I thought I must establish on what authority I can write about someone joining a new community. My wife was the real expert, people were forced to meet me at work. Before we were married, the small mines around the village I was brought up in were closing and there were empty houses. As she knew the village well, in fact, despite living in Glasgow, her family had enjoyed connections with it for three generations and she was happy to settle there. The house we were offered was one of four flats in a block, two upstairs, two at ground level, clad with steel and insulated with glass fibre. It had three bedrooms, a front lounge, a kitchen and bathroom. I think there was a clothes boiler of some sort in the kitchen but it was taken away before we moved in. Our family didn't employ workmen  so we tackled the redecorating ourselves. The only part we didn't redecorate was the high stair. In those days, even the painter used flour and water paste to wallpaper and to get it off, all one did was to splash plenty of water on it, wait ten minutes and scrape it off in big chunks.  The papering was inspected by cousins and uncles, to make sure it was straight and the patterns matched. They needn't have bothered, if it hadn't, my fiancee would have made me do it again but that was her introduction to the family.

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