The Incredible Rise of a Gorbals Gangster

by Colin MacFarlane

  He pointed to a large scar down the left of his cheek. “One of the Billy Boys gave me that. To me it disnae look that ugly and it’s a reminder of the old days when real men were real men. Sure, I ended up wi’ a Mars Bar (scar) for life but I wear it like a badge. It shows people you are a fighter.” They all nodded their heads in agreement.

  Jimmy, who was in his 70s, was next up, “For years I did a lot of jobs blowing up safes all over Scotland. Wee jobs that just about covered your wages, £100 here, £200 there, and maybe a grand now and again. I had a team of three, somebody to help me enter the building and another guy who was a look out. When the going was good, it was good, but when the going was bad it was fucking terrible. I’d often spend hours trying to open a safe and then find out it was empty!

  “We did one job in Helensburgh, a shoe shop, and after two hours I eventually cracked the safe. You know what was inside? A mouldy cheese sandwich! I was so fucking hungry ah ate it!

  “We got a tip off about a jewellers in Oban. We went in the middle of the night and it was the easiest job we ever did. The Highland people are no’ like the Glasgow businessmen. They left themselves wide open. I think it must be aw the fresh air and beautiful scenery that makes them a bit soft. No’ like stinking Glasgow!

  “Anyway, we made off wi’ more than £2,000 in jewellery and watches, made a right few bob. But I made one mistake. I gave this lovely brooch to my girlfriend at the time. She was heading for the dancing one night and a copper spotted her wearing it. All the polis in Glasgow had been alerted wi’ photos of the stolen gear.

  “To cut a long story short, she sang like a canary and told them it was me who gave it to her and did not know it had been stolen. The polis arrested me that night. But I told them I had bought it fae a gypsy called Michael in a pub. They couldnae pin the robbery on me but I still got three years for handling stolen goods. Three years for a fucking brooch!”

  Jimmy went for a pish and came back a few minutes later to continue his story, “I didnae waste my time in jail. I had a wee job in the prison library and started to read books on safe manufacturers, like Chubb etc. I studied them carefully, so became a bit of an expert in safes and how they worked. I did a few safes when ah came out but never as big as the Oban job. I also learned never to give some daft woman nicked jewellery who would parade about Glasgow wi’ it, showing it off.

  “To add insult to injury, she ran aff wi’ another bloke, a taxi driver fae the Cowcaddens. That bird definitely had nae class, the brooch was too good for her. She had a lovely face but was thick as a bucket of shite.”

  Johnny felt compelled to tell them about his square go with McCoy and ask them for advice how to handle the matter. But he resisted. Better to keep it quiet, anyway he had got the advice he needed –do anything you want but don’t get caught.

  The jails were full of people who had made the mistake of getting caught. Johnny had no intention of getting caught but had a paranoid inclination that his nightmare could come true.

  Chapter 17

  POSHLAND

  It was a beautiful Saturday morning. Johnny decided to get out of his slum and catch the underground to the West End. As he sat there trundling along, he was amazed that these old Victorian carriages still existed. Glasgow had a primitive but effective Underground that went from Bridge Street in the Gorbals to place like St Enoch’s Square, Partick and leafy, prosperous Hillhead in the West End.

  When he walked along Byres Road in the West End, he realised the people there lived completely different lives from the inhabitants of the Gorbals. This was poshland with articulate middle-class accents who were mostly well educated, in many ways the elite of Scotland. It was teeming with students from Glasgow University who would become (among other things) teachers, lawyers, accountants, dentists and media performers.

  He looked at the beautiful young ladies as they paraded down Byres Road, some were hippy types with flowers in their hair and they glowed with respectability. If only he could join this elite! This was a band of people who had aspirations to be influential in politics, education, law and the media. This was a different universe to the Gorbals with its drunks and thieves and people who spoke with accents so broad that even people from other parts of Glasgow struggled to understand.

  The inhabitants of the West End did not live in rat-infested slums, they resided in fine upstanding Victorian tenements which were kept meticulously clean. But they were at times derided by fellow Glaswegians, mostly of the lower order, as “aw fur coat and nae knickers.”

