Allan, Charlie
The Games are a sort of three-ringed circus with dancing, piping, running, jumping and throwing, and pipe bands. There is some evidence of games as many as 1000 years ago but my first was at Gight in 1947. I was eight. I remember the huge crowd, George Clark of Grange tossing the caber and us all sitting on the grass below the ruins of the old castle. I know that there were only two cars in the car park because I have a photograph of it.
The first time I competed at a games was the next day at Little Ardo farm in the parish of Methlick. Albert the grieve's youngest said, "C'mon an we'll hae a gamies o wir ain. I'm Geordie Clark of Grange".
We had races. We had hop, step and jump, and high jump with a skipping rope. We had putting the stone, throwing the twelve and a half pound weight over the bar, throwing the mell hammer and tossing the caber (Mrs Low's clothes pole).
Six years later I won a whole pound (a good wage for a man for a day) for first in the hill race at the Methlick flower show sports. A couple of weeks later I hop, step and jumped 40 feet and 7 inches and won a total of ?4 at the New Deer Agricultural show and sports.
The Hielan Games proper, came soon after that. As loons we had always regarded the Chieftain's Trophy at Aboyne as the Blue Riband of the Games. For that you had to win prizes in both the throwing and the running and jumping events. In 1967, just 20 years after the great Gight Games, I had a first equal in the high jump and a first equal in the caber. For that I won the Chieftain's trophy.
When you are successful at Highland Games, you are not expected to run about kissing people and punching the air. But the emotion is still strong. I felt panic. I tried to seem happy but not bumptious. I insisted that I was lucky to catch Bob Aitken on an off day. I tried to remain cool. That is how it should be at the Games.
But when I got back to the anonymity of the train I lost control. I cried and cried and cried.
The Trophy comes in a large plain wooden box. I sat it on the table in front of me. I must have cut a pathetic figure for I became aware that everybody was looking sympathetically at me. A kind old lady came up and asked if the box contained the remains of a dear one and if I would like to talk about it.
I hadna the heart to tell her.