Baillie Marshall Limited was formed in 1980, when we merged the two local companies Dundee-based Baillie Marshall (Peter Baillie, Jim Marshall and Chic Harper) and Tayport-based ArtWorkShop (Jim Greig and George Gall).

In the 1980s, Baillie Marshall became a phenomenon. We quickly grew from being a provincial design company into a national advertising agency that was handling press, TV and radio for TSB Scotland, Scottish Gas, British Midland Airways, United Biscuits, Highlands & Islands Enterprise and others.

Baillie Marshall diversified and became Balgray Communications Group, adding financial marketing, interior design and PR companies, with offices in Dundee, Edinburgh and London, and a printing company in Perth.  By the late 1980s, we were Scotland’s largest, independent, communications network, employing over 200 people, with a turnover in excess of £12m per annum.

From 1995, while the business itself continued under the name of Greenfinch Design, the name of Baillie Marshall ceased to exist, so this first reunion of directors, staff, clients, associates and partners – 56 in total – was the very first time that many people had seen each other for 15 to 20 years.  People came from all over the UK – from as far as Brighton and Granton-on-Spey – to attend.  Drinks and conversation flowed until 5am on Sunday morning.  A good time was had by all.

To aid recognition, everyone received a name badge on arrival, as well as a number of small badges featuring photographs of design and advertising work from the Baillie Marshall portfolio.  You’ll see me standing in the centre of the above photograph, wearing a number of those badges.

Elaine, my good wife, standing on a table, took the photograph so obviously couldn’t be in it so, thanks to Photoshop, I have since ensured that she and her the red shoes did make an appearance!

Having organised the event, I could probably have been forgiven for taking longer than I’d expected to deliver the welcoming speech.  However, the audience appeared to enjoy the subsequent dvd that I’d put together of our design work, TV commercials and promotional videos, that played all night, to help jog memories and prompt conversation.

Other directors also in the photo are Peter Baillie (front right, with stick), Jim Marshall (back centre with white beard), George Gall (the head between mine and Jim Marshall’s), Douglas McArthur (to the right of Jim) and Brian Helmore (the head directly above Peter).  Unfortunately, fellow director, Jim Greig, couldn’t make it from the French Alps, where he now resides, but he did manage to send us a video message.

We also received numerous emailed greetings from former BM employees who now live or are currently working abroad, wishing they could have attended this inaugural event.

Other Baillie Marshall employees in our photograph (above) who went on from Baillie Marshall to form and lead their own companies are Jackie Malcolm, Arc Visual Communications (front row, 3rd from left), David Campbell, Campbell & Co (next to Jackie), Derek Souter, DJS Marketing (back centre, left of Jim Marshall), Colin Docherty, Reflex Blue (back, left of Derek), Dougie Gibson, It’s All Good (left of Colin) and Derek Stewart, Big Picture (centre, left of George Gall).

Clients who attended were David Kells (Capital Foods), Roy McGregor and Terry Cooper (TSB Scotland), Sandy Morris (Landmark Furnishing), Jo Stewart (D S Crawford Group), Robin Pollok (Simmers Biscuits) and Bert Lumsden (Dunfermline Autocentre).

The whole evening – and early hours of the morning – were so enjoyable, I do hope we won’t have to wait another 15 to 20 years until our next gathering!  Below are a few more snaps taken on the night.

This was only a third of the class – namely 1B, surnames F to L. Top row: Peter Hill, Brian Galloway, Liz Fowlis; 2nd back row:   ……… ……..? Stephen French, Raymond Honeyman, Susan Fair; 3rd back row: Liz Howieson, Sally Holmes (hidden), May Kirkland; 4th back row: Chic Harper, Marilyn Gillespie, Lydia Greig; Front: Dorothy Latto. If anyone out there can supply the missing name, we’d be obliged.

The accompanying photos show us inside Jim and George’s ArtWorkShop in Castle Street, Tayport (above), outside the Baillie Marshall offices in Princes Street, Dundee and 10 Alva Street, Edinburgh, and in the boardroom of 1 Harrison Road, Dundee.

The photo below shows four of us at an exhibition in Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art, showing current work of ex-graphic students, photographed appropriately in front of our Balgray and Baillie Marshall panels. (Jim Greig also qualified at DofJ, but as an Interior Designer.) Alan Bell, extreme left with no moustache, was also a Baillie Marshall ex-DofJ (as were Jackie Malcolm, nee Smith, and Chris Gallacher, both not in photo). Kate Lackie, of Lackie Newton, is the one wearing the skirt; Bill Barr, Head of Graphics, is third from the left, while Myer Lacome, Head of the Design School, is third from the right.

That moustache second from the right looks particularly dodgy, not to mention the suede jacket and matching shoes!!!

For such a specialist shot, I called on the services of Leicester-based photographer, Michael Westmoreland.

Michael brought along his home-made camera and we were privileged to be allowed to tread on the pitch and place the tripod on the centre spot. I still hold a 57mm x 490mm transparency that we took that first day of the stadium under construction.

Michael came back months later to get the completed stadium pic that appears in the brochure below.