  He was looking good that day, the spring weather had given him a glow that exuded sex appeal. He noticed as he walked along Byres Road that many of the bourgeois girls gave him a second glance. And even a third glance but were slightly put off by his proletarian gang boy attire. This suggested that he was a common man from a common place full of common people. Johnny’s accent was also a problem, he spoke in tough guttural tones and on hearing this the respectable posh girls would never go near him. Not for a relationship anyway. But some girls liked “a bit of rough” and there was no doubt that he fell into this category.

  He had shagged posh birds before. They had taken him to their bedsits, adorned with Picasso prints, played him classical music and poured him large glasses of red wine. But after the shag, Johnny was quickly dumped. As a Gorbals gangster, he was certainly not in the same class division as a teacher or lawyer. Johnny knew full well about this class division but as he said, he “did not give a fuck.”

  He walked into an antiques shop down a lane just of Byres Road. A little Jewish looking man stood behind the counter. The place was adorned with paintings, jewellery, crockery, antique swords and even a few deer heads.

  “Hello sir, can I help you with anything?” the man asked. Johnny modified his accent to give it a more middle class tone. “Yeah, I like the look of that antique sword in the glass case.” The little man toddled off to get it, Johnny noticed that he had small legs like Dopey from Snow White and the Seven Dwarves.

  Dopey brought back the sword, placed it on the counter and said in an upper class accent, “This, sir, is a fine piece of Victorian craftsmanship. It is a beautiful souvenir and would hang proudly on any living room wall.”

  Johnny chuckled and thought about all the damp living rooms in the Gorbals. “Yeah, looks like a nice piece. How much is it by the way?” He had made a significant mistake by adding “by the way” to the end of the sentence. It was part of the Gorbals low life lingo, “Where are ye gaun? By the way.” Or, “Ah’m aff tae the dancin’, by the way.”

  The little man gave a truly dopey grin, fingered the handle of the sword, and said, “To you, sir, ten pounds cash.” Johnny picked up the sword and waved it about. Dopey began to look nervous. It was a fine sword, the sort he had seen in the movies when medieval barons fought each other.

  Johnny then discarded the pretence of having a posh accent. “Are ye trying tae take me for a mug, wee man?”

  Dopey looked frightened, “Oh no sir, I would never do that. What do you suggest then?”

  Johnny was still holding the sword in his hand, “Ah’ll gi’ ye a sky diver, wee man.”

  Dopey was confused, “A sky diver?”

  “A fiver, five pounds.” Johnny explained.

  Dopey hesitated for a minute but looked at Johnny with the sword in his hand, “Well sir, I think on reflection five pounds will do nicely.”

  He told Dopey to wrap the sword up in paper and he did so with trembling hands. Johnny reached into his trouser pocket and pulled out a wad of pound notes. He began to count them on the counter, “Wan, two, three, four, five – there ye go, wee man.”

  Johnny left the shop with a confident stride. Dopey said, “Thank you sir. Hope to do business with you again.” Johnny nodded and chuckled inside, he had given him five forged notes. “Five duds for the wee man. Dopey bastard!”

  He made his way to the subway as fast as he could. After a short journey he found himself in Partick, a working-class area of Glasgow
full of tenements, not half as bad as the Gorbals. He felt at home there, sure it is where his father Jo Jo had been born and brought up. The Partick people were not really known as fighters but more as patter merchants who were always good for a tale or two,

  He walked into the Dolphin Bar, known locally as a “Celtic shop” and sitting in the corner was Wullie McKay. They had both been at primary school together. From an early age, Wullie had shown a knack for writing. His essays were so good they were often read out to the whole class. One essay was of such “outstanding merit” that Wullie was sent to the headmaster’s study to read it to him.

  While Johnny went on to St Bonaventures – a tough junior secondary for dunces and hardmen – Wullie proceeded to Holyrood for the brainy boys and girls. He was now studying English literature at Glasgow University.

  Wullie, a red-haired bespectacled fellow with a friendly demeanour, was reading Crime and Punishment by Dostoevsky. Johnny sat down at his table with his lager, “That looks like a good book, is it Wullie?” he asked.

