He was part of one of the strongest Scotland squads ever assembled but as he reflects upon their record that is marked this weekend there is no sense of achievement for John Beattie.

Thirty four years since Scotland last won at Twickenham surpasses the previous record 33 year wait between victories in the English capital, which included the interruption of the war years in which the championship was uncontested and the former No.8 who has become one of the nation’s best known broadcasters is appalled.

“I hate it. We’re talking about pre-mobile ‘phones. I think the Austin Maestro was the biggest selling car, Men at Work were top of the charts with ‘I come from a land Down Under,’… it’s another world and it just doesn’t feel right,” he said.

“So I’d be really upset if they lost again. It’s one of these things I’m embarrassed to be part of in some ways. I think all the players will be the same. No-one will be thinking how wonderful it is. You want that record to be expunged.”

In saying so he draws comparison with events in Paris 22 years ago.

“The beauty is I remember when Scotland won in ’95 in France and they hadn’t won since ’69 and no-one expected them to win and that was a wonderful day. I’m sure the ’69 boys were even happier,” Beattie suggested.

While they had not won prior to their end of campaign trip to Twickenham that 1983 squad was a very special group that would go on to draw with the All Blacks later that year, then win Scotland’s first Triple Crown for 45 years and first Grand Slam for 59 years in 1984.

Selected three times for the Lions, Beattie modestly claims that “I always knew I wasn’t one of the greats, genuinely wasn’t,” before listing several others he reckons undoubtedly were including the likes of his great rival Iain Paxton, Iain ‘the Bear’ Milne, Colin Deans, Jim Calder, Roy Laidlaw, John Rutherford and Jim Renwick.

He describes another of them, David Leslie, as “probably the best player I’d ever seen,” which brings us neatly to another topical bone of contention, Lions selection.

While he agrees that the management’s insistence on fielding captain Ciaran Fitzgerald in the Tests ahead of Colin Deans who on record and form was the superior hooker was an error and also has reservations about John Rutherford having had to play in the centre to gain Test selection, albeit he concedes that Fitzgerald’s fellow Irishman Ollie Campbell was playing well, it is his back-row colleague’s omission from that tour which properly raises his ire, even after all these years.

“The biggest disgrace was David Leslie not going. Everyone knew that at the time,” said Beattie.

In that decision he sees signs of what he considers to have been a long-term problem.

“I think these (other) countries have always been a bit sniffy about picking a Scottish contingent. They don’t realise that when you get a Lions team the team you always thought would start is never the team, because you look at guys who came into great Lions teams like Tom Smith, or Gregor Townsend who wasn’t really given much of a chance in ’97.

“It’s been the big scandal in the Lions over the years that they allowed certain countries to dominate. Leslie was easily the best wing forward in the Five Nations.”

On being reminded that Jim Telfer, as head coach, would have had a significant say, albeit it is always presumed he was out-voted on the Test hooker’s role by Irish manager Willie John McBride and Fitzgerald himself as captain, Beattie believes that Scottish values worked against his compatriots.

“Jim would have been very fair,” he said.

“In spite of his reputation he was a very fair man and he probably wouldn’t be arguing too hard for too many Scots, whereas I don’t think everyone else is fair.”

He thinks that factor has also been at play in the past two decades with Scotland providing only three of the 37 initially selected for the 2001, three of the 44 that headed to New Zealand in 2005, two of the 37 who set of for South Africa in 2009 and three of the 37 originally called up in 2013.

“Certainly over the last 15 to 20 years we’ve struggled and it annoys me,” said Beattie.

“Every time it happens I think there’s something wrong here. You can’t just pick three Scots. It’s bordering on outrageous. I know we’ve been fifth, fifth, fifth, fourth in the Six Nations for a while, but it doesn’t mean we don’t have five great players and once you get on these tours you realise how average some of these blokes in the other teams are. That’s the beauty of a Lions tour, but you have to enough there to understand that.”

There is a cause and effect element to all of this that will not be lost on a man who has engineering and accountancy degrees, since there is no question that the absence of Scots from Lions tours has also played a part in undermining the belief of its teams in the last 20 years, but he is hopeful that will change this year.

“It does have resonance now because if you don’t pick sensible numbers of Scots I don’t view it as a proper Lions tour,” Beattie asserted.

“There’s a lot of players you could make a case for this time and back then I think we had eight.”

With wins over Ireland and Wales already secured he knows that at least that many could be heading to New Zealand this summer if they can just end that ugly sequence of 13 successive defeats at Twickenham and 34 years without a win.

“I sincerely pray with every ounce of my body that they win,” said Beattie.

An entire rugby nation will share in that exhortation.