Looking back through the highlight reel...

DILLIGAF

DILLIGAF

Well-known member
Many of us are 'on the back 9' and have stories to tell, as we travel the path of life, both at home in Scotland, and in other places around the world, the Scots are a well travelled and well thought of race, our openness and willing to have a laugh, sometimes at ourselves, endears us to the various places where we now live, so come on, step up and tell the tales of yesteryear it should be a right good laugh, and maybe if it brightens someone's day, it'll pay off YNWA
 
DILLIGAF said:
Many of us are 'on the back 9' and have stories to tell, as we travel the path of life, both at home in Scotland, and in other places around the world, the Scots are a well travelled and well thought of race, our openness and willing to have a laugh, sometimes at ourselves, endears us to the various places where we now live, so come on, step up and tell the tales of yesteryear it should be a right good laugh, and maybe if it brightens someone's day, it'll pay off YNWA
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Think your fellow Inverclyde bhoy ( Smelltheg-love) is one of our best story-tellers; especially after a wee Jack Daniel's or three. Always easy to relate to his tales. Very much heartfelt and full of working class humanity.
 
Another blast from the memory bank was when a mate and I would drive up to Glasgow or down to the Moorings in Largs, on a weekend in the hopes of getting a lumber
We were in a pub on the seafront well, close enough it was one street up and on a corner, no chance I’ll remember the name but as we were having a cocktail or six, in walks two good looking women
We were about 17,and the ladies were in their 30’s
They had on mini skirts, tight sweaters, and spike heels on…amazing what remains in the memory bank, the one beside me was a Lulu lookalike, and I thought Haw Haw here we go…
They sat at the next table to ours, and as we had had a few pints, I decided to chat them up
I said hello and asked where they were off to
The Moorings came the reply
I thought good and they seemed friendly enough
I then said “Can I buy you a drink…?”
Her reply was one of the best rebukes I ever heard, and some 50 years on, it still makes me laugh
“Naw yer awrite son ahv got a wee boy in the house!!”
So glad I was brought up where I was, it prepared you for the real world :ROFLMAO: :ROFLMAO: :rolleyes:;)
 
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In the late 80s early 90s I lived in London. i was 25/26 at the time. 91 and early 92 I worked on the Broadgate development at Liverpool Street Station with my mate Paddy Hash from Derry. The first Gulf war was just kicking aff. We were working for an agency, Yeomans, as concrete finishers. Yeomans had the contract for labour at Euro Disney and me n Big Paddy were desperate to work in Paris. Do well here and we will see they told us.
Friday afternoon our gaffer Seamus says, who wants to work Sat and Sun at 150 bucks a day? fuck aye says us. OK says Seamus turn up at ITN studios at 7 O Clock and they will tell you what to do.
ITN? What the fuck could we do there? Fire-watch says Seamus. What the fuck is fire-watch?
Seamus explained ITN had just moved to new studios but the fire alarm system keeps going aff sometimes during the news. To find the fault and repair it they had to turn the system off. Health and safety said you cant turn it off and still have folk working here.......unless you employ loads of folk to roam the building looking for fires. (It took over a week to find and fix the fault because of the size of the building)
Saturday we turn up at ITN with 8 other guys. ITN take us into a wee room where we were given Purple P&O/ Yeomans uniforms and a walkie talkie each and let loose at ITN. We had to patrol ITN and look in cupboards, plant room and every other room at ITN and look for fires.
Paddy was a master of accents and kept me laughing all day over the walkie talkie. He was doing Ian Paisleys Ulster Says No bit , Gerry Adams and many more. Saturday and Sunday came and went with much laughter.
Monday morning back at Liverpool Street Seamus has a face like thunder and goes for me and Paddy , what the fuck you boys think yer playing at? What? we went there and done the fuckin fire-watch!! AYE says Seamus, shouting fuckin Sinn Fein Gerry Adams on the Radio causing security alerts at ITN, we nearly lost the contract because o yous. We had never used walkie talkies before and had no idea everything we said went through a base set at ITNs security office. Seamus threatened me with a shovel. The weird thing is no one at ITN said a word to us about what we were saying (I was telling Paddy to meet me to smoke a joint more than once) and let us back in on the Sunday. We kept our jobs just.
We were working under false names though and our wage Cheques were in oor false names. We had our work photo id with false names too. We would take our cheques to the Allied Irish Bank at Angel Islington which issued the cheques and use our false id to get oor money. A 20 minute tube journey every Thursday dinner time. The IRA were still active and any bag or shopping left on a tube would cause chaos across the whole network. thats exactly what happened to me n Paddy and it was finishing time by the time we got back. Because it was the same week as ITN, Seamus was well pissed off and sacked us there and then. So me n Paddy Hash never got stoned in Paris. Because of Gerry Adams and the IRA.
I swear every word of that is true.
In 1997 I was back in Dundee with a good job and had started a family. I was just in from work when the phone rang. It was Paddys maw, she got my number from Derry people who knew my wee sister in London. She told me Paddy had leukemia and only had a few days left. the next day I got the train to Stranraer and the ferry to Larne where friends from Derry were waiting for me. I got to spend a few days with Paddy. He died the day after I got back from Derry.
RIP Paddy Hash.
 
