On Sundays, Gary’s family would visit his Gran and Grandad who lived in a council estate on the other side of town

Once at Gran’s, he would sit in his usual chair by the window and look down the hill towards the river, watching the cars on their way to and from town.

Usually the adults talked about stuff he wasn’t interested in like how so-and -so from years ago was getting on these days, basically gossip about people he had heard of but had never met.

Gary’s mind would wander into the realms of his imagination and he would be thinking of horror story scenarios he could scribble down in his notebook for future typing up on his typewriter, recently purchased at the Scouts jumble sale.He enjoyed writing and reading.  He had read a lot of the Pan Book of Horror series, and had recently read a book by an American writer about a girl who had been bullied at school and had wreaked revenge on her fellow pupils with her telekinetic powers. He hadn’t understood it fully, but it was scary and the sort of thing he hoped to write by the time he was about 30.

His master plan was to set all his stories in Aberdeen and base the characters on his family and friends. He could imagine the career teacher’s face when he told her he wanted to be a writer.

It would be a sight to see!

The school he attended seemed to be geared towards a future population of mathematicians and athletes, he was neither, but had, he was told, shown considerable promise in languages.

He was jolted back into the real world when Gran proffered a cup of tea.

Oh, aye, Thanks, Gran.

He accepted the dark strong brew and stuffed an aged Jaffa cake into his mouth.

Gran was in full moaning mode; she was having a go at Grandad and talking about him as if he were invisible.  She had her captive audience, when she was holding court like this.

‘He jist sits in that chair behind the paper a’ day and disna’ dae onything!’

He had been retired for a few years now, and was getting on for 75, what was he supposed to do?

Gary often sided with his Grandad: he had worked hard all his life, in the shipyards, labouring for the council in all weathers, driving buses, you name it he had done it. He deserved the rest.

Mum and Dad assured Gary that Gran and Grandad loved each other in their own way, whatever that meant.

Gary had never been in love yet, what did he know?

Grandad was small and going bald. He was still relatively fit, for his age, still tended to his garden, which I suppose, was a form of escape from Gran’s constant chatter.

One day, he had fallen in the garden and had found himself unable to get back up.

He lay outside until a neighbour raised the alarm and helped him up into the house.

Gran hadn’t even noticed he was missing!

Most of the time, Grandad read the newspaper which he seemed to hide behind, giving adequate response to Gran’s comments where necessity dictated. He wore a hearing aid, which he kept switched off most of the time and often claimed that it wasn’t working.

Gran was skinny and had white hair which had a yellowish streak at the front evidently caused by her smoking. The once white walls of her front room were also stained this yellowish shade with nicotine. Gary didn’t think she ate much; she seemed to live on cups of tea, occasionally with a small capful of whisky in it, for ‘medicinal purposes’ as she put it.

Gary gazed out the window again and watched the cars and buses.

It was getting dark.

It was great in the winter to watch the sun going down and the city darken gradually from the vantage point of Gran’s upstairs window.

You could see the orange haloes round the street lamps coming on and illuminating the way into town.

When it was a clear day his cousin claimed that you could see all the way to Peterhead from Gran’s window.

The harbour and beach were easy to see, but Gary had never seen as far as Peterhead, not even with the assistance of Dad’s binoculars.

It was almost 5’o clock and the rain was pelting down.

Soon Gary’s uncle would arrive for what Dad called a ‘flying visit’. This, he soon came to know was basically to come in say ‘hello’, have a cup of tea, make some excuse and then go home.

His uncle always seemed to be in a hurry to go somewhere else when visiting Gran and Grandad.

Whether he just didn’t like visiting them, he didn’t know.

 Gary never did find out the answer to that one.

I have written before in the ‘Audiolab, of my veritable library of Hawkindiana, and as they are one of my favourite bands, I have no qualms about writing more about them.

I first heard them around 1978, at the flat of a mate’s older brother, it was the album ‘In Search of Space’, that fired my imagination, especially the track ‘ Master of the Universe’, which , at the time reminded me of Black Sabbath, albeit with sci-fi lyrics, which grew, in time, to be a firm favourite of mine.

A couple of years later, 1980, Motorhead’s star was ascending, and I was aware that Lemmy Kilmister had been a member of Hawkwind, I knew he was bassist /vocalist on the hit single ‘Silver Machine’, so as the completist collector I was becoming , I started buying Hawkwind albums. ‘Live ’79’, and ‘Levitation'(on blue vinyl!) were first, these were released on the Bronze label, the same label as Motorhead, and were two great introductions to the band for a fledging collector like me.

