See a girl, you can go and get her, all your troubles will be out of reach

Young Ben and I went to the seaside last week in search of adventure and crabs.

I took him to the beach at Prestwick where I spent most of my free time in the 60s. We parked about the midway point next to what was the sailing club and a now derelict building which has been many things over the years

We headed south towards Ayr in search of rocks and hopefully crustaceans. I remembered coming to this spot with my dad and our dog when I was young and collecting driftwood to take back for our fire.

Perhaps it was still too cold for crabs, I am not familiar with their lifestyle, but the only ones we discovered were similar to the parrot in the Monty Python sketch. Fortunately Ben did not notice this so we picked up one of the stiff fellows and gently lobbed him back into the sea. Both the crab and Ben seemed happy with that

 We headed back along the prom heading north now and passed a group of young ladies who seemed as if they were looking for Seven Brothers.

As we reached the other end of the prom we arrived at what is now a play area but when I was young was an open air swimming pool and this is where I spent most of my summer days in the 60s

My mum and dad would buy me a season ticket for the pool so to make full use of it my friends and I would be there every day after school before the summer holidays and virtually every day thereafter when the holidays arrived.

Regardless of the weather we would be on our bikes and cycling down to the pool.

Some days the pool was mobbed, other days not so but it was always a great place to meet friends and see girls that you would seriously consider talking to (maybe on the next visit)

I never could dive properly but I remember jumping off the top 'dale', probably to impress some girl I was considering talking to. I jumped off that spot quite a few times but I don't think she was ever looking. I think eventually they took that top platform down because it was too high

Although I lived in Ayr my house in Moore Place was literally a stones throw from the boundary with Prestwick and my Primary School Heathfield had a front entrance in Ayr and a rear entrance in Prestwick. This meant that when it was time for Secondary School I went to Ayr Academy and many of my Primary School friends went to Prestwick Academy

Just at the top of Moor Place there was a field situated in Prestwick which back in the 60s was home to a collection of derelict air-raid shelters, including one which was known as the 'threepenny bit' because it was shaped like a threepenny bit. That was how it worked back then. Say what you see! We used to get up to all sorts of not very crazy things in those air-raid shelters. They have long since been knocked down and replaced with a large housing estate

 Heading north along Adamton Road you would come to The Oval where we used to play football and tennis and one year we even signed up for practice at Prestwick Cricket Club but being Scottish we soon realised we were not meant to be playing cricket and went back to football and thinking about talking to girls

I drive past The Oval when I head down from Glasgow to watch Ayr United these days and every time I pass Crandleyhill Road just off Adamton Road I remember meeting Susan Waddell there in the 60s after her music lesson so that we could go to a party. I may not have taken up cricket but I knew with Susan I was batting way out of my league and it was a fairly brief innings

When we were slightly older one of the highlights of the week was going to Prestwick Airport to hang out and watch planes and think about talking to girls. Back then there was an outside Observation Deck and in the 70s Concorde could be seen at Prestwick

It was much earlier however when Prestwick Airport had it's most famous visitor. In 1960 Elvis Presley made, reputedly, his only ever visit to the UK when he touched down at Prestwick en route home to the USA from army service in Germany

Many locals believe even such a short stay in Prestwick inspired the later Elvis hit 'Viva Las Vegas'

Before we left for the day I felt it was my duty to bore Young Ben with a bit of historical culture so we visited Bruce's Well which is fairly close to the seafront

I told him the story of Bruce and the spider but he only wanted to know if it was the same spider that climbed up the water spout. We may need to revisit that one in a few years

Hopefully if we go back in the warmer weather there will be better crab activity to keep him amused and I will have remembered a few more boyhood haunts where I thought about talking to girls. There are still a great number of places like that....

Like a lazy flowing river surrounding castles in the sky and the crowd is growing bigger list'nin' for the happy sounds and I got to let them fly

 I noticed there was a TV programme on the other night titled 'When Albums Ruled The World' and it led me to think about how I have listened to music throughout my life and how the 'carrier' for that music has changed over the years

When my dad died he left behind a vast collection of books he had acquired (and read) during his lifetime and because they meant so much to him I have had severe difficulty letting go of them myself. When my time comes my sons will have to deal with my vinyl record collection and I only hope it receives the due deference it deserves

There were also a few old records in my dad's belongings. Most of these were Al Jolson 78s and they currently sit alongside my own collection

When I first started buying records in the 60s I could only afford 45s rather than LPs and much as I would like to say the first single I ever bought was The Beatles or The Stones, I have a nagging recollection that it was 'Come Outside' by Mike Sarne featuring the dulcet tones of Wendy Richards

Fortunately I had two older brothers that were record buying teenagers at the time so I could work out who I liked listening to their music choices. I also recall my oldest brother owned a tape recorder back then and would tape music from the radio

