My experience of first love also happened in a magical time and place that was full of colour, innocence, and freedom.
One day my father read an article in a newspaper about housing bosses taking bribes for houses.
At the time he was living in the Townhead area of Glasgow with my mother and three sisters. The flat, a single end, had no toilet, no kitchen and only one room.
He was so angry he wrote a letter to the housing department that night. The following week he was offered a house in Lillyburn Place, Drumchapel.
The house was located in a quiet cul-de-sac, was in perfect condition, and had two bedrooms, a bathroom and a kitchen. The back windows looked onto a sea of green fields, a giant water tower and a farm. My mother was over the moon and they moved in just before Christmas, 1963.
Things went from grim to great overnight; as a family they had never lived in a house with its own bathroom, kitchen and room space. They soon settled into their new community and made lots of friends. In those days no one locked their doors and the word community really meant something. Most had come through hard times and all of the neighbours went out of their way to help one another.
The sixties kept giving and giving, jobs were plentiful and tons of new opportunities and experiences opened up to all.
People began to take holidays abroad, buy cars and tour further afield. Churches got in on the act by opening up social halls and organising mystery bus runs all over Scotland.
Young people expressed themselves with music and fashion. Flower power sprung its roots with bright colours, dance, long hair styles, music, festivals, ‘groovy’ new words and much more. The Beatles, the Rolling Stones and many others churned out thousands of vinyl records in a battle to be number one.
For the first time every home had electricity.
Cookers, fridges, washing machines, carpets, record players and radios became must have items in every home.
It was as if we were coming out of a deep depression and the planet was wearing a smile.
My father didn’t know it but the second half of the decade was about to deliver even more. At 6.50pm on the 10th January, 1965 he was blessed by the arrival of a son.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch, my sisters waited with baited breath to get their first glimpse of their new baby brother.
On the whole the girls were alright, although they did favour sister number three, Evelyn, and spoiled her accordingly.
As it turns out there were two other girls in our close who were the same age as me.
Life was simple and I didn’t have a care in the world; every day was play day. Caroline Craig, Maria Houston and I played from early morning to night.
The seasons were in tune with nature and the summers arrived bang on time.
We spent many hours chasing each other through the rolling fields that seemed to go on forever.
Cows came right into our backyard and my mother, who was not Indian, told me it was a sin to hit them.
The farmer kept horses in a special field and you were not allowed to play with them in case they bit or kicked you. Sometimes they wandered up to a wall and you could feed them. On one such occasion I watched in awe as a big stud horse pissed in the breeze with his dangling fury in full view.
Next, televisions and telephones arrived in our homes. The world was becoming a smaller place and it seemed anything was possible.
Just as change had entered my family’s life overnight, the same would happen to me.
The writing was on the wall when I was sent to nursery school; being locked up from 9am to 3pm didn’t sit well with my emancipated disposition.
Then when I thought things couldn’t get any worse, they sent me to a place called ‘school’ wearing a uniform and a balaclava. I had no idea I would have to go to this place everyday for the next twelve years or so.
School was no place for a guy like me.
On my first day I punched a boy’s nose when the teacher was out of the classroom and there was blood everywhere. The teacher returned to find me cleaning up the crime scene with the sleeve of my blazer. She went mental.
Everything was falling apart.
The family decided to move to a bigger house far away from all of my friends and my countryside paradise.
The clock struck 12.01am, December 31st 1969 and the sixties were over.
We moved to a three bedroom flat in Drumry Rd, Drumchapel close to the border of Clydebank. Situated on a busy main road, I had no friends and nowhere to play.
Two years later I would come face to face with the unexpected death of my mother. I was only seven years of age and longed for my mother's warm embrace and times gone by.
The only thing I could do was pray and stay away from my father who had turned to heavy drinking to dull his pain. In those days there was no real help for anyone suffering a bereavement. It was a terrifying setting for any kid; to be literally left alone in the dark for long periods of time.
Given all the facts, I now realise why my father went to pieces.
I have wandered down a million dead end streets in search for those simple, carefree days that in reality will never return.
Nothing had come close to that magical decade, then I found a way to travel in time and place.
All I have to do is close my eyes and listen to music and I am immediately transported to the place I heard it first.
Simples!