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Travel Broadens the Mind

Travel can be a stressful time. But where there is stress there is often humour. Here are our readers’ tales from when they go out and about.

 

STRESSFUL time, going on holiday. As Paddy Galloway recorded on his way to Portugal: “Scenes in Dublin Airport as a red-faced man shouts at his wife for losing the passports. ‘You remembered every ******* pair of shoes but not the ******* passports’ has been the standout line.”

 

LOTS of folk using the Uber app in Glasgow to summon cabs. But it does have the occasional drawback. A reader in the city centre at the weekend heard a young woman who was staring at her phone ask her pal: “A Nissan Pulsar Acenta? Who the heck knows what that looks like?”

 

A COLLEAGUE comes over to tell us: “I’ve discovered a cure for my fear of flying – 23 hours on a National Express coach.”

 

AN Ayrshire reader tells us: “Sometimes you forget how proud you can feel to be Scottish.” He was chatting to a work colleague in England who had been in the Royal Navy for 20 years and he asked him if he had ever seen any action. Adds our reader: “Totally straight-faced he told me, ‘The guy next to me went down to gunfire once, that was the closest.’ When I asked where, he told me in the eighties HMS London sailed up the Clyde on a Friday night and, as the crew took to the deck to see the city lights, the sailor next to him was struck on the shoulder by a shot fired by a gang of neds on the embankment with an air rifle.”

 

WE are all a bit afraid of saying anything challenging to flight crew these days, as you sense they are ready at a moment’s notice to call security. So a reader flying down to London from Glasgow was impressed when a chap using his phone to play games while the plane stood on the tarmac was told by a steward to put his phone on airplane mode and the chap replied: “We’ve been sitting here for half an hour – is it not time to put the plane in airplane mode?’”

 

WE mentioned Chic Murray gags, and thank you to readers who sent in their favourites. Sadly we’ve printed most of them before, but one I hadn’t heard came from John Mathieson, who says: “I liked his comment on the compensation culture where individuals took advantage of deficiencies in the performance of public services. As a schoolboy he was on the top deck of a bus with his father when the bus performed a very abrupt emergency stop. Passengers were thrown forwards, and Chic said, ‘I was uninjured, but fortunately my father had the presence of mind to throw me down the stairs.’”

 

WE asked about stressful airport moments and a reader in America tells us of a team from the US flying to the World Irish Dance Championships in Glasgow last year who were carrying their expensive dance dresses in suit bags as well as their normal carry-on luggage. An officious airline staff member insisted they check them into the hold, which the girls resisted, fearing damage. After a hurried consultation the girls came up with the idea of putting the dresses on over their normal clothes, stuffed the empty suit bags in their hand luggage, then changed out of them once on the plane. The official was no doubt hopping mad.

 

WE do love bus drivers. Sue Wade in Ayr was at her local bus station when she heard a passenger ask the driver: “How long to get to Hamilton?”

“Ages,” he replied.

 

GOOD to see sexism being challenged. Sandy Tuckerman recalls: “On a late-night flight from London Gatwick, in the days before the flight-deck doors were locked and bolted, the announcement was, ‘Ten minutes to landing, wenches on the benches.’

“The senior flight attendant stormed into the cockpit, slamming the door behind her. A rather contrite announcement was then made by the captain: ‘I do apologise, ladies and gentlemen. What I meant to say was, cabin crew, seats for landing.’”

 

 

YES, it’s Easter this weekend, but that doesn’t mean all the parking meters in Glasgow are free to use. We remember a reader going back to his car on an Easter Monday and, seeing it was being ticketed, he remonstrated with the warden that it was a bank holiday. “It’s no’ a bank holiday for me, pal,” he replied, and kept on writing.

 

AH yes, public transport. We can sympathise with artist Moose Allain who says: “The old lady sitting near me on this train must have seen some things in her lifetime, have so many amazing tales to tell. Unfortunately, the one she’s been telling for the last half an hour isn’t one of them.”

 

OUR story about breakfast in Glasgow reminds former BBC producer Mike Shaw of the late great folk singer Danny Kyle once telling him about travelling overnight to Glasgow after a gig in the north of England and being desperate for breakfast.

Although it was five in the morning Danny spotted a greasy spoon that was open, rushed in and ordered a full breakfast and a cup of coffee.

