1977 - 1979

1977, I’d left school and started studying art and design at college. It was a good course, I was enjoying it and the people I studied with. We were a good bunch. I’d bought a wee car to travel back and forth to college and needed to run it. Time to look for a part time job. Around late summer of 1977 a friend was working in a supermarket, Fine Fare, in Lochee and was going away for a two week break. He asked me to cover for him for the fortnight. These jobs were sought after and hard to come by so this was an ideal opportunity to get a foot in the door.

So here I was, my first step to getting a regular part time job. I worked Thursday and Friday evenings and Saturday all day for the two weeks until my friend returned. During these two weeks I met Sandra. Sandra Small. I was eighteen, she was seventeen. I wasn’t there long enough to get into a decent chat with her and get to know her, just a few hellos in the passing.

I finished my two week stint and, foot in the door, I waited for an opening. I didn’t have to wait long and was back within a few weeks, working Thursday, Friday and Saturday in a permanent part time job, collecting trolleys from the car park and parking them in the store. This would last me until I finished college.

It was a good time of my life. I had a good group of friends and we’d be out almost every week after work.

I got to know Sandra a bit better. She worked on the checkouts which were on my route from the front of the supermarket to the car park, once I’d parked up some trolleys. We’d have a wee chat and a laugh in the passing.

I was a slow mover in these days and maybe a tad shy and by the time I was ready to make my move she was seeing someone. Damn!

Oh well, plenty more fish in the sea.

1978 came and went and we moved into 1979. I’d really enjoyed my college years. Going out at the weekends. The music. Punk. Blondie. Squeeze. The Stranglers, The Jam. Good memories. I was now moving into the final months of my two year course.

July 1979. One of my schoolmates, also a workmate, was getting engaged. Getting engaged to Sandra’s sister. A few of us from work were invited to the engagement party in a local lounge. My schoolmate had also told me Sandra was now single.

I can’t remember the exact date but a few of us went out after work on the night of the engagement party, had a few beers in Wullie Frews then jumped on a bus to the lounge in Menzieshill. I sat with a few friends and near the end of the night Sandra was up dancing with a friend to Dance Away by Roxy Music. Myself and a friend split them up and that was it. I walked Sandra home at the end of the night. We arranged to go out the following week.

The following week we went out for a few drinks, heading to the Glamis, under the Angus Hotel, round to the Club Bar, ending up in an Indian restaurant on Commercial Street.

Her dad was a stickler for timescales and I had to have her home by midnight so we caught the last bus back to Lochee. She wasn’t too keen on me meeting her father. He was a bit grumpy. He wasn’t keen on me as I was an art student which meant I was a waster and would never have a proper job. Being an art student I must be on drugs (that’s what he said!!!). I was a Dundee United supporter, he was a Dundee supporter. He took an instant dislike to me, before even meeting me. The only good thing about me being I wasn’t Catholic. He did have to change his tune on that one a few years later though but that’s not my story.

Sandra and I were solid though and we got on extremely well.