The A4 brochure cover, featuring the club flag and logo, opens to reveal the glass front doors of Celtic Park. In turn, these doors are open to reveal the pitch and stadium. The stadium pages then open to reveal the history of the club and its brand new facilities. The man in the green blazer and white gloves is yours truly – designer, copywriter, art director and model!

You can see more of Michael’s panoramic work on http://www.bigshotz.co.nz/mike_westmoreland.html

After being shown a video of what Supergrounds entailed – the improvement by schoolchildren of their own school playgrounds, with the help of RBS and Learning Through Landscapes – I left the briefing knowing exactly what was required. Later that day, back at base, the logo didn’t take long to sketch. However, as I was on the lower end of the learning curve on Adobe Illustrator at that time, it took me a week to get back to RBS with the finished logo as you see below. They loved it and were soon using it on their brochures and marketing material throughout the RBS, NatWest and Ulster Bank regions.

The video had shown the various features that could be installed into a play area to enhance it, using slices of logs, flower beds, water features, enormous pencils, and so on, so the solution, yet again, was in the brief!

Since 2003, I have had the pleasure of working alongside RBS and Learning Through Landscapes on the project’s development, producing regular updates of their marketing material and further development of the concept into the worldwide context and Dream Playgrounds. It has been great to witness the project’s huge success over this period.

We had written the script, booked Thornton Primary School for the day and enrolled the services of the actress, Juliet Cadzow, to be our teacher. Even we were amazed at the enthusiasm and gusto that flowed that day and at all the amateur dramatics that went into our production – Baillie Marshall – A Class of Their Own.

The video was done on the back of the success of our Project Book, a handwritten jotter (below), based on the experiences of a schoolboy who had visited Baillie Marshall to find out what they did and, hopefully, to decide what career he wanted to follow (with an interesting conclusion).

Our stars on the day included David Kells, Capital Foods; Joe Stewart, D S Crawford; Bob Barnett, Barnett Motors; Terry Cooper and Ann Parker, TSB Scotland; Sandy Morris, Landmark Furniture; Joe Austen, Magic House author; The Other Record shop owners, Derek and ?; Robin Pollock, Simmers Biscuits; and Hugh McCrae from Tayside Region. Baillie Marshall personnel made up the rest of the cast.

On winning the TSB Scotland account in 1981, when all the regional offices came together to form a single national account, Baillie Marshall Advertising set about creating the first of a series of adverts for the bank, based on our new campaign – Which Bank?  We called on the services of TV director Sean Hardy, co-creator, producer and writer (with John Lloyd) of Not The Nine o’Clock News.

The popular, capped, Glaswegian chap, played by Ian McColl, was only one of a number of characters created in the series that would hopefully sell loans to TSB customers in a light-hearted way. The Bank Manager ‘Interrogation’, the ‘Country and Western singers’ and ‘Soothesayer’ were others from a series that introduced such notable Scottish actors as Elaine C Smith, John Hanna (of 4 Weddings and a Funeral), Peter Capaldi (of The Thick of It) and Andy Gray.

They all seemed to go down well with their intended audience and the press (see below) – so much so that TSB Scotland had to drop the ads after a while as they couldn’t cope with the resultant demand for loans!

Much of the credit for these ads ever being produced must go to Roy McGregor, the then (and first) Marketing Director for TSB Scotland, for creating a stir in the Scottish advertising world by choosing this virtually unknown, young bunch of upstart creatives from Dundee to handle his advertising, marketing and design. Indeed, TSB Scotland was Baillie Marshall’s first major, national account win that prompted us to open our first Edinburgh office that year.

More recently, as a small tribute to Roy retiring from the bank after 30 years’ service, I photoshopped the following image of him as the newsvendor with an appropriate caption, framed the colour print, and presented it to him at his farewell party at TSB House. (The red nose and missing front tooth were purely artistic licence as Roy is such a handsome chap, really!)

So here’s a selection of things I got up to during my rather longer than normal time at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art (DofJ) in Dundee – I did two years of Architecture before switching to do four years of Graphics and a Post Diploma (half) year. Happy days. Respect to John Greensmith, Don Shannon, Willie Watt, Neil Dallas-Brown, Bob Miller-Smith and Bill Barr who all helped steer me in the right direction.

Later that year, work started in earnest on producing the book. Club member and professional writer, Keith Mackie and myself collaborated to put this together. I proposed, and it was agreed, that we publish the book in 2003, so that all the centenary events could be photographed and included within the book. In keeping with the club’s motto ‘Semper Nova’ – Always New – I also decided that ‘One Hundred Years New’ was a more relevant and fun title than One Hundred Years Old!

And so, 2002 was one fun year of golf and social events that I photographed, month-by-month, whilst progressing the book’s artwork. It all came together after our last events of 2002, the artwork went to the printers, Scotprint of Haddington, in March 2003, and all our members got their 222-page book by June that year. We produced both linen and leather bound editions.

Arnold Palmer, our Honorary Member, signed books during a visit to St Andrews in 2004, when he received a new club tie and jersey.

My efforts were rewarded in 2004 by being nominated as Vice-Captain of this great club, then appointed Captain in 2005. And what a great Open year that turned out to be!