It was always the same, of course, the passage of time, the slipping over from one year to another. I vividly remember my dad, born in 1919, marvelling that he'd reached 1968, as he toasted the New Year with a glass of lemonade and a few minutes of joining in with Andy Stewart before he went to bed.

My dad, as a Scotsman, loved the trappings of Scottishness that some might dismiss as cliché: he loved The Broons and Oor Wullie in The Sunday Post (because he didn't swear he used the same mild curses as The Broons and Oor Wullie, too. He'd say "Help Ma Boab!" and "Jings!". I had no idea what he was on about; he may as well have been talking one of the many obscure dialects of the Maldive Islands).

He loved shortbread and black bun; the sound of the bagpipes reduced him instantly to red-faced and hankie-waving tears and he loved New Year's Eve and the man who held the door open to the New Year, Andy Stewart.

The memory of Andy Stewart is fading a little now, so let me refresh it. Andy was a Scottish singer and entertainer who introduced a show called The White Heather Club that got my dad fumbling for his hankie; it was basically a genteel version of a ceilidh that might have happened at a home for distressed gentlefolk sometime in the late 1950s.

Kilted and trew'd lads and lassies would dance slowly and carefully on the black and white TV in the corner as Andy clapped his hands and somebody played the piano accordion and somebody played the stand-up bass and occasionally someone appeared to be playing the drums, although try as I might I could never hear him.

His arms were moving, certainly, and he was clutching sticks, but there was no noise. Mind you, in those days I was a fan of what we then called progressive rock and I liked wild drummers who looked like they were going to smash the sticks at any moment; the White Heather Club drummer looked like he might burst into tears if somebody put too much salt in his porridge.

Every New Year's Eve my dad would sing along with Andy Stewart; he liked his comedy songs like The Muckin' o' Geordie's Byre and Donald Where's Yer Troosers, a song that he continued to sing long into old age, but the one he liked best was a sentimental number called A Scottish Soldier that reminded my dad of his long years in the Navy dreaming of home.

Andy Stewart didn't always sing A Scottish Soldier on his New Year's Eve show but if he did, then the tears would flow like lemonade.

My dad loved that moment when one year was counted down into the next; gathered round the television me and him and my mother and my brother John would watch (I don't remember us joining in) as the
New Year was brought in backwards from 10, like one of those rockets they were sending to the moon in those days.

Then there'd be a pause and then there'd be a knock at the door; people from down the street coming to let your New Year in, like you might let a cat in, or a cold breeze. Then, by about 20 past 12, it would all be over and we'd be off to bed, having safely seen the transition from one year to the next.

That New Year's Eve in 1968 would have been significant for my dad in ways he wasn't to know, of course. 1968 had been a turbulent and scary year all over the world with rioting and wars and assassinations and my dad hoped (and I don't know why I remember this, but I do) that 1969 would be better, and he said as much before he went to bed.

He wasn't to know that 1968 was to be the last time that Andy Stewart was to present the New Year's Eve-New Year's day programme; maybe in the late 1960s, when even policemen had long hair, he wasn't considered progressive enough. You couldn't even hear his drummer, after all. We weren't to know that, of course, as we climbed the stairs just a few minutes into the New Year.

So, a happy 2008 to us all, and maybe it's a good job that we've no idea what's round the corner or we wouldn't go anywhere near the corner. I hope this year's going to be a great one for us all, and with a bit of luck I'll be here at the start of next year to usher another one in and you'll all be here to read it.
Happy New Year!