Ladder to success
OUR stories about the old Western Infirmary are turning into a Carry On film, as a retired nurse on Arran tells us: “I was a nurse at the Western in 1961 when a doctor climbed a ladder into my room. The night nurse and a porter arrived to say someone reported hearing male voices. I said I was listening to the radio, and they looked around the room.
“The next day the porter said I was lucky the night nurse didn’t look in the wardrobe mirror as she would have seen the doctor under the bed.”
Laughter best medicine
AND Paul O’Sullivan recalls when Western staff drank in The Aragon in Byres Road. Says Paul: “One evening I was standing at the bar when the stereotype Glasgow drunk engaged us in conversation. ‘See that sister ah mine? Driving me nuts. Keeps saying the da’s going tae die and ah have tae phone the doctor. He’s no gonnae die, ah can tell. Ah work over in the Western’.
“After a pause he says, ‘Okay, ah work in the boiler-room, but after a few years ye pick these things up’.”
Snappy reply
THE death of Princess Margaret’s husband Lord Snowdon reminds us of our old colleague Tom Shields once writing: “Princess Margaret led a life that was as pointless as it was expensive to the public purse.
But if she hadn’t existed and married Tony Snowdon we wouldn’t have had that great conversation between the Queen and an Australian snapper. Queen: ‘My brother-in-law is a photographer’. Aussie snapper: ‘That’s funny. My brother-in-law is a queen’.”
At Trump’s convenience
SO what’s the real story about Trump Tower in New York? PR guru Jack Irvine reveals: “Much has been made of the coming and goings of the great and good at Trump Tower to see the future leader of the free world, including French far right leader Marine le Pen seen in the basement cafe.
“However, there is a much more prosaic reasons for spending time in the Trump Tower basement. It has one of the few free toilets on Fifth Avenue and with sub zero temperatures, the facility is well loved by locals and clued-up visitors. So, if you want to dump on Trump, you now know where to go.”
Funny old game
THIS month marks the 50th anniversary of lowly Berwick Rangers beating Rangers in the Scottish Cup, and there will be a dinner in Berwick next Friday with surviving players.
We always liked The Herald football writer who declared emphatically in the paper on the day of the match: “If there is anything predictable in football it must be that Rangers, like their arch-rivals Celtic, who also face Second Division opposition, will go forward to the second round.’’
While I remember
GROWING old continued. Says a south side reader: “It’s not getting to a room and forgetting why you are there that’s the problem. It’s getting there, slowly remembering what you wanted, but then realising you’ve forgotten what you wanted it for.”
It just doesn’t add up
QUIET in the office yesterday so we couldn’t stop a colleague coming over and declaring: “If I had a pound for every time someone said I was rubbish at arithmetic, I’d have £26.40.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here