Richybhoy said:
In the late 80s early 90s I lived in London. i was 25/26 at the time. 91 and early 92 I worked on the Broadgate development at Liverpool Street Station with my mate Paddy Hash from Derry. The first Gulf war was just kicking aff. We were working for an agency, Yeomans, as concrete finishers. Yeomans had the contract for labour at Euro Disney and me n Big Paddy were desperate to work in Paris. Do well here and we will see they told us.
Friday afternoon our gaffer Seamus says, who wants to work Sat and Sun at 150 bucks a day? fuck aye says us. OK says Seamus turn up at ITN studios at 7 O Clock and they will tell you what to do.
ITN? What the fuck could we do there? Fire-watch says Seamus. What the fuck is fire-watch?
Seamus explained ITN had just moved to new studios but the fire alarm system keeps going aff sometimes during the news. To find the fault and repair it they had to turn the system off. Health and safety said you cant turn it off and still have folk working here.......unless you employ loads of folk to roam the building looking for fires. (It took over a week to find and fix the fault because of the size of the building)
Saturday we turn up at ITN with 8 other guys. ITN take us into a wee room where we were given Purple P&O/ Yeomans uniforms and a walkie talkie each and let loose at ITN. We had to patrol ITN and look in cupboards, plant room and every other room at ITN and look for fires.
Paddy was a master of accents and kept me laughing all day over the walkie talkie. He was doing Ian Paisleys Ulster Says No bit , Gerry Adams and many more. Saturday and Sunday came and went with much laughter.
Monday morning back at Liverpool Street Seamus has a face like thunder and goes for me and Paddy , what the fuck you boys think yer playing at? What? we went there and done the fuckin fire-watch!! AYE says Seamus, shouting fuckin Sinn Fein Gerry Adams on the Radio causing security alerts at ITN, we nearly lost the contract because o yous. We had never used walkie talkies before and had no idea everything we said went through a base set at ITNs security office. Seamus threatened me with a shovel. The weird thing is no one at ITN said a word to us about what we were saying (I was telling Paddy to meet me to smoke a joint more than once) and let us back in on the Sunday. We kept our jobs just.
We were working under false names though and our wage Cheques were in oor false names. We had our work photo id with false names too. We would take our cheques to the Allied Irish Bank at Angel Islington which issued the cheques and use our false id to get oor money. A 20 minute tube journey every Thursday dinner time. The IRA were still active and any bag or shopping left on a tube would cause chaos across the whole network. thats exactly what happened to me n Paddy and it was finishing time by the time we got back. Because it was the same week as ITN, Seamus was well pissed off and sacked us there and then. So me n Paddy Hash never got stoned in Paris. Because of Gerry Adams and the IRA.
I swear every word of that is true.
In 1997 I was back in Dundee with a good job and had started a family. I was just in from work when the phone rang. It was Paddys maw, she got my number from Derry people who knew my wee sister in London. She told me Paddy had leukemia and only had a few days left. the next day I got the train to Stranraer and the ferry to Larne where friends from Derry were waiting for me. I got to spend a few days with Paddy. He died the day after I got back from Derry.
RIP Paddy Hash.
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That’s a belter mate
And good for you for paying respects to your pal HH
 
