Robert Forster on Glasgow and Postcard Records
When he and McLennan arrived in Glasgow on April 1, 1980 and were taken to Postcard impresario Alan Horne's flat it was clear, Forster writes in Grant & I, that the duo had walked into a scene that was fast and whip-smart. "Everyone in Brisbane suddenly seemed dipped-in-honey slow," he writes. Here he recalls his Glasgow experience:
"Glasgow didn't relate to anything from our home town in Australia, Brisbane. It had a quaintness about it. All the time that we spent there was in the West End or in the city. It felt like a little kingdom and it felt like we could walk around and grasp Glasgow in a day, which you couldn't do in London. So Glasgow was very appealing. It somehow looked like a foreign city more than London did in a bizarre way.
"And then of course we were in the company of the most extraordinary people in the world at that time. Being on Postcard and meeting Orange Juice and Alan Horne, a whole sort of group of people who lived and were friends around the band, was quite amazing.
"We walked in on a scene and they took us straight into the middle of it all and so we were in a friend's circle, like a secret society, and it was wonderful. The eight weeks that Grant and I spent there were mainly spent just laughing because everyone was just so incredibly funny.
"It was like walking into an Ealing comedy because everyone was like a character from a film. It was a brand of humour that Grant and I had not come across before so that was all new as well. It all added up to a wonderful experience."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here