THEY were called the Empire Games back then.

It says so on the back of the bronze medal Hugh Cameron brought with him yesterday wrapped in paper. His father's medal.

Mr Cameron's father - also called Hugh Cameron - won his bronze medal in Sydney back in 1938.

The medal he returned with bears the legend: "HM Cameron, Scottish flyweight champion British Empire Games 1938". Mr Cameron spent six weeks on a boat to get to Australia just to compete.

Yesterday, his son got the chance to add his own piece of Commonwealth Games history to the family story by carrying the baton in Greenock. But then it's not just his father who has Commonwealth Games history. "It's carrying on a family tradition," Mr Cameron, 49, admitted. "Because my brother Ian also boxed in the Games in 1970."

Ian Cameron reached the quarter finals when the Games were first held in Scotland. In doing so he almost matched his father's achievement, going out one round before a guaranteed medal.

Despite that, the 1970 Games in Edinburgh were "really good", Ian Cameron recalled yesterday as he stood beside his brother. But now, he said, it's about Glasgow and this year.

"To have it here is great and everyone seems to be embracing it."

The brothers were in Ravenscraig Stadium, Greenock, yesterday morning, before Hugh Cameron's moment with the baton, supporting baton carriers from Inverclyde Athletics Club. Mr Cameron is membership secretary and his brother Ian is vice-president. Sport is in their blood. They have the medal to prove it.

But Hugh Cameron senior has one more claim to fame, it seems. "If you look at the Pogues' Peace and Love album, the boxer on the front is my father," Hugh Cameron revealed. "[On the album cover] he's got 'love' and 'peace' on his knuckles. My father didn't have that. They've drawn it on."

No-one, though, can erase the mark the Cameron family has already made.