PERHAPS a catchphrase for this feature could be "there really is nothing new under the sun".

Take recycling. We now happily store our glass bottles and put them out for collection once a fortnight or so, but from July 2022, under the Scottish Government's Deposit Return Scheme, you'll pay a deposit of 20p every time you buy a drink in a single-use container and get the deposit back when you return the empty bottle (or can) – just like you used to get pennies back when you returned to empty ginger bottles to your local shop.

Similarly with the recycling of clothes. We now think nothing of putting our clothes in black plastic bags that are put through our doors by charities, or take them to local civic amenity sites. There are even shops that specialise in that very thing.

Not so long ago, we used to recycle our clothes through the auspices of a local character live by children everywhere – the rag and bone man.

He would tour our streets with horse and cart, usually announcing his arrival with a bugle – although the character this writer knew in Leith in the early 1960s clearly did not have a musical bent: he just used to shout.

Children everywhere would pester their mums for something to give the rag and bone man in exchange for a balloon, or sometimes a cheap trinket. He would sell the old clothes on, no doubt for a pittance – it wasn't a trade in which fortunes could be made, despite the dreams of Harold in the legendary sitcom Steptoe & Son.

Our pictures show rag and bone men plying their trade in Glasgow – in Finnieston in 1964 (main picture) and Lyon Street, off Garscube Road, in 1962.

These days we recycle our old clothes as and when we choose, and charities benefit, so that's good. But we miss the balloons.