NOW that’s a serious looking pipe - try smoking that in Glasgow Airport these days and see where it gets you.

This is the easily recognisable old crooner himself, Bing Crosby, flying into Glasgow Airport with second wife Kathryn Grant in 1966 before heading to Gleneagles for a celebrity golf tournament organised by General Eisenhower.

Loved his golf did Bing, and played in Scotland whenever he could, usually at Gleneagles or St Andrews.

It’s not all he did in Scotland. There is an old Tennent’s lager TV advertisement, supposedly filmed in a pub in Partick, which shows Bing appreciatively supping a glass of lager. Wonder what he was paid for that?

He had arrived at Glasgow Airport from Ireland where he had also been playing golf. Kathryn looks quite poised for a woman following her husband around golf courses.

Bing had a laid back style of singing which was much copied. He acted a bit too of course and won an Oscar for his rol as Father Chuck O’Malley in the 1944 film Going My Way.

The Herald’s late great sports writer Ian Archer once interviewed Bing at Gleneagles for STV where Bing stated: “I love golf. If I ever die on a golf course, at least I’ll die a happy man.’’

When Bing did in fact die on a golf course a few months later STV went to find the recording. The cannister with “Crosby interview” had the title scored out and replaced with ‘’Curling from Crossmyloof’’. It had been taped over.