Auld Lang Syne For Old Buffers; The doorstep is scrubbed, the weans

I HAVE this dream in which First Minister Jack McConnell, in his state of the Scottish nation speech, announces a return to traditional Hogmanay values. The Holyrood parliament passes two important pieces of legislation - the Christmas (Abatement) Order and the Guid New Year (Promotion of) Act - and five decades of destruction of the Scottish festive season are undone at a stroke.

I realise there is as much chance of this happening as there is of Citizen Jack's regime accomplishing their aims of ending sectarianism and reforming the Scottish diet. But I can hope.

Ideally, I would like to turn the clock back to December 31, 1955. A truly magic Hogmanay is in process. The women in the Shields household are engaged in a blitzkreig of housework. Everything, including the weans, is being scrubbed mercilessly so that not a speck of dust or grime will survive into the new year.

The front doorstep is whitewashed. The windows have been opened to let out the stale air of the old year. A big pot of Scotch broth is bubbling on the hob. A butcher's steak pie is in the oven. A side table is laden with the finest sweetmeats the Glasgow South Co- operative Society can offer - Madeira cake, sultana cake, cherry cake, and butter shortbread. There is no black bun which, as far as I can work out, does not exist outside of the pages of the Broons book. Perhaps it is too expensive for the family budget. But there are heaps of oranges, cut into quarters. I never did work out the role and significance of the quartered orange in our new year ritual.

About 10pm, instead of being sent to bed, you sit down with the rest of the family for the Hogmanay feast. There is no alcohol involved. The bottles of whisky, port, and even the weans' ginger cordial are not opened until the bells.

A few minutes before midnight, an adult male is despatched out into the cold, clutching a piece of coal and a packet of shortbread. At every door in the street there is a shivering first-foot whose task, once the bells have chimed, is to enter and prevent the family from being prisoners in their own home. There then ensues that most un-Scottish business of kissing and hugging your own family. You even get to shake hands with your father.

The decks are cleared for the night-long party. There is drink involved but in those days there was a certain canniness, epitomised by the Whyte & Mackay whisky bottle. It came with a small plastic cap which served both as a measure and a drinking container as first- footers eked out their nips. A man's Ne'erday bottle was a much more prized and harder-earned commodity in those days and was to be consumed sparingly. I did manage once to tip a measure from an unguarded bottle into my ginger cordial but I was not too impressed with the resulting cocktail. Much more palatable was to sneak a sip or two from the ubiquitous bottles of McEwan's beer.

The pint-sized bottles with the green labels were called screw tops and were a powerful icon to me. (I still come over all sentimental at Matt McGinn's wonderful parody "screwtaps keep falling on my head".) The business of collecting and returning the empty screwtops and the smaller blue-labelled beer bottles to the off- licence provided a substantial source of post-Hogmanay income to us urchins.

In the absence of round-the-clock TV, the revellers of 1955 made their own entertainment. Everybody had their party piece, even if too many of them seemed to choose the Wee Cock Sparra.

(The Wee Cock Sparra, for the unitiated, was a comic monolgue made popular by Duncan Macrae, a serious and talented screen and stage actor who became better known for this piece of whimsy. It is the story of a wee boy who had a bow and an arra. The boy uses this weapon to kill a sparra. Along comes a man pushing a barra. He chastises the boy, though he isnae his farra. When Mr Macrae delivered this oeuvre, it was a delight. In the hands of an inebriated amateur at the Hogmanay party, it would have you rushing to put a Billy Eckstine or Fats Domino record on the radiogram.) The Ne'erday ceilidh was a moveable event with almost every house in the street a venue. Rikki Fulton, the actor and comedian whose Scotch & Wry television programme became a dominant part of the nation's Hogmanay celebrations, told me how as a teenager in Glasgow he loved "the sheer liberation of being able to walk along the streets and being made welcome in almost any home".

Ironically, it was TV which, in my humble opinion, ruined the traditional New Year. Not Rikki's Scotch & Wry or Rev IM Jolly, nor indeed their modern counterparts Chewin' The Fat or Only An Excuse, which provide a welcome dash of humour. The culprit was the succession of dreadful Hogmanay variety shows which have been a blight on our culture. As television took over our lives, Hogmanay ceased to be an occasion when there was a party in every living room. The party was on the telly and we were mere onlookers.

Gus Macdonald, who was a TV mogul before he went off to help run the government as Lord Macdonald of New Labour, once said he "was lucky enough to grow up before there were Hogmanay shows".