Richybhoy said:
In the late 80s early 90s I lived in London. i was 25/26 at the time. 91 and early 92 I worked on the Broadgate development at Liverpool Street Station with my mate Paddy Hash from Derry. The first Gulf war was just kicking aff. We were working for an agency, Yeomans, as concrete finishers. Yeomans had the contract for labour at Euro Disney and me n Big Paddy were desperate to work in Paris. Do well here and we will see they told us.
Friday afternoon our gaffer Seamus says, who wants to work Sat and Sun at 150 bucks a day? fuck aye says us. OK says Seamus turn up at ITN studios at 7 O Clock and they will tell you what to do.
ITN? What the fuck could we do there? Fire-watch says Seamus. What the fuck is fire-watch?
Seamus explained ITN had just moved to new studios but the fire alarm system keeps going aff sometimes during the news. To find the fault and repair it they had to turn the system off. Health and safety said you cant turn it off and still have folk working here.......unless you employ loads of folk to roam the building looking for fires. (It took over a week to find and fix the fault because of the size of the building)
Saturday we turn up at ITN with 8 other guys. ITN take us into a wee room where we were given Purple P&O/ Yeomans uniforms and a walkie talkie each and let loose at ITN. We had to patrol ITN and look in cupboards, plant room and every other room at ITN and look for fires.
Paddy was a master of accents and kept me laughing all day over the walkie talkie. He was doing Ian Paisleys Ulster Says No bit , Gerry Adams and many more. Saturday and Sunday came and went with much laughter.
Monday morning back at Liverpool Street Seamus has a face like thunder and goes for me and Paddy , what the fuck you boys think yer playing at? What? we went there and done the fuckin fire-watch!! AYE says Seamus, shouting fuckin Sinn Fein Gerry Adams on the Radio causing security alerts at ITN, we nearly lost the contract because o yous. We had never used walkie talkies before and had no idea everything we said went through a base set at ITNs security office. Seamus threatened me with a shovel. The weird thing is no one at ITN said a word to us about what we were saying (I was telling Paddy to meet me to smoke a joint more than once) and let us back in on the Sunday. We kept our jobs just.
We were working under false names though and our wage Cheques were in oor false names. We had our work photo id with false names too. We would take our cheques to the Allied Irish Bank at Angel Islington which issued the cheques and use our false id to get oor money. A 20 minute tube journey every Thursday dinner time. The IRA were still active and any bag or shopping left on a tube would cause chaos across the whole network. thats exactly what happened to me n Paddy and it was finishing time by the time we got back. Because it was the same week as ITN, Seamus was well pissed off and sacked us there and then. So me n Paddy Hash never got stoned in Paris. Because of Gerry Adams and the IRA.
I swear every word of that is true.
In 1997 I was back in Dundee with a good job and had started a family. I was just in from work when the phone rang. It was Paddys maw, she got my number from Derry people who knew my wee sister in London. She told me Paddy had leukemia and only had a few days left. the next day I got the train to Stranraer and the ferry to Larne where friends from Derry were waiting for me. I got to spend a few days with Paddy. He died the day after I got back from Derry.
RIP Paddy Hash.
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A brilliant story, Richybhoy: I think most of us are able to say we've been fortunate enough to have known gems like Paddy; especially if you're of a generation that was lucky enough to work in shipyards factories, building sites etc.

Thanks for taking the time to post. Sad ending for sure: but folk like Paddy will always live on in the memories of those, such as yourself, who were blessed to know them.

I know life changes for us all as time does its thing; but there will always be a moment when we recall a time in the company of someone like Paddy.....and either smile, or have a wee chuckle to ourselves.

Again, thanks for posting.
 
Smelltheg-love said:
Aye mer like these stories remind you why and give you comfort as to your tee total approach 🤗
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My mates worked as dockers and when TAGGART was being filmed down in Greenock, the boys were standing talking and having a coffee of a morning...in comes this wee car...window comes down...it's yer man Mark McManus in the flesh..."Awrite boys...seen ma film crew ?"...Big Tam stops drinking his coffee, and pipes up "Film crew ? You're some fucking detective you !!" window goes up...car drives off... The Scots, we are not star struck by any means
 
