Last updated at 10:55, Thursday, 31 December 2009

AM I alone in thinking Old Year’s Nights on the telly ain’t what they used to be?

I have nothing against Jools Holland and his Hootenanny per se, but what’s a bland middle of the road musician got to do with Hogmanay?

New Year’s Eve should be all about skirling bagpipes, swirling kilts, and a lilting accordion band, with drams of whisky and a lachrymose Auld Lang Syne on the stroke of midnight, not some bloke playing a piano in London.

When we were kids, New Year’s Eve was the only night of the year when we were allowed to stay up until midnight.

We had to leave a piece of coal and a kindling stick on the step ready for the First Foot, who was always my dad, reeling his way back from the pub.

However, the real entertainment was on the telly, when the BBC went all North o’ the Border.

We didn’t know a great deal about Scotland in our house – it might as well have been on the dark side of the moon.

The little we did know was gleaned from the pages of the Our Wullie and Broons annuals my grandma used to send us every Christmas.

The books introduced us to characters like Wee Eck and Fat Boab, and exotic expressions like “Jings” and “Crivvens” as well as the mysteries of what black bun and jeely pieces might be.

The characters also featured in that fine organ, The Sunday Post, DC Thomson’s version of Viz, the adult comic.

It was – and possibly still is – the homeliest newspaper in the world, full of stories of Scots ingenuity and common sense, including hints of how to cope with something called a hingy bairn.

I absolutely adored it, and devoured every page, especially the sports section, where the conventions of football reporting went right out of the window.

Teams were known as the Jags, the Bairns and the Bully Wee, and no-one scored goals – they “rammed a real blooter into the onion bag.”

The Sunday Post therefore gave me a predilection for all things Scottish, which manifested itself in a fondness for Scottish style Hogmanay traditions.

It seemed to go on from early evening, with the late, great Andy Stewart and his Caledonian colleagues from the White Heather Club taking over the airwaves with songs of Scottish soldiers dying in far off lands, or indecipherable ditties like the Muckin’ of Geordie’s Byre.

Kilted dancers of both sexes would caper fetchingly with kilts never swishing quite high enough to solve the age old riddle about what a Scotsman wore under his Campbell of Argyll tartan.

Then came accordion virtuoso Jimmy Shand and his band, twinkling through enough reels and polkas to give Craig Revel Horwood a touch of the vapours.

Old Jimmy was my kind of Scotsman, who, when offered one of those little individual pots of honey at his bed and breakfast establishment, exclaimed: “Oh, I see you keep a bee ....”

Kenneth McKellar and Moira Anderson also used to come on and do a couple of breathy hand-holding numbers, but no-one could take them seriously any more after they were so wickedly parodied by The Two Ronnies.

Then there were the two blokes of legendary magazine show Tonight, Robin Hall and Jimmy McGregor, who wore startling jumpers, and seemed to know only one song – He’s Fitba Crazy, He’s Fitba Mad.

However, the daddy of them all was Andy Stewart himself, the epitome of the all round entertainer.

My mother used to come over all of a dither when Andy Stewart did his “wee bit shuggle shuggle” to set his kilt swinging.

Although he will always be known for his porridge-stirring songs like A Scottish Soldier and The Road and the Miles to Dundee , he was also a great mimic and comedian.

Everyone remembers his comedy classic Donald Where’s Yer Troosers but that was only the tip of the iceberg of Andy’s comic talents.

While other kids in Macclesfield were waking up to the Beatles and the Swinging Blue Jeans, we were playing The Highland Twist, Doctor Finlay and Sandy’s Holiday.

But, for me, the best of them all was Cowboy Jock from Skye, a rib-tickler with memorable lines like:

“With the heather growing from his chest, He was a legend of the West, the hombre known as Cowboy Jock from Skye.”

I can’t see that coming up on the Bland Boring Consortium this year.

First published at 10:37, Thursday, 31 December 2009
Published by http://www.hexhamcourant.co.uk