Tom Morton Stories

Like Big Rab, I often find myself listening in to Tom Morton on Radio Scotland when I'm in the car on weekday afternoons. There can be some seriously funny bits interspersed by music I really like. I missed yesterday, though, tied to the chair of a pub in Glasgow eating a long lunch with fellow clergy. I'm indebted to Rab for the update....

"Tom Morton always does a great show on Radio Scotland in the afternoon. In between the music he’ll introduce a theme or three for discussion amongst listeners. With today’s communication mediums including text, email, Facebook etc. Tom is never short of listeners’ contributions.

One of the subjects yesterday was labelling of parcels and I noticed the following contribution from former Lennox Herald editor Bill Heaney on Tom’s Facebook which I thought was brilliant. He reminisces about some of the strange things that used to be taken as parcels on the trains:

“I remember once a great stushie that was caused when someone sent a greyhound to a man in Balloch. The dog had a label round its neck, of course, giving the name of the person to whom it was being delivered. It was in the days of the old steam trains and all the parcels were kept in the guard’s van. As you will remember, the guard had to jump out at each station, see the passengers on and then wave the train off when everyone was safely aboard. The Glasgow to Balloch train stopped at Renton, the guard got out and the greyhound spotted the opportunity and nipped out at his back and then sped off down the platform. The story goes that it was pursued by the guard, who was shouting: “Stop that dug, it’s a parcel!”