Saturday 21st August 1971 - The Edinburgh Highland Games

Puttemans a year later in Munich

The morning after the night before. It was odd awakening at Oxgangs with Nana 'n Gaga here. Gaga laughed off Nana’s comments about him imbibing at the wedding – ‘Not at all - I was absolutely sober!’  You have to laugh. After breakfast they headed back down to Porty. 

Meanwhile Boo-Boo, Iain and I went down to Meadowbank Sports Centre to watch the Edinburgh Highland Games. It’s the first time I've been there since we went to watch the Commonwealth Games in 1970. It was brilliant. A cracking day with big crowds and some great athletics to watch not to mention a world record thrown in - the place was buzzing! 

Emiel Puttemans from Belgium broke the two miles world best. It was some run against some great opposition. He's clearly going to be a bit of a handful for all the great British runners over the 5000 metres in next year's Olympics in Munich. He kept blasting through each lap in around 62 seconds and just kept going. It was some field too - all the Stewarts - Lachie; Ian 'n Peter; Brendan Foster; Alan Rushmer and Mike Tagg. Once the crowd realised he was going to keep on going we were all on our feet clapping and cheering him on; not only did he break Ron Clarke's world record but he was about seven seconds in front of Foster who ran a British record!

David Jenkins on the last leg, Meadowbank 1972

It was also good to see Edinburgh's David Jenkins running after his gold medal in Helsinki, not in the quarter but he ran the 100 metres and also a great flying leg in the 4 x 100 metres relay. The three of us had a fantastic day out. It's given me a bit of an appetite for the old athletics. I wonder how you get into it. 

Back home to Oxgangs; we're home alone. Quite a few kids were all hanging out tonight - Lorraine and Jacqueline Burns were there. We then settled in for the night with some of Rissi's best and the telly. A solid night including Lulu. Thereafter Sportsreel; it's still the League Cup  -  a good win for the Hibs but a defeat for the Hearts; a wee bit of Parky before bed; Freddie Trueman was on; he’s pretty straight talking - refreshing!

Monday 16th August 1971

Edinburgh's David Jenkins winning 1971 European 400m Helsinski

For me I got up very late. 

I spread the word about my idea to hold an athletics competition up at Redford Barracks Stadium on the cinder athletics track. 

Well the word spread like wildfire and soon there were about forty of us all piling up there either walking up or on bikes and all in our various shorts, T-shirts, baseball boots and rubbers. What a sight it was seeing everyone climbing over the big metal fence; it was like we'd launched an attack on the Queen's Army! Fortunately there were no soldiers about or those who did see us just ignored us. We used the cinder track as well as the long jump pit. The track is great; you can fly along on it. Amongst doing all the organisation arranging the races and age groups as well as recording everything I managed to pick up four golds myself.

Everybody had great fun; it was a really big success and all down to BBC's David Coleman; the Europeans; and Scotland's inspirational David Jenkins! Amazing how something happening on the big world stage seeps through to a wee community like Oxgangs. A very happy day. 

However the air was taken out of my balloon a wee bit in that back home a lady had come up earlier about me to go the hospital on Wednesday. It's all about the skiving and the Biology lab incident! It's actually the day I go back to the school; the sunshine of the school summer holidays is about to come to an end when it meets the dark clouds of a new academic session at Boroughmuir Senior Secondary School. 

Gaga was up to see us and treated us all to Rissi's chips which I needed after all my exploits today.

Friday 13th August 1971

I did the week's messages down at the Store. On the way down I somehow managed to lose a quid - a flipping disaster. That's a week's wages from my job at Baird’s Newsagents. Anyway on the way back I retraced my footsteps and managed to find it - PHEW! 

No Anne or Iain at home and Mum's away out so I was in on my own at 6/2 and stayed in all evening and watched telly; for me it was a perfect evening. First of all at 6.20pm the European Athletics Championships were on and Edinburgh's David Jenkins won the 400 metres. He ran absolutely brilliantly from the outside lane; he just took off like a bat out of hell flying down the back straight and remained strong right to the end just holding off the Italian. What an athlete he is. He's still only nineteen - that's only four years older than me. I think I can forget about any occasional dreams I might have about the running! He's a great sprinter as was the Russian bloke who won the 200 metres, Valery Borzov from Russia - he's a machine! 

After all that excitement I lolled back on the couch and watched ‘The Virginian. John McIntyre is in the series now playing a good part as Clay Grainger; he's less tart than Lee J. Cobb's the Judge - all 'n all a consistently good series. Afterwards I watched ‘It's A Knockout’ - what a flipping laugh; it was just a pity Iain wasn’t here to share the fun with! 

Tomorrow morning I'm doing Dougie Blades' paper run. Dougie's away trainspotting. I'll be selling all the different morning papers around the City Hospital wards. Pamela Baird must have confidence in me as it's the top job at the shop which must have around twenty paper runs. I've made the top of my profession aged only fifteen years old - at least temporarily!

Saturday 5th August 1972

I got my pay today and then packed in the sales job. Although I’ve probably been the most successful of the 24 salesmen it’s not the life for me. 

I guess it’s been useful to do it over the school summer holidays rather than having completely burnt my boats by officially leaving Boroughmuir. I’m not quite sure whether I have really left or not. 

In the afternoon Paul and I watched the International Olympic Meeting from Crystal Palace before the Olympics from Munich start in three weeks’ time - I can hardly wait. However there was a pretty poor turn out of the big stars apart from David Hemery running the 400m hurdles and Dave Jenkins flying around on the last leg of the 4 x 400 metres relay. 

Afterwards Paul and I cycled from Oxgangs to Meadowbank. When we eventually got back to Oxgangs we met Liz Blades’ (6/6 Oxgangs Avenue) pen-pal Lisa who is over from America. She’s beautiful - a blonde girl from California Los Angeles.

Later on I watched Sportsreel. An incredible result in the final of the Drybrough Cup with Hibs beating Celtic 5-3 in the final - brilliant!

Postscript from Liz Blades (6/6 Oxgangs Avenue): 

I just wanted to let you know that it was thanks to my mother that we had these pen-friends. She had corresponded with friends in the US before the war. I'm not sure how that came about. Anyway the family offered to have her to stay once WW2 was declared but her parents were fearful something might happen on the Atlantic crossing and she never made it. I think she always regretted that she had been denied that opportunity. It was she who wrote to churches in the US - I have no idea where she got the contacts - asking for pen-friends for me. My two main contacts were Lisa in Los Angeles who I visited a couple of times and Jeanetter in Cincinatti who I also visited a couple of times. Sadly Lisa died in 1997 (just before Princess Diana). She was an alcoholic and the alcohol abuse had taken its toll and destroyed her liver. Absolutely tragic because she had been the quintessential Californian beauty, bronzed, slim, with long blonde hair. She was also the most gentle and kind person I ever knew. She was only 41 yrs old when she passed away. But if it hadn't been for my mother's efforts I would not have known her at all.