Calling At Perth, Dundee And Memory Lane
Heading for Dundee this morning I found myself changing trains at Perth but with half an hour to kill. Well, the sun was shining so I wandered out of the station and into town and soon found myself coming face to face with an old friend. Rabbie Burns, it was, or rather, a statue of said poet which is perched above a pub on the junction of County Place and South Street. I don't know how long he has stood there, but I first saw him forty years ago when he became a familiar landmark on our annual family drive from Glasgow to Dundee. We spent summer school holidays in a hut between Monfieth and Carnoustie. It would take you 90 minutes to get there from Glasgow now, but in those days the car journey took almost four hours and the road snaked through places like Auchterarder, Blackford and - before they built the Friarton Bridge over the Tay- the centre of Perth itself.
I can remember the long line of stop-start traffic and my Mum pointing out Rabbie on his perch as a part of her many distraction techniques for us weans crammed into the beltless back seat of the car.
My Dad drove like a man on a mission and regarded the notion of breaking the journey as tantamount to stupidity. But once in a while he would agree to park in the middle of Perth so that my Mum could buy her "messages" in the Coopers supermarket. It's long gone. There's a Tesco Metro there now and a swish indoor shopping mall.
Apart from that, very little seemed to have changed. But then, as I stood admiring Rabbie on his perch, I realised that everything had.
