Summer of '65 - Scotland and other European places - A great summer !

M/S Oslofjord - Norwegian American Lines

My father was born and raised in Scotland.  Even though he moved to the US in the late 1920's, and married an American, he never gave up his British citizenship.  He regularly visited his brothers and sisters abroad.  In the summer of 1965, I went with him.  We travelled by ship, sailing on the Norwegian American liner Oslofjord.  Our first port of call was Kristiansand, Norway, where we only spent one afternoon.  I went ashore in Kristiansand but didn't wander far from the dock.  It was only an overnight voyage from Kristiansand to Copenhagen but it was memorable because of the rough beam seas in the Skagerrak Strait. The ship rolled considerably and all dancing and show activities on board were cancelled. We disembarked in Copenhagen and stayed in a small hotel in the Nyhavn section which is now a very desirable location but then was an area "in transition."
 I still have a wool fisherman's sweater I bought from a street vendor in Nyhavn.  Dad had friends from work in Copenhagen so we stayed for four days.  The most interesting thing I did there was visit the Tuborg brewery.  The rest of the time I just did general sightseeing by walking around the city.  I did not go see the mermaid which I now regret.  At the time it wasn't something that interested me.  Our last night in Copenhagen we had dinner at Tivoli Gardens, a world famous amusement park.  Marlene Dietrich was there dining just a couple of tables away.


From Copenhagen we took the train to Esbjerg, Denmark, an overnight ferry to Harwich, England and then a train to Liverpool Street Station in London.  We stayed in a London hotel for several nights and met up with my Aunt Muffy and cousin David Mitchell-Smith.  David and his fiance took me on a pub crawl which was fun (I was 18 so it was legal for me to drink in the UK).  His apartment had a coin-fed heating unit, something I found quite unique.  If you wanted heat, you had to feed the meter.  Our hotel served high tea in the lobby each afternoon.  The best part of this tradition wasn't the tea but the accompanying goody cart.  It was like having dessert in the afternoon.


One morning, while Dad met with his former Shell Oil work buddies, I explored London on foot, concentrating on the popular Soho area.  For lunch we met at Simpson's in the Strand, a famous eatery where carts of roasts were carved right at your table. The roast beef and Yorkshire pudding was excellent.  Simpsons may have been a men-only establishment in those days as there were no women present.

Vardon's Parlour

After several days in London, we took the train to Deal, on the English Channel just north of Dover.  We stayed nearby in Walmer with Dad's Royal Naval College classmate, Humphrey McMaster.  Humphrey, although in his mid-60's, was a scratch golfer and president of Slazenger Golf.  We played with him at Royal Cinque Ports, my first experience with links golf.  I was fortunate to hit a really good drive on the 17th hole.  It landed in one of the few flat areas in the fairway.  Humphrey announced that I had driven into Vardon's Parlour, the same spot Harry Vardon had hit his drive when he won the British Open.

Sunken Ships - 1965

While in Walmer, Dad and I took a lifeboat tour of sunken ships in the English Channel. Some had been sunk by U-boats during World War II and others had run aground. It was eerie seeing the masts of so many ships sticking out of the water.

After a couple of days in Walmer, we returned to London and met up with the Moore's, family friends from home.  Together we went to Wimbledon and saw Margaret Court defeat Maria Bueno in the women's singles final and John Newcombe and Tony Roche win the men's doubles final.  A very memorable day.

Left to Right - Me, Dad, Marjorie Moore, Aunt Muffy -  London 1965

Young Angus Bulls at Tofts - 1965

Leaving London, we took the train from Kings Cross Station to Berwick-upon-Tweed, an English border town near southeast Scotland, where we were met by my Aunt Chris. We stayed with Aunt Chris and Uncle Hamish at Morebattle Tofts, their farm in Roxboroughshire.  What an amazing place.  The farm primarily raised Angus and Shorthorn bulls that were sold for stud worldwide, but also had cows, chickens, pigs and other farm animals.  They rarely had to shop for food.  Dinner one night was pheasant, shot on the property.  You had to be careful to pick out the buckshot as you ate.  They also baked their own bread.  My favorite was the gingerbread, especially with home made whipped cream on top.  There was a tennis court on the front lawn.  Aunt Chris played regularly with a tennis group.  She was in her early 60's and easily beat me with her steady play and vast array of spin shots.  Aunt Chris also drove really fast, like her countryman Formula One racing champion Jimmy Clark.  She had no trouble navigating the narrow Scottish roads at great speed in her red Rover sports car.
 
