MY mother was born in Scotland and so I have always felt a somewhat tenuous affinity — and not always a fond one.

Oh, I know that you are not supposed to make generalisations, but that side of our family always seemed to be argumentative, and so I wonder if it could be a national trait?

Not that it gave cause for concern, on the contrary, it often made for a lively discussion on almost anything and usually made the evening entertaining — that was if we could keep the menfolk from coming to blows.

Mind you, I always think that the English have a political knack of always being the conciliatory pig-in-the-middle.

It’s not just with Scotland, but with lots of situations.

I wonder is it that we are just a placid natured race?

Or, of course, it could be that being a very intelligent nation we realise and understand that the solution is not war war but jaw jaw.

As I drove through the centre of Blackburn fairly late on Saturday evening, I was quite surprised just how few people were knocking about.

Is Saturday night not ‘the big night’ out for the ‘Inn crowd’ anymore?

Or is it that every night is a Saturday night these days?

If that is so, it’s a little bit sad because, for my age group, looking forward to the weekend was what kept us going through the long days on a sewing machine, working like mad on piecework and trying very hard to beat the girl on the next machine, who always seemed to do better than me.

What on earth am I saying? Nobody ever did better than me!

A lot of the girls didn’t like piecework, but I did, as there was no doubt it kept you focussed and that meant the time passed more quickly.

If my memory serves me well, Mrs Bates was our boss and watched us all very closely, but on the whole they were good days and I always had plenty of nice slippers to wear and to give as presents.

Great days.