Ian Wood: On a tramline back to familiar ways

YESTERDAY morning was notable for a singular absence of wind.

That is, it was absent in the bit where I was. It seemed the first time in months that I hadn't awakened to the sound of trees straining at their roots and rubbish-bins being ripped from their moorings. As I went in search of my Sunday newspaper, the sun shone and I felt moved to trot up the quiet road at a brisk pace. Indeed, I might well have done so had it not been for fear of tripping over one of the sleeping policemen which keep us all so safe.

Progress, I reflected, is a curious thing. Here we are in an age where supercars capable of breathtaking speeds are churned out, advertised and sold, yet on the roads are placed large obstacles which ensure that the 30 m.p.h. speed limit once applicable in built-up areas can no longer be observed without spraining expensive suspension systems. Still, there's a comforting nostalgia about backward steps, for we're recapturing old, familiar ways and what fun they were.

Tram cars, for instance, will soon be with us again. You can tell they're coming by the state of central Edinburgh which is, to all intents and purposes, closed. A hysterical taxi-driver recently kept me entertained all the way to Waverley Station with lurid descriptions of the convulsions involved in this project and all the wonderful adventures it will entail. His verve, eloquence and evident enthusiasm for the project were compelling and by the time I left him, he was practically in tears.

Like many another of my crew, I was brought up with trams and there was never a dull moment. No doubt, the modern trams will be very different vehicles from the clanging monsters which used to ply the iron way in days of yore, but the old ones had their charm. Who could ever forget that magical moment when the wee conductress had to change the long arm – it probably had a technical name – from one overhead power line to another?

The idea was to grab the heavy rope attached to the arm and pull the connecting part free from the line before transferring the firmly sprung arm to the required line. This was quite a task for a small person and the lady who carried out the job at Joppa used to be swung off her feet as she described a sort of scrambling semi-circle around the end of the tram and then attempted to locate the new line with the wildly rearing arm – often to loud and prolonged applause.

I tended to travel mostly on the No 21 service which ran between Levenhall in Musselburgh to Waterloo Place at the East End of Princes Street. There was, as I recall, a No 22 which seemed to do much the same thing. There had to be some difference, but for the life of me I can't remember what it was. It might have had something to do with a change of line somewhere, for there were tickets called transfers which were asked for under certain circumstances. Whatever they were, transfers involved the conductors having to adjust their ticket machines, which they did with great reluctance and only after fixing the child who'd asked for the transfer with a glare of hatred and extreme loathing.

What I do remember very clearly was that the No 21 was regularly used by fishwives, in full, colourful costume, travelling from Musselburgh to sell fish in Edinburgh. The hearty whiff of fresh herring as they slung their creels in beside the driver was enough to numb the senses and cause the eyes to cross. Not the least of the No 21's attractions, was that it took you all the way to Musselburgh's old Championship golf course.

The return of the tram is simply further proof that there is nothing new under the sun and leads me to suspect that one of these days some genius in the golf club design business is going to start back from his computer, clutch his forehead and cry: "Eureka – I've thought of the wooden wood." The second coming of persimmon might not be that far off, for it's difficult to see metal "woods" getting much more bizarre than they are without being declared, if not actually illegal, then certainly ill-advised or totally stupid.

At present the heads are massive and, in terms of shape, are rapidly reaching the point where they will bear little or no resemblance to golf club heads as they're traditionally supposed to look. They're also getting louder and must be nearing the stage where they're in breach of some law or other about noise pollution. People caught up in a fully armed fourball could be excused for feeling they've strayed into a scrapyard.

I was toying with my old Ben Hogan driver just the other night and thinking what a pleasing object it is – sleek, elegant and without any discernible trace of a Coefficient of Restitution. To be honest, I don't know if wood has any Coefficient of Restitution, but I very much doubt it. Certainly, I used the club for many years and never detected the slightest sign of any. Not that I'd have told anybody if I had.