Tartan Tales and woyww #198

Isn’t it funny how a somewhat trivial note, written in a blogpost, is able to evoke blogreaders’ memories which – in their turn – evoke memories in me. I love these kind of sudden connections!

Last week, I said something about ‘BCR’ and how you have to be of a ‘certain age’ to know what this means. Gill responded with this comment: “[…] I also know what BCR stands for and that’s because I must confess to having a picture of me in the tartan gear […] Gill x #50” 

Now, for those who don’t know what this is all about… BCR stands for Bay City Rollers, a Scottish boy band from the seventies. Here’s a picture of the guys…

Now you immediately understand what Gill meant with “tartan gear” and where the title of this blogpost comes from…

So… after reading Gill’s comment, I visited her blog and said that I wanted to see prove 😉

Gill, being a sport, published the photo on her blog HERE but of course, in return asked for a photo of ME in Roller gear… Ha, now this is going to be a special “Studio Tale Tartan Style” today….!

I must confess right away: I do not have a  photo of myself wearing tartan gear – shame on me! I did have pants with tartan piping and I hand stitched tartan fabric on my jeans jacket – there was no Internet in those days and Roller merchandising didn’t reach the Netherlands so fans had to alter or make their own ‘Roller gear’ – and I really don’t know why I never had my photo taken… my best friends (two sisters) and I took photos of each other all the time, so why not in our ‘BCR-uniforms’???

Yes, my two best friends were Rollerfans too, and the three of us spend many afternoon in our teenage rooms, listening to the music, swooning over every photo, collecting everything for our scrapbooks and dreaming of trips to Scotland. The oldest sister, Lena, is still my best friend (since primary school!) and in 2006, she and I finally made a trip to Edinburgh. It was one of the best trips I ever made, this so-called ‘Bay City Roller Memorial Journey’. We both made a scrapbook about our trip and here’s us in the Fall of 2006, showing our scrap albums (I’m the one with the glasses, on the right)

Sooo… when I saw Gill comment on my blog at the end of the day yesterday saying that she published a photo on her blog – I took my old scrap album and flipped through the pages. It was still there this morning, on my desk, so I took a photo and decided to dedicate this woyww-post to tartan, the BCR and the fun memories.

Here’s the photo of my desk

WOYWW #198

(WOYWW stands for What’s On Your Workdesk Wednesday – click the link to go to Julia’s blog to find the info and the list of woyww-participants)

Next is a spread about the most funny memory I have of our 3-day trip to Edinburgh: one evening, Lena and I were on our way back to the hotel and walked through a neighbourhood just outside the city centre. For some reason, a mailbox on a flat building caught my eye and I saw the name Wood listed. “Look who lives here” I said, making a joke to my friend. “Oh my, Tam Paton” she says… pointing out the name Paton on the mailbox. We looked at each other and burst out laughing. We couldn’t stop. We were in stitches. For a moment, we played with the idea to ring the bell to see if it would really be Woody or Tam, answering the door – but we didn’t dare to do that after all. So we made a photo of the mailbox instead. HMPFFF… mind you, we were both in our forties… and we could barely walk to the hotel. Every time we looked at each other, we burst out laughing again. That is how you act when you were Rollerfan – and friends for life.

So here’s a special ‘Golden oldie’ layout today

Look who lives here!

After our trip to Scotland I decided I needed a Roller-sweater so in the fall I knitted one. My mom – yes, she remembers my ‘Bay City Roller phase’ clearly – found fitting shoes and bought them as a present. So now I have a photo of myself in ‘Tartan gear’ after all… Here’s for you Gill

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It was fun to think back and revive those days.. I hope you too liked my ‘memory blogpost’ today.

… and remember
KEEP ON ROLLIN’ 😀