1956 in Moray: football, sex and Rock and Roll
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During his time Jocky Christie was a true stalwart for Buckie Thistle.
Hence the reason why the team decided to gave him a testimonial game, for which Jocky got to keep the gate receipts himself.
Buckie had signed the winger five years earlier on March 17, 1956, from Deveronvale, on the same day they also enlisted the goalkeeper John Low from Keith.
However the team faced heartbreak at the end of that 1956 season when they narrowly failed to take the Highland League Championship.
Buckie needed just one point in their final game which was against Elgin City at Borough Briggs.
In the event they lost by four clear goals.
This result left the two teams level on points so a play-off match was arranged.
A crowd of 4,700 crammed into Victoria Park but Buckie were beaten again – this time by three goals to two, with Elgin coming back from two down.
In the August of that same year the worst weather in living memory marred Keith Show, but high winds and driving rain didn't stop 15,000 hardy souls from attending.
But the sun was shining on Buckie the following month when a new look Thistle team beat Elgin City 4-1 in the first game of the new season.
The Buckie Thistle XI that day was: Low, Stewart, Reid, Thain, Dutch, Jeffrey, Buchan, Craigie, Brown, Allan and our man Jocky Christie.
Finally, a wee word about the craze for Rock and Roll which hit the north in a big way during 1956.
The upright members of Cullen Town Council were understandably concerned about the bad influence this musical phenomenon might wreak on the morals of the region's youth.
In particular, however, they were worried about the sturdiness of the downstairs ceilings at Cullen Town Hall.
Therefore, when Buckie Labour Party proposed holding a Rock and Roll dance in the room upstairs, the councillors laid down some strict guidelines.
To ensure any overenthusiastic dancefloor gyrations were kept to the absolute minimum, they decreed:
1) Only one demonstration of Rock and Roll dancing is to take place
2) That will be announced as a demonstration so that other people do not take part.
3) Twelve attendants must be present at the dance
4) The names of these attendants must be submitted to the Town Clerk in advance.
And, on a final, final note about Moray during year of 1956, we come to the thorny subject of sex.
Over in Keith no fewer than 20 out of the 39 elders at St Rufus Church resigned in protest after Reverend F W McCaskill began to give talks about the matter to young couples who were about to be married.
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