The reunion at our old local around the corner from Maclay Hall was to mark 25 years since our arrival as fresh-faced students at the University of Glasgow. The pub has changed name. Our ramshackle old hall of residence is now luxury flats. The neighbourhood has changed almost as dramatically as my hairline.
Back in 1997, I was something exotic. Of 12 in my first-year politics tutorial, this Dundee boy was the only non-Glaswegian – my generous term that banded together the city environs and what, up until a few years before, was Strathclyde region. The University of Glasgow was well known for having a very local intake in those days.
My uncle had driven me through to the open day, sat outside the history department smoking while I met the lecturers, and had then taken me for two pints in Tennent’s Bar on Byres Road, which was rocking with laughter and song by mid-afternoon. I was hooked on Gilmorehill from that day on.