When the coffee arrived he took a large gulp and smilingly told the waitress it tasted like nectar.

“Well, if you don’t like it, you don’t have to drink it,” she replied.

 

A LATE-ARRIVING-TRAIN story, with Mark Boyle in Johnstone telling us: “During the recent snow, ScotRail blared over the tannoy at Johnstone that, during the rush hour, trains would be up to half an hour late, subject to cancellation at short notice and accommodation inside carriages would be standing room only. I wonder where to thank them for the improved service?”

 

A REFLECTION on life at Glasgow Airport. A reader passing through the security area hears the official ask a passenger just before she goes through the metal detector if she has anything in her pockets. “No,” she replied.

“I know how that feels,” he replies ruefully.

 

BUS stories, continued. Says Mary Duncan: “One morning on my way to work there was a passenger singing like a linty, happily drunk. He got off the bus just before me, and when I moved to the front I said to the driver, ‘How can someone be that drunk at eight in the morning?’ The driver’s reply: ‘Just lucky, I guess.’”

 

TODAY’S piece of sheer daftness comes from Chris Addison, who says: “Well, turns out when they say at the station, ‘If you see anything suspicious please report it to a member of staff,’ they don’t mean those posters claiming 97 per cent of the trains last month were on time.”

 

GERMAN newspapers reported that the Berlin Wall has now been down longer than it actually existed, if you can follow that arithmetical conundrum. It reminds us of the Scottish doctor who told us about being at a medical conference in Berlin in the eighties where a local medic took him to see the wall. He told us: “Directly opposite was a tower with an East German armed guard. Between us and the wall was a fence, then a no-man’s-land of bare ground. Directly under the guard, written on the wall was ‘Gers Ya Bass’.

“I started laughing. My German friend asked what was so amusing, and I explained. He was dumbfounded. ‘You mean that someone risked his life to write a football slogan on this wall, where so many have been shot? This has been on the wall for a year – we had no idea what it meant, or even the language it was in.’”

 

THE railways folk have announced you will no longer be able to share a sleeper carriage between London and Glasgow with a stranger, which was a way of saving yourself 50 quid or so. We always remember our late, great colleague Willie Hunter’s description of sharing a sleeper back to Glasgow after watching Scotland beat the world champions at Wembley in 1967. Wrote Willie: “After taking a refreshment, I fell on to the top bunk of a train sleeper from Euston. At wakey-wakey time the mouth felt like the inside of Jim Baxter’s stockings.

“Silently, over the rim of the bed appeared a bottle of Irn-Bru. With my provident companion from downstairs, who turned out to be a van driver and a Clyde supporter, there was a happy hour of living the triumph all over again, while we took our mornings of his Bru and what we could find in our half-bottles.”

 

OUR bus stories remind Ronnie McLean of working as an SMT bus conductor as a student in the sixties. He recalls: “Running late on a trip to Killermont Street, we stopped at lights on Cathedral Street and the driver told me to change the destination blind so we could make a quick getaway. While I was hanging on to the front of the bus – a Bristol Lodekka for the anoraks – the lights changed and he drove off with me clinging on. Typical of Glasgow, no one in the crowded bus station batted an eyelid.”

 

 

AND talking of tramcars, enough readers to fill a tramcar have got in touch with the classic tale, so I suppose we should repeat it, of the greyhound owner outside Shawfield trying to get on a tramcar with two dugs but being told by the clippie that there was already a dog on board and only two were allowed in total.

After a long and heated argument in which the conductress would not bend the rules, he eventually stormed off in anger, shouting at her: “You can stick your caur up your backside.” She merely shouted back: “Aye, if you’d done that with wan o’ yer dugs, you would’ve got oan.”

 

WE mentioned the reduction of postcards these days, and Martin McGeehan in Gourock recalls a school trip to St Malo in the sixties which was the first trip abroad for most of them. Says Martin: “We were tasked on day one with buying a postcard and stamp to send news of our arrival and comfortable accommodation to home. A pal addressed his card to his family at ‘Rue de Forsyth, Greenock’ so that ‘the French postman would know where to deliver it’.”

