Paul Fitzpatrick: August 2026

I relocated from Glasgow to the south of England in the mid 80’s through work, and whilst my accent has no doubt softened, I’ve maintained a Glasgow brogue. (unlike Lulu!).
This renders me unintelligible to some, whilst others, usually fellow Scots, pick up the accent straight away, and if I had a penny for everytime the following exchange occurred, I’d be a wealthy man….

“I recognise that accent, where are you from mate?”

“Glasgow”

“Ahh, whereabouts?”

“Bearsden”

“Oooooh Bearsden?…. Posh, very Hoity Toity!” (or words to that effect)

For a while the posh jibes bothered me, don’t ask me why.
I had a comfortable upbringing with working-class parents, but it was far from posh.
Then again, everything’s relative.

I remember having a discussion in a London pub once with a guy from Jordanhill who was giving it the “Oooooh Bearsden” treatment.
I reasoned that Jordanhill was every bit as la-di-da as Bearsden and he pointed out that whilst Jordanhill had a good school, and a tennis club. Bearsden had four golf clubs, umpteen tennis clubs and a bloody Ski Club.

It was the Ski Club that was the kicker, I had nothing to go back with.

Now, you don’t need to be a member of an exclusive club, or any club for that matter, to play tennis or golf in Glasgow, but apart from my old football chum, Billy McNeill, (no, not that one, although Jim Craig, another Lisbon Lion lived a free kick away from the ski-club slopes), I knew absolutely no one who skied.

Billy was a regular guy and I’m sure 90% of the ski-club members were regular Joe’s too, but, in my ignorance, skiing always seemed like an exclusive guild for the elite.

Strange then, that there were times in my teens when I wished I was a member of Bearsden Ski Club.
Not to helter-skelter down the carpeted slopes, no, that looked way too hazardous.
My interest lay solely in gaining admission to the bi-annual Ski Club discos. Where tickets were like gold dust, unless of course you were a member, or ingratiated yourself with one.
 
The ski-club events weren’t the only teenage discos in town, but they were the best.

The venue itself was nothing special, just a dark room with the tables and chairs removed, same as every youth-club and school disco you’ve ever been to. Yet, somehow there was a different vibe.
 
I’m sure there must have been adults in the room somewhere but I don’t recall ever seeing any, hence there was a sense of unsupervised freedom, which was unique aged 14/15.
It also felt like a safe space, ticket distribution was always restricted to members and friends. Meaning there was rarely any interlopers, or trouble, which again was pretty rare.

There was also a different mix of people, which was refreshing. A lot of well kent faces from school of course, but several new faces as well

My ski-club memories are from 1972-74, and there’s no better time-stamp than music. 72-74 was peak glam-rock era; Bowie, T-Rex, Sweet, Wizzard, Sparks, and there are two songs that instantly take me back to those ski-club nights.

As it happens, the first has nothing to do with Glam Rock – Jeff Beck’s “Hi-Ho Silver Lining”.
A song the ‘guitarist’s guitarist’ grew to hate and rarely played live, and for a virtuoso like Beck, it’s easy to see why.
Recorded in 1967, a few years before his guitar hero status. Beck described the song as “like having a pink toilet seat hanging round my neck for the rest of my life”.

Whatever its merits, it was a floor filler in 1972, and when I say floor-filler I mean it even enticed boys onto the dance floor, which was a feat in itself.

Anyone from that era will tell you that for most of the evening the dancefloor was a female only space. Boys in the periphery, building up the courage to ask girls to dance.
We were too dense to realise that the girls were just as anxious as us. They just channelled their angst into being sociable, having a good time, and pretending we didn’t exist.
Typically, it took moonies (the slow smoochy dances as the evening drew to a close) and the realisation that it would soon be ‘lights on’ to spark the boys into action.

The other certified floor filler that transports me back to those ski-club nights is a glam-rock classic, Bowie’s “Jean Genie”.

I listened to a great interview with Mick Jagger recently where Mick talks about Bowie playing an early version of Jean Genie to him. When Mick protested that he was nicking his sound, Bowie said “yeah, it’s great man… it’s an homage”

Jagger wasn’t wrong, you can hear the Stones influence all over Aladdin Sane on tracks like “Jean Genie”, “Panic in Detroit”, “Cracked Actor” and “Watch that Man”.
Never one to stay still, Bowie soon moved on from his Mick & Keith phase to nick other people’s sounds. Tapping into the Philly Sound for Young Americans before taking a fancy to Kraftwerk for the Berlin trilogy.

Whenever I hear these songs I always wonder if ski-club discos are still a thing?

I hope so, although I’m probably showing my age by even using the word ‘disco’. In fact, stop press, I’m told ‘Soft Clubbing’, ‘K-Pop Nights’ and ‘Bakery Raves’ (whatever they are?) are the activities of choice now.

I may not have set foot in the place in over 50 years, but it looks like Bearsden Ski Club is still thriving, and as you can see from the clip below, the folk seem perfectly normal.
Remarkable as it seems, most people from Bearsden are.

On reflection, I was happy growing up in such a safe, green space and I’ve learned to embrace my roots.
So now when someone gives it the “Oooohh Bearsden” treatment, my retort is… “Yes, everyone from Bearsden is frightfully posh, we all lived in mansions and had massive moats to keep oinks like you out”

Here’s a few glam-rock and chart tunes from the era, that take me back to those ski-club nights.