[BITList] Beyond Grant Road

[HUGH]

Derek,

Not long after I joined BI in late 1956 I was introduced to aspects of social life that had not, until then, been a feature of my social life. Until late 1956 I was able to dance with ladies at Cragburn Pavilion in Gourock of revered memory, Burtons in Greenock (not to my taste, though my younger brother frequented it and my cousin was a chucker out there), the Palladium in Greenock (rarely visited), and one or two small venues in Gourock (even more rarely visited).  Further afield, in Glasgow, I was once or twice in the Locarno on Sauchiehall Street, twice in the Albert not far away, and a few times in the St Andrews Halls with 2 bands and 2 halls - indeed on the evening I was seen off by my pals on my way to join BI, we had a farewell drink in a pub opposite the latter.  Mostly, dancing with them was about the size it.

I had no sooner got my BI cap scrunched up (wire removed and cap clamped in a drawer) to the requirements of my betters than I was ordered to dress up and go fetch some ladies from Plaistow to attend a party.  This had been arranged with them beforehand, so I was spared the ordeal of asking women on the street.  I don't recall the party - probably I was on nightwork. While in London I learned what dock phone boxes still had the pages with hospital phone numbers still in the directories, and what not to say if a man answered.  When I joined Clan Line I horrified my colleagues by suggesting we phone up a Glasgow hospital and get some nurses down for a party.  Even after I explained, they didn't get it.  So social customs don't travel.  As another illustration of that, there was a party in Colombo on one of the Cs, held in the officers' smokeroom.  Every young lady had a chaperone.

Your experience of social evenings ashore in Calcutta was precisely mine.  We would get out of the taxi when it stopped - I never had much of a clue where we were going, and the 4th or the 3rd would lead us up stairs and along corridors to a room full of ladies. The ladies seemed happy simply to indulge in chit chat over a glass of something, and were always keen to discomfit a raw junior or a cadet by lascivious winks, etc, when given the nod from the 3rd after a string of lies in Hindi about the unsuspecting lad's prowess. When we ran out of talk, we'd leave and go onto another such place.

All gone now.

Hugh.



-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.bcn.mythic-beasts.com/pipermail/bitlist/attachments/20090209/57c1a2a6/attachment.shtml