Next , I discovered the re-release of ‘Hawkwind’, the band’s first album in 1980, a release which came after the aforementioned, ‘Live ’79’, and ‘Levitation’ , but this album was a very different sound to the propulsive metallic space rock riffs of yore, the screaming guitar solos of Dave Brock and Huw Lloyd Langton, and the rippling keyboards /synthesisers of Tim Blake or perhaps Keith Hale.

Originally released in 1970, the sound of the ‘Hawkwind’ album was not what I was used to , maybe ‘psychedelic’ covered it, I was not attuned to the electronic weirdness of some of the tracks at first , but soon they grew on me, in the end of the day it was Hawkwind after all, a document of their early years, what was not to like?

My favourite song , the one I played again and again, was ‘Hurry On Sundown’, a folk-blues song with liberal doses of harmonica, and strummed acoustic guitars, almost Dylan-esque, this one harks back to Dave Brock’s busking days prior to Hawkwind,

‘Hurry on Sundown, see what tomorrow brings’, say the lyrics, a nice positive message , which is reminscent of ‘Keep Calm and Carry On’, to my mind, that slogan you often see on T-shirts, or badges, spreading a positive vibe.

I latched onto this song again, in the two week Lockdown in 2020, had I been a person who listened to music through headphones while walking, ‘Hurry On Sundown’ would surely have been on my I-Pod or I-Phone playlist , a soundtrack to my walks across the deserted streets of Aberdeen in the early days of the Covid pandemic. It was a song with message that certainly raised my spirits in those times, of uncertainty, with the not knowing what tomorrow would bring, and its still a song I play every so often!

With this cracking two cd set, the 40th anniversary edition of one of my favourite albums, I am transported back in time some 43 years, to the heady days of 1979, the pre-digital, pre-Internet days, when the world was a very different place. I was still at school attending gigs while only having to worry about school results, and discovering new bands every week, especially heavy metal bands, through radio shows like the ‘Friday Rock Show’, and ‘Sounds’ music paper, though I was more open minded than most, paying more than a little attention to the punk rock sounds of the day, that I tuned into on John Peel’s show every now so often, something I didn’t tell my metal -head mates, as music fandom was almost tribal back in those days. It’s strange when you think about it years later.
I discovered ‘Overkill when it came out, bought it on cassette, which was all I could afford at the time, and I suppose never looked back. This was rock music, but not as I knew it, a bit punkish in its speed, better than Judas Priest and Black Sabbath, but a whole lot different musically than them. I saw Motorhead as renegades, as outsiders, and at that time they were just that within the music industry , but that would change in the next two years, with the release of the subsequent albums ‘Bomber ‘ and ‘Ace of Spades’ , but that’s for another day and review!
‘Overkill ‘isn’t and wasn’t ‘heavy metal ‘ per se. Of course, as all Motorfans knew, Motorhead played ‘rock ’n ‘roll’, and in my opinion were more akin to the Ramones, the Damned, the MC5 and so on and so forth, Lemmy Kilmister had played bass with the Damned for a few gigs, and his band appealed to the metallers and the punks alike, which was unusual in those days. There’s a real mixture in ”’Overkill, the heavy blues of (I Won’t ) ‘Pay Your Price’ and ‘Damage Case’ , The swinging ‘ No Class’ which reminded me of ZZ Top’s ‘Tush’ , the proto-thrash metal of ‘Overkill’, with the incredible drumming and sheer breakneck speed of it. ‘Metropolis’ and ‘Capricorn’ slow the pace down a bit, but Motorhead were never going to be balladeers, were they?
I really enjoyed the ‘Live at Aylesbury Friars’ cd, with songs from the ‘Motorhead ‘album , and ‘Overkill’ itself , and a smattering of choice covers that fit t.he band like a glove; John Mayall’s ‘I’m Your Witch Doctor’, Johnny Burnette’s ‘Train Kept A’ Rollin’ and Hawkwind’s ‘The Watcher’. As said in my opening comments, I am transported back in time, back to the first time I saw Motorhead live, on the ‘Bomber ‘ tour in 1979, at Aberdeen’s legendary Capitol theatre, when my ears rang for hours after the gig, and when I proudly wore the tour badge on my school blazer the next day, and boasted of my signed record sleeves to my pals of the time,way back in the days when you had to queue for concert tickets, rather than everything being sold out within minutes due to online demand these days!

Golden days indeed!