 

THE Herald archive picture of a burned-down Glasgow theatre reminds David Miller in Milngavie of another Glasgow theatre consumed by fire, the old Queen’s Theatre. Says David: “The theatre’s resident comic Sammy Murray was on a tram and asked the conductress, ‘Does this caur go over Jamaica Street Bridge?’

“‘If it disnae,’ she replied, ‘there’s gonna be a hell of a splash.’”

 

BIT of a stooshie on social media as our old chum, writer and broadcaster Lesley Riddoch, commented: “Arriving in Glasgow, every person leaving bus thanks the driver. Such a contrast from impersonal silence at Stansted.” SNP MSP Roseanna Cunningham agreed with her, stating: “Used to do that in London to bus drivers – they always looked shocked that anyone would thank them!” Many others, though, said that thanking bus drivers happened all over Britain, and people in Scotland should be less sanctimonious.

But the most searing reply was the chap who told Lesley: “I held the door open for you in Starbucks, The Gyle. You were walking with a stick and holding a coffee. Not much of a thanks was forthcoming.”

 

OUR bus stories brought back memories for entertainer Andy Cameron, who was a bus conductor in the early sixties. Says Andy: “When passengers had no money for their fare they could ask for a Pink Slip on which they wrote their names and addresses so that they could go to the Bath Street office and pay it later. What always surprised me was the number of famous people who lived in Castlemilk and were skint – Rock Hudson, Perry Como, Willie Henderson, Paddy Crerand, Harold Wilson, Marilyn Monroe – they were all on my bus and signed a Pink Slip.”

 

OK, just to get it over with. We mentioned the classic tramcar story about the two dogs and now numerous readers demand we mention the other classic tram tale. We will use Ian Cooper of Bearsden’s version: “A Glasgow wifie purchased an old metal cabin trunk at The Barras and, as was the custom then, she put it up front with the driver of a tram on the Gallowgate then went to board herself, only to be told by the clippie that the car was fu’.

“‘But I’m the woman wi’ the tin chest,’ she cried.

“‘Ah don’t care if ye’ve goat a wally erse, you’re still no’ gettin’ on!’ she was told.”

 

A CUMBERNAULD reader emails to tell us: “With the possibility growing of self-driving vehicles, it’s only a matter of time before we get a country and western song where a guy’s truck leaves him too.”

 

LATE night in Glasgow and we jump into a taxi and recognise the driver.

“Is your brother still driving your taxi during the day?” we ask.

“No, I had to sack him,” says our driver.

“Why was that?” we ask. “Well, despite what experts say, his passengers didn’t like it when he tried to go the extra mile.”

 

THE Herald story about Scots spending a large portion of their salary on train fares has a Glasgow reader getting in touch to say: “I got an early morning train from Glasgow to Edinburgh which was so full many folk were standing. The chap who managed to get a seat beside me remarked, ‘It’s kind of sad that getting a seat on the train will probably be the highlight of my day, and I’ll be talking about it when I get home.’ ”

 

WE mentioned the 30th anniversary this week of the opening of the Glasgow Garden Festival, and Margaret Thomson recalls: “A friend of mature years visited the festival and decided she had to go on the Coca-Cola ride. When she landed, we asked how she had enjoyed it. ‘Well,’ she said, ‘it was OK, but I had one hand clapped over my eyes to keep my specs on, and the other over my mouth to keep my teeth in, so I didn't see much.’ ”

 

CONGRATULATIONS to my old chum, and the journalist who took The Diary to giddy heights, Tom Shields, for his lifetime achievement award at the Scottish Press Awards. Tom is remembered by readers for his Diary stories poking gentle fun at the Ayrshire town of Kilwinning. He once wrote about the Kilwinning chap who announced he was getting married and his pal warning him: “No her! Hauf the men in Stevenston huv been wi’ her!” After a moment’s thought he replied philosophically: “Ach, it’s no that big a place, Stevenston.”

 

COMEDIAN Brian “Limmy” Limond, who will be in Inverness this month with his video clip tour, Limmy’s Vines, explained to followers on social media what happened when he encountered the £2 drop-off fee at Glasgow Airport.

Said Limmy: “Glasgow Airport charges two quid just to drop somebody off. Got an Uber there and saw the sign, so I tipped the driver two quid to make up for it. Checked my receipt, and saw he’d added the two quid charge anyway. It’s dog-eat-dog. You know where you are? You’re in the jungle, baby.”