Of course they had not come from any socialist country, they had come from Stalin’s brand of so-called communism. I was 19 and probably had not connected that there was a link between a real live Hungarian person and the actual events that had occurred ten years earlier in Hungary. His and Ian’s job was weighing out the white asbestos fibre and cement in tubs. Ian had red hair. Half an hour into the shift and the pair were like snowmen, fibre clinging to their eyebrows, in their ears and up their nose.
The wee guy who taught me my job was Polish and spoke no English. He shared everything. Rye bread and thick salami, hot sweet tea and roll-ups thicker than a cigar, and loaned me dough if I was skint. He was very patient, and showed me how not to clean the chute and asbestos mixer by hand. But he occasionally did it himself and if he caught me looking just grinned and shrugged, cigarette dowt hanging from his mouth. Eventually I took over the mixing operation at that machine, and he moved to a different shift.
The biggest man on the floor was a Ukrainian who moved with the slow precision of a weightlifter. He rarely spoke but laughed a lot. In Anglo-American litrachuhh the narrator would describe him as ‘a hulking brute’, unless the upper-class hero was not intimidated by his physicality in which case he would be described as ‘a great oaf’ or ‘a lumbering jackass’, and be felled by the hero ‘with one mighty swoop to the jaw’. My grannie would have called him ‘a big handsome man’.
The best-dressed guy on the floor was a Jamaican whose name I think was Danny. He worked directly beneath me on the spreading table. The asbestos and cement came from Ian Lithgow to me. I mixed a concrete that consisted of a tub of asbestos fibre and half a tub of cement, and a certain amount of water. Then I dumped it down a chute. On the level below me the ‘spreader’, the Jamaican, opened the trapdoor, and let the mix pour out. He spread it then rolled it into asbestos sheets. Each month we did a batch of blue asbestos, the deadliest fibre. When I was learning I erred and forgot to put in the cement element of the composition. Danny released the chute trapdoor and out splashed a tidal wave of asbestos paste. I had forgotten to put in the solidifier. I looked over the rail to apologise. He was covered in stuff, wiping it out his eyes and mouth. The spreading job was supposed to be one of the cleaner ones, that was how he could wear decent clothes doing it. It was my first experience with the less familiar aspects of Jamaican English, beginning with a paean to the old ska song ‘Judge Dread in Court’, with slightly different lyrics to Prince Buster; I will kill you I will torture you I will fucking lynch you ras clat fuck blood scotch twat fucker blaaad claat.
And the wee Polish guy tugging at my elbow, conveying that I should not approach him for a couple of days, as if I had intended any such thing. In Manchester they all call you a twat. They all called me a twat anyway. A few years later I discovered twat did not mean ‘silly fool’, it meant ‘vagina’. Ach well.
It was a tricky job but paid good money and sometimes you could work double shifts. If me and Ian had done the dough and were extra hungry we stole dry bread from the canteen bins out in the deserted parking lot, spread on layers of asbestos, applied a little brown sauce with the blue and white. What a tasty mouthful. This asbestos company operated an Employees’ Suggestions box throughout the world. In view of mounting litigation costs new uses for asbestos fibre were especially welcome. I tipped them the one about sandwiches and they now export them to service station fast-food outlets on foreign shores. Ian and myself are in touch about twice a year; we have an interest in each other’s symptoms, and wonder if we are the last of that batch of factory hands.
On a few Saturdays, with the other three guys that came with us, we went to Old Trafford to watch United; Law, Best and Charlton, Paddy Crerand. When Denis scored the fans sang:
The King Has Scored Again
The King Has Scored Again
eee aye addio
The King Has Scored Again
My heart beat loudly. We also went to Maine Road to watch the City and Colin Bell, Johnny Crossan, Mike Summerbee.
I watched many strange games in Manchester. In one of them Man City destroyed Tottenham Hotspur for 88 minutes. But they did not have Jimmy Greaves and Alan Gilzean. Two breakaways, two flicked headers, two goals. Tottenham won 2–0. The pair of them walked off the field chortling, pair of baldy bastards. But Alan Gilzean, what a fucking player! But so was Greaves, one has to confess.