  Wullie put the book down, “Aye, it’s about a guy who murders a pawnbroker and then is pursued by the polis.”

  Johnny laughed, “Sounds like the perfect book tae read in jail. So, what are ye up tae Wullie?” He said it in a tone of respect that was the complete opposite of the tone he had used on Dopey.

  “Ach still at college, studying and aw that” Wullie said.

  “Are ye gonnae be a teacher?” Johnny asked.

  Wullie shook his head, “Nah, ah really want tae be a scriptwriter, a comedy scriptwriter, writing jokes. Ah seem tae have a talent for it, there are loads of comedians looking for a good comedy writer.”

  Johnny thought of the Scottish comedians he was aware of – Lex McClean, Glen Daly, Stanley Baxter, Francie and Josie, sure there was a big market out there for new material.

  “Ok then, Wullie, give me a joke,” Johnny said.

  “Clean or filthy?”

  “Up to you pal.”

  Wullie took a sip of his Guinness and said, “Ok then, here’s a wee filthy one - what’s the definition of an egg head?”

  “Don’t know.”

  “Mrs Dumpty giving her man a blow job.”

  “Go on then give us another, Wullie!”

  Wullie nodded and replied, “What’s the difference between the Gorbals Mafia and the Italian Mafia?”

  “Dunno.”

  “The Italian Mafia make you an offer you can’t refuse and the Gorbals Mafia make you an offer you can’t understand.”

  Johnny chuckled, “And ye get paid for that. What do these comedians pay for a joke?”

  “It all depends – anything from a fiver tae twenty quid for a good one.”

  “Ah’m in the wrong game Wullie. Have ye got a Gorbals joke for me?”

  Wullie smiled, “Two guys, Joe and Billy, who are skint and out of work, are walking through Gorbals Cross and see a paypacket on the pavement. They pick it up and inside there is a twenty pound note. Joe says tae Billy, ‘Let’s hand it intae the polis station and maybe we’ll get reward.

  “But on their way there, Billy says, ‘Let’s have a wee bevvy oot of the money and then we’ll hand it in.’ They go intae a pub and one round leads tae another. By closing time, they had spent all the money.

  “They go outside the pub and Joe says to his pal, ‘If that lazy bastard had done some overtime, we’d have had enough tae buy a carry out.’”

  Johnny left the pub and felt elated. Good patter always cheered him up.

  When he sat on the Underground train on his way back to the Gorbals, he clutched the sword wrapped in paper. His mood changed suddenly. It was as if a metamorphosis had taken place

  “Some bastard is going tae get this soon,” he murmured in an alcohol-sodden voice as the carriage pulled into Bridge Street.

  Chapter 18

  NUTCASE

  Johnny was perturbed about yesterday. His sudden mood change after buying the sword began to worry him a bit. One minute he was acting like a respectable business man with (what he thought) a posh accent, the next he became all gangster, guttural language to the core.

  The change in behaviour got him thinking, one minute he could be as soft as shite, then next, as hard as nails. But he had been like this all his life, he blew hot and cold with people. In fact, some schoolmates, behind his back of course, had nicknamed him “the hairdryer.” But it was not only his schoolmates, the teachers had noticed – his sudden mood changes would take everyone by surprise.

  He thought back to when he was in primary school. He had gained a reputation for being a comedian one minute, the next he was battering the living daylights out of some poor soul. After setting about “one wee cheeky bastard” called Danny in the playground, also aged 12, the police were called as he had almost put the boy in hospital.

  But because of his age, and the Gorbals mantra of not dealing with the police, the boy’s parents decided not to take the matter any further. However, the headmistress did give him six of the best, with a big leather belt, and social workers were called in for an assessment. Johnny had never seen the social work report, but he knew his mother kept it in a big brown envelope in a drawer in her bedroom.

  He sneaked back to the house, knowing she was “oot for the messages”– out shopping, and rifled through the drawers in the sideboard.

