Nostalgia *

Thanks to simonholyhoses, we get a link to a BBC piece looking back on the summer of 1976 - yes, the one with the long droughts and all that. I won't say too much about what Simon wrote other than to say that it is well worth a read and gives plenty of pause for thought.

My own take on the summer of 1976? I would like to say it was all ripped clothing, safety pins through the nose and burning of Emerson, Lake and Palmer, Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin records as we had all found a new music to listen to - but, of course, as I was only 11, that would be (never mind the) bollocks.

No, for me and my generation growing up in a certain coastal town in the west of Scotland, that summer was decidedly different from any others we had experienced up until then. For my age group, there was the excitement of being the oldest kids in primary school after the holidays, and there was the excitement of visiting the newly built leisure centre near the beach - a leisure centre which was, at that time, the largest in western Europe (and which was to employ yours truly for a summer a few years later!).

But it was also the summer when weird things were happening. Me and my friends were no longer free to wander all over town and into the countryside and down the beach on our own. Suddenly, parents were asking us where we were going and not to go too far - some were even being kept indoors for long, long spells. No longer would we be out all day, with our parents not having a clue as to our whereabouts., days when we used to be in the woods climbing trees, down the beach swimming all day and jumping off the harbour walls. The police presence in the town was quite enormous and officers seemed to be visiting every house in the town more than once. And all because of our stand-out memory of that year - Sandy Davidson going missing.

Sandy was just a few weeks from his fourth birthday when he told his gran he was off to look for his dog, which he said had ran away. He wasn't to be seen ever again. All sorts of theories emerged as to what happened - he was abducted by long-lost relative or that he had an accident and fell into one of the many building sites in the area (Irvine was going through an unbelievable transformation at the time with new housing developments being built at a rate of knots). What no-one suggested and never contemplated was that he had been murdered never mind that he may have been abused in any way - how times have changed!

But that was sadly that! The police made absolutely no progress on the case and still, to this day, have him posted as missing - see here, for example!

There emerged really sad stories of his parents pissing it up in the town's pubs every night - as if any of us would have done any different - and people saying they were milking it just to cadge drinks. A whispering campaign started that his parents may even had something to do with his abduction, going by their behaviour. But those were sick comments from sick minds.

Sandy was just gone, simple as that. And his parents were left without their little boy.

That summer was the end of my age group's childhood. Yes, we eventually got back to wandering the town, going back into the woods and getting back down the beach. Our parents' concerns about where we were going got less weird. And the police presence scaled down until it was eventually back to normal.

But ask anyone who was around Irvine at that time and ask them about the summer of 1976 and they will surely mention the case of Sandy Davidson.

By the way, Sandy Davidson is one of the cases in Andrew O'Hagan's book The Missing. O'Hagan lived in Irvine for many years before becoming a superb journalist for the London Review of Books.

*Buzzcocks