I was born and raised in Scotland. I lived there (with the exception of an 18 month hiatus in London, England) from my birth in 1963 until emigrating to the United States in 1985. I grew up in the small Highland village of Tarbet. Located as it was on the western shore of Loch Lomond and surrounded by heather-covered Scottish mountains it was a beautiful place to spend one’s childhood. I am not sure of the exact population of the village but it was no more than a few hundred people. It had an elementary school, a general store, a post office, a hotel, a pub, and a couple of gas stations. The economy of the village was dominated by hydro electric power, tourism, and sheep farming. My father was a shift engineer at the Loch Sloy Hydro Electric Power Plant and my mother ran a Bed and Breakfast during the summer. Like all Scottish villages of a similar size Tarbet was a very tight-knit community. Everyone knew everyone (and everyone seemed to know everyone’s business). One of the highlights in the village’ s social calendar was New Year’s Eve or Hogmanay as it is commonly called in Scotland. On Hogmanay villagers would congregate in the home of a neighbor to celebrate the arrival of the New Year. Over the years my parents hosted a number of these Hogmanay get-togethers. They were inclusive affairs – everyone from the youngest child to the oldest grandparent was in attendance. Every seat in our living room was taken, including those brought in from other rooms of the house, and many (mainly the children) sat on the floor. The alcohol flowed freely – wine, vodka, gin, Scotch, and beer. However it was the beer, or rather one particular beer, that I remember the most.

As a child growing up in Scotland during the 1960s and 1970s two beers dominated the market – McEwan’s Export and Tennent’s Lager. McEwan’s Export was a Scotch Ale brewed at Edinburgh’s Fountain Brewery. Tennent’s was a pale lager brewed at Tennent’s Wellpark Brewery in Glasgow. For home consumption both came in 440 milliliter (14.88 fluid ounce) cans. It was the Tennent’s cans that particularly caught my eye and attracted my attention. You see from the early 1960s thru 1991 cans of Tennent’s Lager were graced with photographs of what would eventually became known as the Lager Lovelies – glamorous young ladies who were sometimes teasingly attired.

Beginning in 1959 Tennent’s started putting scenic pictures from both Scotland and England on their cans of lager. Places featured included the Royal and Ancient Golf Course at St. Andrews, the Forth Rail Bridge (named a few weeks ago as a UNESCO World Heritage Site), the Tower of London, and Trafalgar Square. The beer was popular with British troops stationed overseas and the pictures were designed to provide the troops with a reminder of home. It was one of the Trafalgar Square cans that caught the eye of British troops and became the catalyst for the launch of the Lager Lovelies. However, it was not the picture of the famous Trafalgar Square Fountain that got their attention but rather the young lady, Ann, standing in front of it. On seeing Ann’s picture many of them  wrote to the brewer demanding more pictures of her. Tennent’s realized that they had inadvertently stumbled upon a way to sell more beer – put pictures of young ladies on their cans. Ann continued to appear on the Tennant’s cans during the 1960s often as part of a themed set of pictures – Ann’s Day Set was a series of 12 pictures of Ann going about her daily activities (getting out of bed, on her way to work, having a coffee break etc.) while Ann on Vacation (a 10 picture series) contained what we Brits would call holiday snaps – Ann doing her morning exercises on the beach, Ann sunbathing, Ann taking an evening swim, and so on.

With the success of Ann the brewer took the decision to expand their portfolio of young women – thus the Lager Lovelies were born. Angela, Heather, Susan, Erica, Lindy, and a host of other ladies appeared on cans of Tennent’s Lager between the mid-1960s and 1991. Despite their disappearance the Lager Lovelies are still fondly remembered as a quintessentially Scottish phenomenon.  The London newspaper The Telegraph recently ran an article titled ‘22 things that we wouldn’t have if it weren’t for Scotland‘. Included on the list were the Lager Lovelies. The were in good company along with deep fried Mars Bars, the Loch Ness Monster, and Sir Sean Connery. In 2015 television producer Nelson Correia made a short video, Malt, Hops & Beauty – The Story of the Lager Lovelies, that tells the story of this iconic piece of Scottish brewing history.

So that is my dominant  memory of beer growing up as a child in Scotland. Of course celebrating the arrival of New Year in many Scottish villages was much more than a one night affair. Inevitably, as the Hogmanay celebrations wound down in the wee hours of the morning someone would invite everyone over to their house the following evening to continue the celebrations. And the invitations and celebrations did not end there. They could go on for several weeks as everyone took their turn to host a get together in their home. One year I recall that we were still celebrating the arrival of the New Year in early-February. And cans of Tenant’s Lager were an ever present at all of these celebrations. At New Year there was no such thing as a one-night stand with Scotland’s Lager Lovelies.