THE ABERDONIAN

I am sitting in a train, heading north, towards Aberdeen.  Clamped to my ear is what I believe is called an MP3 player.  It contains a number of songs that have accompanied me for a large part of my life.  New Morning (1971) by Bob Dylan, takes me back to my days at Smith’s Dock in North Shields, watching the rock pipits, pied wagtails and kittiwakes at Tynemouth Haven in my lunch hour, then going back to code up stock tickets with the likes of Neil Mathieson, Jean Hull and Joan Gibson. Smith’s Dock was razed to the ground a number of years ago.  The demand for ship repairing on the Tyne dried up and the whole yard simply disappeared.  There are posh houses and apartments on it now, but I remember the rats in the dock bottom.  It’s a glorious day and the sun is shining down on the Firth of Forth as we rumble along the Fife coast.  It’s a route well known to me from my travels to Dundee in 2010 and 2011.  The coffee is sharp and refreshing.  The carriage is only two-thirds full and I have a table to myself.  Burntisland looks a picture in the sunshine, with its huge greensward and backdrop of purple hills.  I’ve been there, but it was many, many years ago.  All Last Night by Peter Skellern (1973).  I bought the LP just after I was married. I listened to it on a modest record-player in a tiny apartment in Rosehill.  The flat, in a block of 18, cost £3,250.  I went back there last month.  Sixteen of the flats are boarded up.  There used to be a fine view across the Burn Closes to the Seven Arches rail bridge, but trees have encroached to within a few feet of the lounge windows and now there is no view at all.  A Japanese woman is watching a Japanese cartoon on her tablet.  I am told that they are addicted to cartoons, unless that is the Chinese.  She may well be Chinese, though she isn’t wearing grey overalls.  Even ratty old Kircaldy looks nice in the gentle glow of the sun.  The old abandoned factory is still there, but the three small industrial saddle-tanks that stood slowly rusting away have gone to who knows where?  The Door Into Summer by the Monkees (1967).  That was the summer of love.  It might have been on the King’s Road and Carnaby Street, but it certainly wasn’t along Wallsend High Street.  I would parade up one side and down the other, dressed in a green tweed sports jacket and grey corduroy trousers, looking for all the world like a bookie’s runner.  The girls would occasionally stop and laugh.  The song, a Mike Nesmith one, was from the LP Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn and Jones Ltd and my friends and I would listen to it on a Monday night, along with Sergeant Pepper and other brilliant albums.  We didn’t know then that the Monkees never played any of their instruments, and they got the tea boy to do the harmonies, but we still thought it was a great song.  My Friend the Sun by Family (1969).  By far their most tuneful song, it took me back to my GKN Steelstock days and my old friend Keith Roberts, who introduced me to the group’s music on one of our frequent visits to his home in Newburn.  GKN Steelstock is no more – the factory, nestling alongside the Scotswood Bridge, is still there but is occupied by another company. The train rattles across the bridge over McGonagal’s massive ‘silvery Tay’ and into Dundee. Such a familiar feel.  I would have been packing my bag at this time and putting on my coat, ready for whatever the day had to throw at me, followed by lonely nights in the Queen’s Hotel, high up on a hill looking down on the City of Discovery.  Calling America by ELO (1986).  I think this was their last hit. It reminds me of the dog days at the end of my Hestair Duple career in Blackpool and the start of life in Scotland.  The Duple factory is no more – the firm went bust in 1989 and the site is now occupied by a Ford dealer.  We head north, hugging the North Sea, through Broughty Ferry.  From now on, the line is controlled by quadrant signals, a quaint throwback to the Victorian era.  Somewhere, by the Pet Shop Boys (1992).  I remember old pants-splitting PJ Proby singing it in the mid-sixties.  I try to remember whether it was from West Side Story but soon give up.  Neil Tennant brought it up to date, delivering it as a ballad with a techno-pop disco beat, and the effect is unorthodox, to say the least.  We pass through Arbroath, famous for its smoked kippers.  The station clock shows midday.  It is 10:50.  I daresay the clock has shown midday for a long, long time. Grand Hotel (1972) by Procol Harum, an extraordinary piece of baroque music with swirling strings and honking brass making this a progressive rock tour de force.  It reminds me of all the seedy dives masquerading as hotels I’ve stayed in over the years, from the fleapit in Pimlico where someone had stolen the taps and shower fittings, to the modest pension in Maastricht where they served you what appeared to be spam for breakfast.  As we shuffle into Aberdeen, a city I last visited in 2007 and with which I wasn’t particularly impressed, I have thoroughly enjoyed my journey.  It’s amazing how a few rock songs can open up a stream of memories, both good and indifferent.  They say nostalgia is a bad thing, but no, everyone has a story to tell.