The Gathering:

Two Gun Bob

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2 Apr 2010
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The time is once more upon us as this noblest of gatherings weaves it's magical spell.
The yearly influx of our Scottish kinsmen crossing the border on mass for their long march south to better climes and seaside frolics.
And this year how the gods smile as the skies project a background of eternal blue and the sun beats down it's rays of hope happiness and delight.

An amazing crac and a resort that bestows all the pleasures of the working man.
Irn brew for the w'ains and that rather special of elixorial delights Mc'Ewens lager for the ma's and da's.
Last year we had a full afternoon session on our hotel patio and the hotel allowed us to drink our own tins.
An amazing session with our highlander host and after a splendid tea of fish and chips we all frequented Ma Kellies.
On the hour every hour lashing of professional turns to appease the most ardent of entertainment seekers.
I sincerely hope we bump into Tam and his family again as they really knew how to let their hair down.

Wikipedia has it's own notion of the gathering and has no mantra of that what transpires;
Glasgow Fair
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Glasgow Fair
Date Last 2 weeks in July
This Year:
Friday 14 July 2017
Monday 17 July 2017
Frequency Annual


The Glasgow Fair is a holiday usually held during the second half of July in Glasgow, Scotland.
'The Fair' is the oldest of similar holidays and dates to the 12th century.
The fair's earliest incarnation occurred in 1190, when Bishop Jocelin obtained permission from King William the Lion to hold the festivities.
Until the 1960s most local businesses and factories closed on 'Fair Friday' to allow workers and their families to attend, typically spending their time in the Firth of Clyde or Ayrshire coast.
This practice was known as going "doon the watter" (literally "down the water" in the Glasgow dialect).
The fair continues to be held annually, though attendance has gradually decreased owing to most of the tribes fooking of to Blackpool.


The Scottish Fair reminds me of our own when the mills closed down for the two week wakes and We had no cars of our own back in the sixties ..well most didn't so we all went on the sharibangs(coaches)that transported us.
Our coaches were called Yelloway and were magnificent beasts of burden liveried in pastel Yellow.

Benidorm and air travel was still into it's infancy so bless those Rochdale Wakes weeks.

29fq9v9.jpg


So while the weather is clement why not go and say hello to our northern chums and show them all the hospitality that we are world famous for.

The Merry England bar is pure brilliant.
Here is the pride of Scotland and the bay city rollers.
The real ones with big Les leading the way : /



We are packed and ripped for our four day fest of sun sea sand and six packs
It's makes my blood curdle when pretentious folk go on about this that and t'other and how they love to holiday in a quite corner of nowhere and drink pimms and limonade whilst the sun sets and then waffle away the evening.
And yah yah the cruise was utterly splendid and over canopies and hoers des ovaries we chatted politics and shite and ate butties cut in a triangular fashion.

Thank you to Pathe News
Thank you real folk.
Thank you to the mayor of Blackpool
Thank you to the people that make Blackpool Rock.

 
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I just received a text from Finbar and his wife Morag.
They just set of on their twelve hour journey to the Pool only an hour ago.. Uncanny ?

I mentioned discussing the migratory holiday antics of their kinsmen and asked if it would be possible for them to post a small video blog of their own journey south.

Apologies for the quality but here it is to the music of "Will You Go Lassie Will You Go
Cometh the the day cometh the morrow and we shall indeed drink of that spiritual drink in Lush Lancastrian sunshine !



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as a youth, yelloways always made me vomit.
it was something about the smell of seats that got to me.

aged 7-9, father was in gaol and mother was usually drunk,
so my nanny would regularly be sent on daytrips to the seaside,
with me in tow, on these damnedable autobuses.

no other coaches bothered me, ellen smith et al were fine,
but as soon as i boarded a yelloways i knew there was no hope.
i always bravely held on for as long as possible before resignedly asking the driver to pull over momentarily
(health+safety mattered not back then).

maybe, with the easiness of hindsight, it was merely a psychosomatic malfunction,
yet still at the time i experimented with all sorts of possible preventatives:
a swimming nose-peg thingy,
playing card games,
cotton wool in the ears,
thinking about mathematics,
reading upside down,
etc, etc,
nothing worked.

the final resort was some sort of purple bubble gum with a liquid centre,
on which i gorged myself from the off.
it was a huge mistake, but quite comical looking back...

half an hour before blackpool i ran to the front of the coach & motioned to the driver to stop forthwith.
he blathered on about some parking place up ahead.
my throat was already filling as he suddenly rather noticed the impending look on my face.

a lady on the front seat had kindly offered me a small towel,
with which i suppose i was meant to attempt to prevent the flow somehow.
alas, twas too late.
the towel, pressed firmly against my mouth, acted only to send the vomitous eruption outwards at 90degrees,
in a sort of catherine wheel shape at high velocity.
and there really was a considerable amount of it shooting out sideways,
and purple at that,
and sadly for the unfortunate driver, a fair bit of it ended up on him.

he pulled over at once and attempted to throttle me,
which resulted in more vomit striking him directly in the face.

from then on we took the train and i fell in love with the romance of the tracks.

as a side note,
i had the (mis)fortune to revisit rochdale last week.
the place is not in great shape at all.
such a shame.
for what its worth the art gallery and museum are most satisfying
and the recent re-exposing of the river in two places has been done admirably,
but otherwise it's become a shithole at best.
saddest of all was the dilapidated state of the town hall's stained glass windows.
what disrepair they are in!
and to think that hitler personally insisted on rochdale not being bombed just so as to not destroy those very same windows.
 
On leaving school at 16 in 1986 I got my first job @ Bowker and Balls Spinners and doublers of fine yarns. They observed Oldham wakes shutdown for two weeks every year. A number of the elder employees were members of a classic bus club and each yr at the start of the wakes they would head out on Something like this to Blackpool
2070831860044442179kdHVDh_ph-L.jpg


Thankyou for dredging a very pleasant memory from wherever it had been hiding. Returning home from first of said outings at 16, complete with big foam cowboy hat and bottle of Thunderbird I had got for the trip home, but remained unopened since within 10 mins of being on the bus i fell asleep......got a 2 trip ban as well for being completely trousered.
 
On leaving school at 16 in 1986 I got my first job @ Bowker and Balls Spinners and doublers of fine yarns. They observed Oldham wakes shutdown for two weeks every year. A number of the elder employees were members of a classic bus club and each yr at the start of the wakes they would head out on Something like this to Blackpool
2070831860044442179kdHVDh_ph-L.jpg


Thankyou for dredging a very pleasant memory from wherever it had been hiding. Returning home from first of said outings at 16, complete with big foam cowboy hat and bottle of Thunderbird I had got for the trip home, but remained unopened since within 10 mins of being on the bus i fell asleep......got a 2 trip ban as well for being completely trousered.

This is it and the epitomy of we we all were.
We grafted and then for two weeks at the wakes we let our working class hair down.

My wife was a Northrop weaver back in the day.
She ran ten looms at 17 and had to lip read with her mates.
The noise was deafening and she worked for her money.
A highly skilled worker on minimum wage..
And so when Wakes weeks came around our equivilent of the Glasgow Fair you can imagine the excitement building within.
You go away and have the crac and let your cares and wheys drift away.

Anyway it's Blackpool time and we shall certainly have the crac with our Scottish chums.
Fun in the sun and pop your cucumber butties where the sun don't shine.
 
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