THE first thing that strikes me about how different this picture would be today is not the open top bus - that would still be used - but the lack of selfies. It is October, 1958, Hearts has just won the League Cup in an emphatic 5-1 win against Partick Thistle, and the players, with captain Dave McKay holding the cup at the front of the bus, are showing off the trophy to thousands of fans in Edinburgh. But the players are not taking camera/phone pictures of the crowds and the fans are likewise not holding up phones to get pictures of the players.
It seems far more civilised.
Hearts really were the best team in Scotland at the time with forwards including Willie Bauld and Jimmy Wardhaugh scoring goals as if just for fun. As the Evening Times sports reporter put it: "This is no insult to Thistle, but it seemed to me that Hearts could have taken to the field with nine men, and still won." Well if that's him not being insulting, I'd hate to read him when he was.
There appear to be a few woman downstairs on the bus so perhaps the wives and girlfriends were hidden away out of view.
Captain Dave McKay, who sadly died earlier this year, was Scotland's Player of the Year in 1958, and played for his country 22 times. He even did two years of National Service in the fifties and travelled to Edinburgh to play whenever he had time off. It broke the heart of many a Hearts fan when the club transferred him to Spurs just five months after the League Cup win for the then sizeable sum of £32,000.
Anyway, we thought the Hearts fans would like the picture after having to endure Hibs parading around the city with the Scottish Cup just a few days ago.
NOT too sure of the law, but you would probably not be allowed to stand with your body out of the sun-roof of a car these days. This is Roy Jenkins in the exciting times of the Hillhead by-election in March, 1982, when Roy, a former Labour Chancellor, had left the party and helped form the SDP. Hillhead, which was said to be the British constituency with the highest percentage of university graduates, became quite giddy with the attention of the media when Roy stood, and won the seat.
He simply moved into the Pond Hotel for the duration, ate and drank in all of Glasgow's top restaurants - his favourite tipple was a fine bottle of claret - and held as many public meetings as he could which were all well attended. As The Herald reported his win: "A beaming Mr Roy Jenkins was subjected to bitter heckling, including jeers of traitor after his victory announcement. All of which he happily ignored."
Roy was MP at Hillhead for five years and took the title of Lord Jenkins of Hillhead when he went to to the Lords.
SO imagine you are a photographer sent to the Royal Highland Show. It's a great event at Ingliston on the outskirts of Edinburgh, held every June. But there are only so many ways you can take photographs of cattle and sheep. So you think of something different. And you notice there is also a fashion show taking place, and there is a model in a swimsuit. So you take her outside to one of the parade rings where you gather up gentlemen young and old in kilts. But you don't have them grinning at the camera. That would be too obvious. So you take the picture from the back, with the model carefully, yet seemingly casually, inserted just off the centre. It makes an unusual juxtaposition, which I am sure is how our artist with the camera described it to his picture desk.
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 hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel