THE Herald’s inestimable Ken Smith will have sparked a slew of wistful nostalgia with his excellent coverage of the Boys’ Brigade Queen’s Badge ceremony this week, correctly observing that for men of a certain age, their BB company number is an indelible part of who they are.

I am one of them, but my company was not just any old company. No sir, I am one of that band of lucky Glaswegians for whom 118 means more than directory inquiries or David Bedford lookalikes; it signifies the mighty 118th of that even mightier south side institution, King’s Park Parish Church.

The 118 was, and apparently still is, a leviathan of local youth organisations, then competing in an arms race with the likes of the 83rd from Mount Florida (boo…), the 16th from Croftfoot and the 278th from Netherlee to prove whose “true Christian manliness” was the most muscular. The 214th from Whiteinch had a scarily professional pipe band, but they were from the north side so didn’t really count.

In the 1970s these companies would boast a total of around 300 boys and a remarkably large group of adult volunteer officers willing to give up Friday nights, weekends and annual holidays to keep the whole show on the road. It also meant every Sunday morning because compulsory Bible Class was strictly enforced by the big outfits.

To those men (in the 118 they were all men, apart from the wonderful late Cathy Shearer who for decades ran the Pathfinders group for five to seven-year-olds) entire generations owe a great debt, for without them there would have been no camps, no football teams, or pipe band tuition. And in this age of tortuous bureaucracy to prove that youth volunteers are not the next Thomas Hamilton, at no point were any of us abused, threatened or in any way put in danger’s way.

OK, in the church garage where the fundraising waste paper and magazine recycling operation was based there was a suitcase which contained the more racy returns and a half a bottle of Bacardi but, hey, that was part of growing up too. And if you were 16, what harm could a couple of jars in the Hook and Eye in Stonehaven possibly do when everyone was safely tucked up in bed back at camp. This was the 1970s and it was the Glaswegian way, after all.

In our part of the world everyone was in the BB. Well, everyone except all the Catholic lads, which was half the population and they mostly joined the Scouts. Oh, and the boy whose mum was English and went to St Oswalds, the Piskie church which was a mystery to everyone (it’s the Scottish Episcopalian General Synod this week… tune in to find out more).

We did briefly have one Catholic chap who had been kicked out the Scouts and Holyrood Secondary, too, but joining the BB was an act of defiance, not theological choice. Sadly, Glasgow’s religious divide was part of life then and some in the congregation never warmed to a new minister back in the day after he illustrated one of his early sermons about love and understanding by putting on his green and white scarf.

There was no better illustration than in the sweltering summer of 1976 when the 118 decamped to a scorched Devon for the annual fortnight’s camp. The tradition of the middle weekend was for the company to put on full uniform and, led by the pipe band, parade to a local church for Sunday service.

With not many outposts of the Church of Scotland near Torquay, the decision was taken to descend on the nearby Baptists, except nearby was actually about two miles away. Two miles in wool blazers, collar and tie in blistering sunshine. It was worse for us in the pipe band in our navy blue ex-Civil Defence battledresses.

After the service, instead of turning back the way we came, much to our confusion we marched down the hill into the town until we came to the harbour and halted in front of the statue of a glowering, pirate-like 17th century figure. One of the officers, an irascible old soldier and our camp cook, produced a wreath which he solemnly laid at the plinth.

This was Brixham, it was the nearest Sunday to the 12th of July and the statue marked the spot where Dutch forces had landed to spark the Glorious Revolution in 1688 and the end of the reign Catholic James II & VII. We had marched two miles in 90 degree heat to pay tribute to King Billy. Well, it was the 1970s.