Frank Owen said:
Think your fellow Inverclyde bhoy ( Smelltheg-love) is one of our best story-tellers; especially after a wee Jack Daniel's or three. Always easy to relate to his tales. Very much heartfelt and full of working class humanity.
Click to expand...
Frank Owen said:
Think your fellow Inverclyde bhoy ( Smelltheg-love) is one of our best story-tellers; especially after a wee Jack Daniel's or three. Always easy to relate to his tales. Very much heartfelt and full of working class humanity.
Click to expand...
Ok so here’s one I was reminiscing the other day with a pal.
Many years ago, big bruv and wee sis had moved out.
Mum n dad had saved up (more on that later) and they were to go on their first real holiday, a cruise.
So they left me hame alone, usual rules, naebody in, no party’s etc.
Aye ok maw.
I’ll never forget, they left on a Sunday, cos halfway through super Sunday, the TV goes aff. Shit, we need a pound coin. My mates incredulous, what you mean you need a pound coin to watch the TV ? Aye well maw n paw got this TV thing in, you put a quid in the meter you get 4 hours. 14 of us and not a quid coin between us.
Anyhow, I’d go to work Monday and there would be about 10 lying about upstairs. It was an empty after all.
The following Saturday night there’s maybe 25-30 in. It’s noisy and I’d heard the new next door neighbour was a headcase.
So the door goes, fuck I says, what if it’s him ? My pal … I’ll fucking deal with him, heads downstairs to answer the door. 2 secs later my pal walks into living room… I’ll leave him to you mate…
I heads downstairs, he’s as tall as a lamppost and built like a hoose.
Hi, nice to meet you, everything ok
We’ll wee man, it’s the fucking noise…. Ah ok, we’ll we’ve 2 choices between us. Either you ruin a good party or you come in and join us…..
He’s shocked and decides to go for the latter. So he walks into my living room, the place goes silent… my mate says later, hes like jaws oota bond without the teeth 😂
Next minute he takes aff his jacket and he’s wearing a hulk hogan WWF t shirt. The living room emptied so cunts could go downstairs tae laugh properly…
That’s not the end
So we had a ‘square’ in the corner of the living room, where my dads drink was. After giving him a bells and forgetting he was there, the fucker then drained my dads decanted which held a 40 year old whisky my maw paid several hundred quid to buy for his birthday. I shit myself, there was feck all left and the day before he came back I scraped up enough to replace it with a bottle of bells.
About a month later I’d heard fuck all, thought nothing more until my dad pipes up. What happened to that whisky in the decanter?
Dad, I knocked it over and didn’t want to upset maw. Im sorry
We’ll son, there’s a reason it was in that decanter for nigh on a year. It was fucking rotten and every time your maw poured me a glass I hud tae tan it. The bells u replaced it with was a godsend, until your maw thought I enjoyed the 40 year old so much she went out and bought me another 😂
 
Smelltheg-love said:
Ok so here’s one I was reminiscing the other day with a pal.
Many years ago, big bruv and wee sis had moved out.
Mum n dad had saved up (more on that later) and they were to go on their first real holiday, a cruise.
So they left me hame alone, usual rules, naebody in, no party’s etc.
Aye ok maw.
I’ll never forget, they left on a Sunday, cos halfway through super Sunday, the TV goes aff. Shit, we need a pound coin. My mates incredulous, what you mean you need a pound coin to watch the TV ? Aye well maw n paw got this TV thing in, you put a quid in the meter you get 4 hours. 14 of us and not a quid coin between us.
Anyhow, I’d go to work Monday and there would be about 10 lying about upstairs. It was an empty after all.
The following Saturday night there’s maybe 25-30 in. It’s noisy and I’d heard the new next door neighbour was a headcase.
So the door goes, fuck I says, what if it’s him ? My pal … I’ll fucking deal with him, heads downstairs to answer the door. 2 secs later my pal walks into living room… I’ll leave him to you mate…
I heads downstairs, he’s as tall as a lamppost and built like a hoose.
Hi, nice to meet you, everything ok
We’ll wee man, it’s the fucking noise…. Ah ok, we’ll we’ve 2 choices between us. Either you ruin a good party or you come in and join us…..
He’s shocked and decides to go for the latter. So he walks into my living room, the place goes silent… my mate says later, hes like jaws oota bond without the teeth 😂
Next minute he takes aff his jacket and he’s wearing a hulk hogan WWF t shirt. The living room emptied so cunts could go downstairs tae laugh properly…
That’s not the end
So we had a ‘square’ in the corner of the living room, where my dads drink was. After giving him a bells and forgetting he was there, the fucker then drained my dads decanted which held a 40 year old whisky my maw paid several hundred quid to buy for his birthday. myself, there was feck all left and the day before he came back I scraped up enough to replace it with a bottle of bells.
About a month later I’d heard fuck all, thought nothing more until my dad pipes up. What happened to that whisky in the decanter?
Dad, I knocked it over and didn’t want to upset maw. Im sorry
We’ll son, there’s a reason it was in that decanter for nigh on a year. It was fucking rotten and every time your maw poured me a glass I hud tae tan it. The bells u replaced it with was a godsend, until your maw thought I enjoyed the 40 year old so much she went out and bought me another 😂
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I rest my case ! Another terrific tale from The Tail O' The Bank.
 