  He found the brown envelope in the bottom drawer. It said on it “Department of Social Services, report on John McGrath.” He pulled out a single piece of paper and read it. “John McGrath is a child of 12 who comes from a good family background and has hard working and caring parents. But at times they have expressed their concern at his violent outbursts and say one minute John can be ‘as nice as ninepence’, the next, ‘a right wee monster.’ After extensive discussions with his parents and teachers, we have concluded that this is perhaps adolescent behaviour which he will grow out of once he has reached a mature age.

  “John was also interviewed by a psychiatrist who said he did show slight signs of paranoid schizophrenia but this was quite common in boys from the Gorbals of his age.

  “It is common for boys of his age, background and behavioural patterns, to end up in approved schools, borstal and even prison in later life. As a precaution, we will be keeping this assessment on our files until the boy grows up and ceases to use such violent behaviour.”

  So that was it, he had always known that he was different, always known he was “a wee bit odd” but to be labelled a paranoid schizophrenic at the age of 12 had put the icing on the cake. It was official then; he was a nutcase. “A halfpenny short of a shilling, no’ the full bob.”

  He went into the kitchen to make a cup of tea. He thought about the report and felt a bit proud he had been branded a violent fruitcake from the age of 12. But the problem was he was still a violent fruitcake, although the cake had matured with age.

  To gain kudos, and enhance his reputation, he might even tell his pals about the report. They were used to his wild behaviour and violent ways from an early age:-

  *Once, aged 14, he had head-butted a man through a shop window just because he had looked at him the wrong way.

  *At the age of 15, and drinking underage, he had smashed up a pub when the barman refused to sell him any more drink.

  *One of his first jobs after leaving school was in a factory. He got the sack after only two weeks for being continually late. He later burnt the place down and 200 people were laid off.

  *At the age of 18 he had slashed three rival gang members at Glasgow Cross after bumping into them

  There were other stories, too numerous to mention. But in many ways, they all had a common thread- they were committed by a young man who had let his behaviour get out of control.

  He thought of these violent incidents and how he often felt aggressive and had the urge to “stick the nut” on somebody or even slash them with his razor. He then thought of Cathy and his mood changed accordingly, now he was as soft as shite. Perhaps love was the only thing that would
change him. The Beatles were right when they sang, “All you need is love…da ra ra ra ra…”

  He also tried to analyse his dramatic mood swings. What made him angry? Arrogant people, people with no manners, ignorant people, cardboard gangsters - guys who pretended to be hardmen.

  So was easy then, it was love versus violence, and love won every time. But in the Gorbals to show love was seen as a sign of weakness. They might think he had turned into a poof if he turned on the lovey dovey patter.

  So, in the meantime, violence and violent behaviour led the way, except when it came to Cathy. She was in a different division. He tried to psychoanalyse himself even more – he thought he always changed after alcohol. One minute he was as cool as a cucumber, the next, after a drink, a fucking lunatic. This bevvy business- what a palaver! It was an ingrained part of Gorbals culture. Everybody wanted a bevvy, that’s why there were so many pubs and alcoholics in the area.

  Feeling fed up? Have a bevvy. Feeling on top of the world? Have a bevvy. Budgie’s birthday? Have a bevvy. Johnny tried to stay clear of certain beverages like whisky. Usually he would only drink them if there was a special occasion or when he wanted info from somebody. The biddy, cheap red wine, like Eldorado, Lanliq, and Four Crown, had to be avoided at all costs. Most of the guys who drank that stuff ended up in jail.

  Indeed, Johnny recalled at least 90 per cent of the people he knew in Barlinnie had been on the biddy before committing offences. He thought of one night when he had bought a bottle of Eldorado wine from an off licence and promptly smashed the empty bottle over a pal’s head. Sixty-six stitches. He apologised profusely to the fellow the next day – he could not explain what had come over him. His heavily bandaged pal, a lifelong school friend, replied, “Well, ah know what came over me- an Eldorado bottle!”

  Suddenly there was a loud banging on the door. He opened it up – it was big Manny, one of the boys. “Hey Johnny, just had a win on the horses, fancy a bevvy?” Johnny put on his jacket and ventured out into a cold Glasgow evening. They ended up in the Turf Bar in Hospital Street. It was packed with bevvy merchants and the bevvy merchants were all doing what they did best – having a bevvy. Both Johnny and Manny got stuck into the lager.