One day we drove into Edinburgh to meet up with Uncle Lex (Alexander Bannatyne Stewart Laidlaw).  He was a most interesting man, very smart, a bit cantankerous in a good way, and a avid sportsman.  We spent the afternoon sailing Lufra, Uncle Lex's Loch Long class sloop, on the Firth of Forth.  There were some unique boats on the water that afternoon, 30 Square Meter class sloops. They had short booms for their length but were very classic and classy looking sailboats.

30 Square Meter sailboat

Most of our time in Scotland was spent playing golf.  We frequently played at the Kelso Golf Club, near Tofts, and also made golfing trips to Luffness, Muirfield, St. Andrews, Gleneagles, Midlothian and Largs.  The Old Course at St. Andrews was famous and enjoyable to play.  I had never seen double greens before.  On the 17th hole, I badly sliced my drive towards the neighboring hotel.  My ball went right towards a picture window.  The ball barely missed the window and it was worth the bad shot to see the people watching from inside scatter.

Kelso Golf Club

Luffness New Course

The Old Course - St. Andrews

Muirfield was by far the most difficult course we played.  I get miffed when the British Open is held there because it's a different course when the pros play as opposed to the general public.  When the pros play, the course is lined with spectators who trample down the thick rough.  Rarely do the pros lose a ball when they hit an errant shot because there are hundreds of spectators there to find it.  My description of the course when we played there is that the fairways were lined with hay fields.  Forget about finding your ball if it didn't land in the fairway.  I lost 8 balls the day we played.  That's 16 penalty strokes.  I guarantee you the pros would not shoot the scores they do if there were no spectators.

Muirfield

After playing mostly on links courses, the Queen's Course at Gleneagles was a welcome change.  It was not unlike US courses, with lush green fairways and normal rough.  I had bought new golf shoes at St. Andrews and got blisters from wearing them.  I tried wearing them the next day at Gleneagles but had to go back to the club house after a couple of holes to change into sneakers.  There was one other golfer in the clubhouse while I was changing shoes, Sean Connery.  He was at the peak of his James Bond career at the time and I was dumfounded to see him.  I remember saying "You're James Bond" to which he replied, "No, I'm Sean Connery."  He said he lived nearby and played there regularly.  When I rejoined my father on the course, I told him I had met Sean Connery.  Dad replied "Who's that, some Irishman?"

Loch Long sloops

We had rented a car.  Dad wouldn't let me share the driving which was probably a good thing as I was not used to driving on the left.  After leaving Gleneagles, we crossed to the west coast of Scotland, passing near the Grampian Mountains and Ben Nevis, the highest peak in the UK.  We stopped for the night at a small hotel on Loch Linnhe. There I saw my only bagpiper of the summer who announced dinner by marching up and down the road near the hotel.  The next morning we drove south to Oban then turned inland to drive by Ben Cruachan and Loch Awe before heading south to Largs, a boating town on the Firth of Clyde.  There we met up with Uncle Lex and his twin sons, Peter and Paul.  Lex raced Lufra in the regatta.  Years later, my father purchased Lufra from his brother's estate and had it shipped over to the US. We sailed it in Maine for several summers.  Lufra was not the easiest boat to handle because of its heavy keel.  When it became too much for Dad to handle by himself, I offered to buy Lufra. My oldest brother, Davie, heard I was buying the boat.  He lived on the Connecticut River and sailed frequently.  He made a deal with me - if he could borrow Lufra for the summer, he would tow her to Connecticut which would make towing her to New Jersey a much shorter trip for me.  Sounded like a good deal so I agreed.  Davie used the boat for the summer and then turned around and sold her.  My father was furious since he wanted Lufra to remain family-owned.

M/S Empress of Canada - Canadian Pacific Lines

We stayed in Scotland for a month, returning to the states via the cruise ship Empress of Canada.  (In later years, the Empress of Canada was sold to Carnival Cruise Lines and renamed Mardi Gras.  I remember in my early days with Texaco passing by Miami and seeing the Mardi Gras hard aground off the entrance to Miami Harbor).  The Empress of Canada was a fun ship.  I made lots of friends on board and together we entered the ship's talent show and performed an Adams Family skit.  I played Lurch, the butler.  We were supposed to disembark in Montreal but there was some sort of strike there so the ship had to dock in Quebec City instead.  Quebec City was very picturesque and I was glad for the opportunity to visit the Old Quebec section before taking the train to Montreal.  The Moore's met us there and we drove to their lake house in the Adirondacks where we stayed a week before returning to Bedford.  I was sorry to see the summer end.