Driven round the bend
WE asked for your Aviemore stories to mark the 50th anniversary of the Aviemore Centre and Jean Jardine in Barrhead recalls her mum and dad, plus herself, her 6ft 2ins brother, and the family spaniel, squeezing themselves into a borrowed Mini Cooper 50 years ago to drive to her granny’s in Banffshire.
“When we got to Aviemore we needed petrol but the petrol station was shut for the evening. We had no food other than a sweetie machine which dispensed Polo mints. I tried to sleep with the dog on my lap and my brother’s knees digging into the seat.
“Next morning we got our petrol and drove off – to find a 24-hour petrol station round the next bend.”

Of mice and men
IT’S also the 50th anniversary of Hugh MacDiarmid’s epic poem about the state of Scotland, A Drunk Man Looks At The Thistle. We remember when author James Robertson stayed at MacDiarmid’s former cottage in South Lanarkshire and recalled: “It was a freezing cold cottage, infested with mice. Sometimes it was actually colder in the house than it was outside. That was when even the mice used to leave.”

Nothing to match him
STILL enjoying Andy Murray being the top tennis player in the world. As James Melville puts it: “Andy Murray is single-handedly keeping 2016 afloat.”

A blessing on the loch
THE Herald’s archive picture of fishing on Hogganfield Loch reminds David Will in Milngavie: “In the late 50s I spent much of my leisure time there on the rowing boats. Often the man in the boathouse would extend our hire in exchange for the return of abandoned boats which we picked up from the far side of the loch. 
“Children from the new, burgeoning housing schemes of Ruchazie and Easterhouse were, rightly or wrongly, blamed for this unsociable behaviour. I would like to thank those kids for the many free hours we enjoyed there.”

Lavatorial humour
WE should blow the final whistle on terracing shouts but, before we do, musician Roy Gullane says: “Back in the 70s, I went to see Thistle play a rescheduled cup tie on a bleak Sunday afternoon. Everything closed down back then on a Sunday. Thistle scored and an exuberant supporter launched a celebratory toilet roll into the air, which stubbornly refused to unfurl. I heard the yell behind me, ‘Whit a country! Even the lavvy rolls ‘ll no’ open on a Sunday’.”

Making plans for Nigel
NIGEL Farage’s attempts to be made British Ambassador to America have been met with much derision. Suggestions of better candidates have ranged on social media from a house brick to “A half chewed jelly baby, covered in pencil shavings, at the bottom of a playground bin”.
The most inspired we have heard is Hillary Clinton.

Schoolboy error
THE office japester walks determinedly towards us. “I was distraught,” he booms, “when I came home and my wife said my six-year-old son wasn’t mine. I just stared at him until he adds that I need to pay more attention when I do the school run.”

A bit lippy
TALKING of school runs, a south-side reader says she almost made her primary school son walk home while on the school run when he remarked: “My teacher doesn’t wear makeup like you do.” He then added after a pause: “Is it because she’s a lot younger?”