Let there be light.

Found a can of glow in the dark paint at my work and was transported back to the high wall before you could say beam me up Scotland. We loved all things glowing at the high wall, Aurora model kits, luminous watches you name it if it glowed in the dark you were the dogs knackers!
I just imagined how we could have marked our way to the gangie with this paint, or the way to the high wall in pitch blackness without a torch (save that we didn't need a torch anyway our gutties took us there on their own!). So bring your assembled version of the Prisoner of castle Mare along to the high wall (unpainted of course!) and lets all glow together.

Flunkeys

Aye the last entry aboot haircutting brought to mind the subject of "flunkeys"
Condoms, Rubbers, Rubber Johnnys, prophylactics, Durex, are more common terms, but we lads knew them as flunkeys.

Irvine Welsh uses the term in "Trainspotting" which may be the only useage of the word in the history of the written English language.

"Spunk bags" was another name for them.

As the South side had a big student population you used to find used flunkeys lying around the Meadows area and they were often poked with sticks. Like mystery items they were never fully understood at a young age, but if a used flunkey was found, word soon spread and boys would gather to have a wee deek at it and ponder it's origins like an Area 51 alien autopsy.

As you got older and had to buy flunkeys for your own use, you then realised how difficult it was to get a hold of them. Nowadays it's a scoosh, you practically get them free with the Dandy, back then you were skulking around full of embarassment. The barbers sold them, but you were not going to trust Ronnie or Bernie, your auld boy went to them for a haircut and they might grass you up.

Many a 50p was lost in the "Wine Glass" flunkey machine, and would you complain? Not a chance. I'm sure that auld bastard that ran the place was at the hurry up, preying on the vulnerability of horny young 1970's lads. These days it would be a case of "Hey ya radge I just put £2 in your shitey condom machine and got fuck all, git it sorted cos I'm on ma hole, and dinnae gie me any pish cos I know my consumer rights and I will have a Watchdog camera crew round here toot suite"

Changed days indeed.

JOHNNY JOHNNY !!!

Hair Fashion

Just thought I would get a quick memory down before I forget. Nowadays people are eye on about Human rights and all that but in oor days as a High Wall laddie as far as yer hair was concerned you had no rights.
It didn't matter much because we all looked the same. And why? Because Faither cut yer hair with a Razor comb! Although it doesn't sound too bad it was hell!
The razor never seemed to be sharp enough to cut shit (maybe Faither used his old ones) so the hair was more ripped than cut. This was followed by a good handfu of baby powder which was meant to cool the red neck but which did not help all too much. Short back and sides was what the DIY haircut was called, nae Bowie cuts at the High Wall.
So we were all Red Necks at one time or another even if we did live in the city.

Got, Got, Not got, Got.

As the new football season is about to start I thought we might have a wee sporting theme. Fitba cards from back in the day.

They came in a waxy packet with a stick of gum that continued the waxy theme. The "gum" would shatter in your mouth and was capable of slicing through a lip. The cards also had a magic panel on the back which you rubbed with a coin to reveal an answer or secret fact.

We would have bundles of these cards and spend many a playtime trading doublers with the mantra of "got, got, got, not got, got, not got".

My kids had Pokemon cards with "Spurtles" and "Jigglypuffs". We had scarier creatures such as Des Bremner, Willie Gibson and Danny Masterton of Ayr United. For every Peter Marinello there were a dozen guys with bad hair and a mooth like a burglars toolkit.

But the fitba was different in them days. Everyone at school supported either Hearts of Hibs and no-one would have dreamt of supporting Celtic of Rangers. Plus you didn't mind what ground you sneaked into for nothing, Tynecastle or Easter Road, made no odds.

An wee bonus for us High Wall boys was that Neill & Co printers down Causewayside printed the Hibs programmes and you could go into the office on the way home fae school on the Monday and they would give you them for free. Also my dad's pal Bobby worked at Banks & Co, a printers also in Causewayside. They once printed the bubble gum cards and my dad got me some. Only thing was that they came on huge sheets and you had to sit and cut them up.

Thon big sheets would be cracking things to have these days. Stuck in a big old frame on the wall would have looked barry. Probably be worth a fortune too.

Lost Weapons #4 A Jobby on a Stick

I've heard the term "dirty weapons" and "dirty bombs" used in respect of dissident Chechen terrorist groups. The original dirty weapons were conceived around the High Wall.

More of a defensive deterrant style weapon. Simple and effective.

1) Get a stick from the back green

2) Find a fresh barkers egg which were common around the South Side streets in the 70's

3) Combine items 1 & 2

4) Pursue your assailant/victim with the business end.

A jobby on a stick was popular with younger bairns for warding off aulder laddies who were intend in stealing their sweets.

Sometimes bits of jobby could be flicked off, but the trajectory was unpredictable and this tactic carried a risk of friendly fire incidents.

Lost Games #6 Stepball

click to enlarge image

That's Wimbledon over for another year and still no British winner.
Tennis was a traditional Summer High Wall game, but more often or not there was little or no access to proper courts. Granted there were a rake of courts in the Meadows but they cost money and the surly guy in the wee ticket shed seemed keen to maintain standards so took a dim view of scruffy wee laddies with one ball (grey not thon new fangled green yins) and a few auld bats.

Never mind the High Wall had it's own Centre Court, namely the steps at the side of the Dick Vet. A wee bit of innovation and inspiration and the game of Stepball was born.

Now here was a proper game. The idea was that you stood at the bottom, hit a ball up the steps and took turns trying to return it, a bit like Squash (which we had never seen or played) or Shapes (played all the time with a fitba against a flat wall)
The steps were irregular and so the random angle of return idea is what turns Stepball into a real challenge. This was perhaps derived from the ancient childhood game of Kerbie.

The real breakthrough was when the tennis ball got lost and was substituted by a golf ball.
Returns were faster, even less predictable and could "gie ye a sair yin"
The fact that golf balls and tennis bats are not all that compatible added to the speed and mayhem. These fellys were flying at you at some lick from aw angles.
An array of protective helmets were then introduced giving the game an even more surreal quality. If I recall they ranged from pots, cardboard boxes with eye holes, a light blue 60's puddingbowl style motorcycle helmet with leather ear flaps, all the way through to a WW2 ARP helmet. What a braw laugh we had. A real "Oor Wullie" moment

Now there were not a lot of cars around the High Wall in the early 70's but the owners of the few vehicles parked in a 50 yard radius of the Stepball arena started to get a bit humpty about the sound of golfball against metal.
They were always met with innocent looks and protestations of "No mister we never hit your car"

Eventually Stepball was hounded out due to the narrow-mindedness of a tiny minority of selfish motorists. Shame cos it was a barry game and could have caught on globally.

Animals of the High Wall #4

The Toad, in this case Gunga Din, was a common High Wall animal that after being taken from his natural habitat at Dunsapie loch, was introduced into the High Wall area. On finding that he was not really taken with the idea it was decided that he should be taken back to where he was found.
The problem was it was quite late and nobody could be bothered going all the way back to Dunsapie Loch. The younger members of the High wall community were told that Gunga Din would not survive the night and that it would be a much better idea to put him out of his misery.
So it was that the fish hammer was used to release him from this world and his mortal remains ended up in the notorious Black Cat tin.