Sleepless in a Haunting of 'Waterloo Sunset'

Hullo ma wee blog,

3.15am on Sunday morning and I'm being haunted and kept from sleep by this track pounding round and round in my skull. I know what's done it because it's a song heard on the radio today and one of those iconic tracks of a particular summer in my childhood. It was released by ' The Kinks' in 1967, when I was just 8, and it was a song that was always on the radio.

When going on holiday, we always at that time went to a small fishing village called Helmsdale in Caithness on the far north-east coast of Scotland and always with my Mums glamorous younger sister and her husband as Uncle Bob and Dad were great fishing buddies. If at all possible, Gordon or I would always try to engineer at least part of the trip in Uncle Bob and Aunt Agnes' car. They didn't have any kids and always had a newer and better car than we did and anyway, Aunt Agnes looked like the singer Lulu and was to young boys, always much cooler than our Mum. Best of all though, they listened to great music on the radio and that summer was the last before BBC Radio 1 came on line, so it was pirate radio - Radio Caroline - which was being forced off the air during that long ago summer holiday.

I hadn't heard this song for ages and memories came flooding back when it came on the radio this afternoon as the lovely G and I were out for an afternoon jaunt through the borders. We had stopped for coffee and cake at 'The Flat Cat Gallery' in Lauder and spent a pleasant hour savouring the coffee and the items on display, including a beautiful wee bronze of a pair of boxing hares, probably my most favourite animal of the British countryside, at an eye watering £249.00. Needless to say, it stayed on the shelf, but oh, how I drooled.......

The song came on just as we left Lauder for the return journey and I spent some time telling G about what happy memories it brought to me.

That of course was before it came to haunt me in my sleep and now I feel as though I have been hearing it non stop for days. Great song it undoubtedly may be, but if I could get my hand on Ray Davies right now........

I'd definitely ask him to turn the volume down and stop repeating just that one verse that's constantly running through my head, or give me a change of track. Come on Ray, how about 'Dedicated Follower of Fashion', or 'Lola' or 'Sunny Afternoon'?

Anything but bloomin' 'Waterloo Sunset'!!!

See you later.

I think you already know what I'm listening to...........