By the time the 70s came along I was building up my own record collection and would have favourite artists like Dylan, Cat Stevens and Stevie Wonder and would buy any new album by them whenever it came out

I always felt with vinyl albums there was much more to them than CDs or tapes. To me the covers were an art form in their own right and often found a place on my bedroom wall (inside a plastic record sleeve of course...you could not use tape or drawing pins directly on your album cover)

By the mid 70s I was driving and in order to listen to my own music in cars I had to start buying albums on cassette as well as vinyl. I remember when I worked as a trainee surveyor for a building company at this time and on occasions was given the task of delivering tenders. I was given the use of a senior surveyor's company car and installed in this was an 8-track cartridge player. I felt on top of the world, driving a company car, listening to music on that very strange contraption and best of all, being paid (very little) for doing it.

One of the advantages of the cassette system was that you could record your own cassettes and have your own 'Greatest Hits' albums of your artists of choice and the introduction of the 'Walkman' meant you could take your music with you wherever you went.

I never had the same affinity for cassettes as I had for vinyl and when CDs arrived in the 80s cassettes were sent to that Great Car Boot Sale in the Sky

I , along with most of the music buying world, embraced CDs with open arms and for years my vinyl album collection was consigned to the downstairs cupboard, although somewhat ironically it was around this time that 12" singles were all the rage for a while and I remember buying the likes of Gorgio Moroder's The Chase from 'Midnight Express' , 'Guilty' by Mike Oldfield, 'West End Girls' by Pet Shop Boys and the wonderful extended remix of 'Say Hello, Wave Goodbye' by Soft Cell.

However most favourite vinyl albums were re bought on Cd and listened to in-house or in the car. I even discovered through a friend that you could download music onto your computer and transfer it on to a blank CD. This rocked my music world. It meant you could find an old obscure single from the 60s and put it on a CD on it's own or in the company of other equally obscure old singles. You could also make 'mood' or 'Themed' CDs. I spent way too much time on these compiling 'The Greatest Hits of my Life' and 'Happy' CDs and 'Sad' CDs (strangely mostly 'Sad' ones)

Nowadays even the CD is becoming obsolete with i pods and their successors and currently everyone seems to listen to music on their phones

I have resurrected my vinyl albums in an effort to restore my faith in music and just to annoy my sons. My record collection and I will not go quietly

I leave you this week with the Favourite 20 Vinyl Albums I have in my possession (limited to one per artist)

1. Blonde on Blonde..........Bob Dylan...............probably my favourite album of all time
2. Born to Run...................Springsteen.............tough choice but it does have Born to Run, Thunder Road and Jungleland
3. Rubber Soul..................Beatles..................for some reason I do not have A Hard Day's Night on vinyl
4. Tea For The Tillerman....Cat Stevens.........for a hapless and hopeless romantic guy in the 70s Cat was my go-to guy
5. Blue...............................Joni Mitchell...........and Joni was my go-to girl
6. Songs of Leonard Cohen...Lenny................just in case you needed cheering up
7. After The Goldrush........Neil Young...........Wow I must have been a real fun guy to know back then
8. Innervisions...................Stevie Wonder......wonderful
9. Hunky Dory.....................Bowie..............loved Ziggy and Aladdin Sane but this one has Life On Mars
10. Transformer.................Lou Reed..........Perfect Day, Satellite of Love and the perfect Walk on the Wildside
11. For Your Pleasure........Roxy Music....great music, great cover
12. St Dominic's Preview....Van Morrison...if you have never heard 'Listen To The Lion' then make the effort to do so. You will not be disappointed
13. What's Going On ...Marvin Gaye   when Marvin became more than just a pop singer
14. Hotel California......Eagles.....it would have been One of these Nights but I recall lending that album to a girlfriend in the 70s and losing it in the subsequent break-up. I really miss that LP
15. Tapestry......Carole King......when Carole decided to sing her own songs and it was worth the wait
16. Rumours......Fleetwood Mac...I imagine everyone of a certain vintage would have this on their list and in their collection
17. A Trick of the Tail..........Genesis...could have been Wind and Wuthering or And Then There Were Three but this one has the wonderful Ripples
18. There Goes Rhymin' Simon...Paul Simon...Something So Right....yes it was
19. The Kick Inside.....Kate Bush......simply stunning
20. Tubular Bells......Mike Oldfield...it was different and a treat for stereo headphones

As you may notice I bought most of my vinyl albums in the 70s but there are not many albums in the last 30/40 years that I may have on CD that would find a place on this list with perhaps the exceptions being Damien Rice and The Blue Nile

Now, I wonder if it would be too late to ask for my Eagles album back