Other Interests
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 Since I was about 8 years of age I've had an interest in springboard diving, and I was fortunate in that, just at the time I started college, a new sports building was opened. This gave me access to facilities which had previously been unavailable to me, and I became fanatically keen on the sport. I won the gold medal at the British Universities springboard diving championship at Crystal Palace in 1965, and the press shot here shows me at the age of 23, just after the presentation. For this I was awarded a university blue - probably one of my proudest achievements ever.
Unfortunately diving is very much a young man's sport, and It's been over thirty years since I was able to participate. I still feel a thrill, however, whenever I see diving on television, and of course the smell of chlorine from a pool just makes the years roll back!
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 Although this is something I no longer do, once a year I used go sailing for a week with my brother and a few other friends around the Western Isles off the coast of Scotland. This is guaranteed to blow all the cobwebs away, but at times can be a slightly less than pleasant experience in that the weather and sea conditions in this area can be as treacherous as anywhere in the world. The worst conditions I've encountered were on a 41 foot yacht in a force eight gale in The Minch - a notoriously unpredictable and dangerous stretch of water, even to the local fishermen. We were making a 60 mile passage from the island of Lewis to Dunvegan in Skye, but gave up and turned back into Stornoway Harbour after an hour's sailing. The experience isn't one I particularly wish to repeat. |
Like most of us, I really enjoy a good laugh. The kinds of thing which are guaranteed to achieve this are Fawlty Towers, Monty Python and The Goon Shows. |
Alison and I both enjoy holidays and try to get abroad as much as we can manage each year - the record so far is nine. We like the sunshine, but we also very much enjoy city breaks. Our favourite two cities are Barcelona and Venice, though we also particularly like Paris and Brugge.
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I have two grandchildren. Alasdair James MacBrayne, my first grandson, was born on 19th October 2000, while his brother Finlay Roy MacBrayne was born on 24th September 2002. They stay with their mum and dad in Colchester in Essex, where my son works as a vet. With them being so far away we don't see them as often as we'd like, but we manage several times per year.
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One of the things which really irritates me is poor or incorrect use of the English language, and in particular the apostrophe. You know the sort of thing . . . where you see in a fruit shop window a sign saying TOMATO'S or ORANGE'S. There's a fast food outlet near where I stay which has above its shop front the statement that the establishment is CAIRO ZAKS (sans apostrophe) and that it sells CURRIES, KEBABS AND PIZZA'S, lacking at the same time correctness and consistency! Or how about the notice on the ticket dispensing machine in a Glasgow car park, which asks you to PLEASE INSERT COIN'S SLOWLY. Probably the most common misuse of the apostrophe, however, is in dates - for example THE 90's instead of the correct '90s.
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