Reflections on Alan Longmuir and the Bay City Rollers

There's a bit of an unwritten rule on this blog which is to say it's not themed by things such as sport, anime or for that matter music even if they were a part of my boyhood or feature in someway in my more adult little boy/adult schoolboy present.

Part of this is to avoid week after week on entries around just one topic so the blog reflects more the whole but allows them to shine within that.

There is no getting around the fact the Bay City Rollers were a part of my boyhood even if having the level of interest in them was very much atypical of any boy of that era being something that I shared more with girls from late juniors into the first few years at high school where I did introduce this when I was asked to give a short introduction to my First Form class upon joining.

That introduction smoothed my integration into their number gaining me a good number of female friends  and critically of my best buddy Andy to whom you know I miss so much who also liked them AND was a boy.

We'd talk about them, sharing the weekly glossy fan magazines, annuals and gather around our tape recorders singing along to Remember, Give a Little Love and Love Me Like I Love You. 

We also watched Shang-a-Lang, the tv show featured them, other upcoming artist and had features on hobbies and interests, one being cars that interested me.

We all had our favourites within the group, Woody being mine, and like most of group we had tartan everything.

On Monday July 2nd It was announced at 6 AM Alan Longmuir, the bass player who left in early 1976, who is pictured in the middle died after three weeks of being ill following a visit to Mexico.

He joined to form a four original member reunion concert at Edinburgh Castle for Hogmanay 1999 and was due to perform with Les McKweon later this year.

Alan and the band were a important part of my boyhood, the backdrop to much that happened so this entry is a tribute to him and what he meant to me and my friends back then.