In the beginning (the middle 1950s actually) there was the White Heather Club annexation of Hogmanay and for too many years we were all constrained in a tartan straightjacket. Ian MacFadyen, the producer in charge of 24 consecutive BBC Scotland new year shows, was such a stickler for the tartan trews and the scent o' the heather that he became known as Ayatollah Hogmanay.

Adding significantly to the cringe factor suffered by many Scots was the knowledge that these Hogmanay shows were being shown to a UK- wide audience, Scotland being the fount of all things New Year. Oh how the English laughed, not with us but at us. Further embarrassment was caused by the regular occurrence of the Great Hogmanay Disaster.

These shows, produced by BBC Scotland and STV, were live and usually with a number of outdoor locations. This was a dangerous business, with drink and the Scottish weather. In 1970, the TV network viewers were treated to the sight of Jimmy Logan, Moira Anderson, et al, live in Aviemore being pelted with snowballs and beer cans by merry-makers. In 1984, the BBC show from the Gleneagles Hotel was a paradigmatic technical shambles.

Chic Murray, the legendary but by then ageing Scottish comedian, was host and had to bear the brunt of the programme's shortcomings. Chic passed away in May of the next year but it was cruelly said in the TV trade that he had died that Hogmanay.

Hogmanay show foul-ups became a source of great angst and indeed national shame as the newspapers would examine the entrails of another example of rotten New Year TV fare. One year, Scottish TV in ironic mode, mounted a parody. It was set in the mythical Heedrum Hodrum Hotel. It had actors forgetting their lines, misbehaviour by drunken members of the audience, and various other cocks-up - all rehearsed to perfection. The irony was lost on the many viewers who phoned in to complain about yet another example of Hogmanay chaos.

The fixation with Hogmanay TV has declined but then so has the event itself. Hogmanay used to be the highlight but is now something of an afterthought. December is too long a month. It is hard to celebrate when you are wasted by festive fatigue. This, however, is a personal point of view. Word filters through to me at Old Buffer towers that young people have reclaimed New Year and it is back on the streets in a big way.

The first glimmers of this became apparent way back in 1990 when Glasgow was European City of Culture and decided to launch the year with a big Hogmanay party in George Square.

There were, of course, concerns about public order, even public disorder. Pat Lally, the then city boss, took a more positive approach. He said there would be loads of polis on duty. They would be searching the crowds. Anyone without a carry-out would not be allowed into the party.

The Glasgow party was a success. The city failed to recognise the potential and did not follow up the initiative. Edinburgh did and launched their now hugely successful Hogmanay festival.

It sounds great fun but perhaps a touch too regimented and commercialised and with far too much loud music for the likes of me. If, as seems likely, I can't have my old Hogmanay back, I would settle for a return of some of the values. Like being a part of a community and not just a home-owner; a neighbour instead of a co- proprietor.

New Year is a time to get a wee bit pensive and perhaps even a touch maudlin'. I recall getting that feeling for the first time in the early hours of 1955. Perhaps it was too much ginger cordial. At the age of seven, I wondered what the future held for me. I tried, but failed, to imagine what life might be like in the next century when I would be more than 50 years old. I ken noo, as the saying goes.

With a great concentration of effort, I can still look forward instead of back. But it is not easy when you remember being a citizen of a country that went to war reluctantly, only as a last resort and in defence of civilisation itself. The Americans would join the war much later and there would be a happy ending. Now the USA sets the pace, Britain joins in with indecent haste, and there is no prospect of an ending, happy or otherwise, to conflict.

It is not easy to look forward to a bright new Scotland when it appears that our parliament, which we had hoped would release and unite our nation, seems to act as a focus for our faults and frailties.

But my remit today is not to be entirely depressing. So at the doorway to the new year, I will take a positive attitude.

I am confident First Minister McConnell will deliver on his promises for a new order. Sectarianism will be but a bad memory as Old Firm fans meander home from Hampden, shoulder to shoulder up the Cathcart Road, after a thrilling Scottish Cup final, waving their saltires.

"Your team deserved the victory," says Kevin in the Rangers top. "But you have the consolation of winning the league and let's hope both our clubs can do Scotland proud in Europe next year," replies Billy in the hoops as they head off together to the vegetarian cafe for a celebratory carrot and pineapple smoothie and a wheaten scone.

Yes, the new Scottish diet is now in place. Each citizen is now eating a dozen pieces of fruit and veg a day. The only bad news, as reported in the Daily Record (which has abandoned tabloid sensationalism in an attempt to fill the void left by Business am), is that there have been large-scale redundancies in the square sausage and black pudding industries.

It could happen. Or maybe I have disappeared too far into my Hogmanay twilight.

Copyright 2002 SMG Sunday Newspapers Ltd.
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