Our next door neighbours in the family home in Greenock where like ourselves stayed in a semi detached gable end 3 bedroom hoose
My Maw and Paw moved in the day JFK got assasinated in November 1963.
My wee maw was still there 50 years later until we lost her.
Between the 3 hooses there was 19 weans by the time we all became teenagers in the 70's.

As you can imagine we all knew each other well throughout the years and playing fitba fawing oot with each other fighting and getting up to no good were all part of growing up in the street.

So it was with a bit of sadness but one of nostalgia when I attended the funeral of the last standing neighbour just last month from that era who stayed next door to my Maw.

Was amazing how we still clicked with all her weans after not seeing many of them for over 40 years.

Of course the old stories were shared of the bygone years on the street and laughter and tears were part of the day.
But one story was one I remember vividly to this day.

My auld man had a habit of welcoming people into the hoose for a wee social drink but if he didn't like their company or they annoyed him after a few he wasn't shy in ushering them back out the door. He was a big fcuker so most went without argument
It used to make us the weans laugh as we used to take bets on what time he would throw them oot.

The neighbours to our right had a visitor every month to their hoose ...their uncle Tom.
Tom wasn't your average punter he was deaf and dumb and liked a right good bevvy.
As weans we used to know him as the guy who made noises and back in the day he was called the dummy.
Now before anybody goes all woke or pc on me remind yourself this was the 70's and everybody had great affection for him ..it was just the way it was back then and no offense to anyone who has to deal with it. Although I'm pretty sure like Tom they are more than capable of doing so.

Anyway in one of his visits we gets a chap on the door and there is Uncle Tom with a carry oot making noises and pointing to let him in.
I goes in the hoose tells the auld man and before I know it there is Tom at the back of me in the living room waving a bottle and giving a big smile.

Well nae option now he's in and my dad sits him doon and puts his carry oot in the kitchen.
" Whit did ye let that mad bastard in for " Says the Auld man.
Tom was already well smeekled and was well on his way to being wrecked but it was hilarious watching the two of them trying to communicate.
There was alot of grunting and groaning going on with a fair bit of shouting and hand signals.
Sign language was not much of a thing back then other than the giruy type.

Well it was inevitable the time would come when my auld man would say those immortal words " you've overstayed your welcome " as we cringed in the back ground.

As Tom returned from the toilet he walked into the living room and instead of sitting doon he did a heeder over the side of the couch.....it wis time tae go.

Well having gid him a few half's my auld man said out loud just leave his carry oot here as I escorted Tom to the door.

Tom began to gesture for a pen and paper...I gave him it and he wrote ...Tell your faither I'm deef naw blind I can read lips ....gimme my carry oot !!!!

Still makes me laugh to this day.
 
Obviously have been going through the memory banks to help write the eulogy for my brother, its been quite difficult to find funny anecdotes that wouldn't upset his wife that didn't involve alcohol, herbal cigarettes or women with ample breasts .
One story that stuck in everyone's minds, My dad was a very quite man and kept himself to himself , its around 1970 and were living in Dechmont , our house is in a cul-de-sac up a slight hill all the other folk who live there are managers etc working for Uniroyal, its late at night and it starts to snow quite heavy and my dad wakes us all up and says come on for a laugh we'll build a snow wall across the bottom of the road ,so its about 2 in the morning and in silence we've built a snow wall about 3ft High my brother decides to pour buckets of water over it to stop it slumping , no-one realised that during the night the temperature would drop to minus WTF and our snow wall would turn to concrete 🤣 ,to say the neighbors weren't happy was an understatement, I remember my dad going out the next morning and saying to our next door neighbour " that's a bit irresponsible "🤣 ,
 
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I remember when I was a mere stripling of a lad and the Cragburn dance hall was the venue of choice
This one Saturday night the Shamrock gang made an appearance and the local Greenock and Gourock inhabitants were out in force
A skirmish ensued and the two groups of combatants left the dance hall, and began running along the seafront
The Shamrock were outnumbered and were about a hundred yards ahead of the young team
About fifty yards ahead, a young lad was running as fast as he could
Now, the local team couldn’t tell whether was one of the Glasgow stragglers, or one of the local boys
So when the chasing group caught up with him, the dialogue went like this
“Where you fae ?”
“Greenock !!”
“Whereabouts ??”
“Gourock !!”
He was unceremoniously given a doing, and you can bet he learned more things of a geographical nature for future forays into enemy territory
HH
 
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