Being a Bay City Roller probably gave me PTSD

Former tartan teen sensation Stuart ‘Woody’ Wood recalls life on the road, fall-outs, embittered reunions, and the ‘burden’ of fame. By HANNAH STEPHENSON

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ANYONE who grew up in the 70s will remember the Bay City Rollers, the biggest British boy band of the era, Edinburgh tartan teen sensations in trademark cropped trousers and platforms, screaming girls fainting at their feet.

Now Stuart ‘Woody’ Wood, of the classic lineup, recalls the band’s whirlwind rise to fame when he joined aged 17, the ‘Rollermania’ hysteria, fall-outs, reunions and court cases, in his memoir Mania.

Stuart, 68, won’t chart the well-documented abuse he and others suffered at the hands of their powerful and dominating manager, Tam Paton, a sexual predator and bully, who died in 2009. He says in the foreword, "all the disgusting things said about him are accurate", but he wants to draw a line under it.

"I moved on a long time ago and don’t want that beast to be any part of things concerning my life. I don’t need therapy; I have coped in my own way and have no need to spill my emotion," he writes.

Today, he’s still gigging in a different Rollers lineup, as the only original from the classic Seventies band, and seemingly remains a glass half-full type of person, despite setbacks including the missing millions, court battles, reunions and an arduous rift with lead singer Les McKeown, who died in 2021 after years of drug and alcohol abuse.

"It’s like you come away from school and many years later you only remember the good things," he says of those heydays which began in 1974, when the classic lineup included Les, Stuart, guitarist Eric Faulkner, bassist Alan Longmuir and his brother Derek on drums.