It's 25 years today since Jock lost his life at Imatra in Finland.
Jock was a miners' son and most of his contemporaries probably never heard of Imatra, and certainly didn't travel the world, racing at world class level, and being lauded as an ambassador for the sport and for his beloved Scotland.
We all know how brilliant Jock was as a sidecar driver, but as a person he was a star too. No matter that Yamaha feted him in Japan, and he was World Champion, he was still the same person he had been when he was a lawnmower mechanic for the local council (wouldn't he and Guy have made a great lawnmower racing team!!)
When Jock and Katy got married, all his old friends were there, and the star of the day was his Katy. When he came to club dinner dances, he was just Oor Jock... never the celebrity.
He used to worry what he would do, after he won the title at such a young age.. "this is all I ever thought about... now I've done it... will I always be former world champion? What am I going to do now?"
He and Katy bought a croft, and he started to grow vegetables... "I'll be a small holder...." and an area in the outhouse was set aside for the boys to pee in..."That's the secret of great mushrooms", he said.
I couldn't go to his funeral. I was on my way to work in Norway that day, and it really came home to me that he was gone forever when I visited Katy a few weeks later, and there were his cabbages, carrots and turnips, growing away, but he would never taste them.
You'll never be forgotten by us, Jock... always in our hearts.