My loyalties were split one day at Old Trafford. Jim Baxter had signed for Sunderland and the team was full of Scottish players. They had a great team but unfortunately did little on the park to show it. Baxter had thickened, and was not the player of old, but still capable of plenty. He played a few years on from then.
Several months before that game in 1964, when I was in Glasgow, a horrible tragedy had occurred. John White, a Scottish internationalist, was killed by lightning while playing a round of golf. White was a highly regarded inside right, known as ‘the ghost’, a member of the Tottenham Hotspur team of the early 1960s. For myself, and thousands of other boys, it was always Law and Baxter, but John White was a hero too.
Davie Mackay was in that same Spurs team. Nobody would have accused him of ‘swashbuckling’, he would have lifted ye up by the jersey and stared ye right in the eye, even if ye were Billy Bremner. Men prefer that, but boys like the ‘swashbucklers’. Scottish sports journalists describe football-artists in these terms, unless they are wee guys like Jimmy Johnstone, a ‘buzzbomb bundle of tireless energy’. In addition to Baxter and Law my own heroes were Lester Piggott and the Cincinnati Kid.
Jim Baxter was still with Rangers at the time of John White’s funeral. He called into the gents’ outfitters, Jackson the Tailor, at 76 Union Street with a pair of old black trousers. Downstairs he came to the alterations section in the basement and interrupted a period of quiet. I was working in Jackson the Tailor for a couple of months. It was mid morning. Me and the old guy who worked down there were reading the Sporting Life and discussing race form in a side room. We heard the footsteps coming down and my older mate went to serve the customer. It was his turn, we took turn about with customers. I sat on with the Sporting Life. But to my horror I saw it was Jim Baxter, in his shirtsleeves. Nobody came into a tailor shop in their shirtsleeves, not in them days boy, no sir.
The older guy was laughing across at me, he knew I was a fan. Then he relented and called me over to continue the job. Baxter needed the alteration in a rush. It was the only pair of black trousers he had. He never bought stuff ‘off the peg’, it was always made-to-measure. But there was no time to get a new pair made, this was a rush job, he was flying down for John White’s funeral and needed them immediately. The trousers had to be altered, the trousers taken in or let out or something. He was still quite skinny in those days. I listened and noted everything. A rush job, immediately, John White’s funeral, a rush job. Then he was off up the stairs, whistling a cheery wee tune to himself. I heard his footsteps dying away. Then I had to dash through to the alterations room and see the crabbit auld cunt that did the tailoring alterations. Robert, I said, this is a rush job, immediately and it is just, it is a rush job, honest.
What ye mumbling about, rush job, I do not give a fuck if it is a rush job.
Aye but it is Jim Baxter.
I do not give a fuck if it is – who?
Jim Baxter.
I do not give a fuck if it is Jim Baxter, the job will take a fucking week.
But Robert, it is for John White’s funeral.
I do not give a rat’s fucking tadger if it is the fucking Queen’s fucking – who?
John White.
You must think I am stupit. Here, give me them.
Thanks Robert.
Shut the fucking door on yer way out.
The trousers were altered, pressed, packed and ready to go, on schedule. And he had done the actual repair job. Usually he just slapped the trousers three times with his heaviest iron and muttered, That will do the cunt. Then he flung the trousers or jacket at ye, Give that peg for two da
ys.
‘Peg for two days’ meant ye folded the trousers or jacket on a hanger and hung it up for two days. When the customer came in for his new suit complete with alterations ye had to pretend it was all done and hope the guy would not ask to try it on again. Once ye had him out the door ye knew he would wear the unaltered trousers and just fit his way into them, or else get his wife or his maw to do the job.
But Robert did the genuine alteration on this occasion. Everybody knew about Baxter’s funeral trousers and was waiting for his return. But I planked the trousers so nobody could steal the job off me. That was what the salesmen did to one another when a personality came in the shop, especially football players, and a few football players did come in. Everybody rushed to serve them. Sometimes the manager himself took the job, hoping he would wind up with an order for eleven blazers and eleven pairs of flannels.
I couldnay bear the thought of missing Baxter. I had been a fan since his Raith Rovers days, way before his £17,500 transfer to Rangers. My Uncle Lewie stayed in Kirkcaldy and through there they all knew about Baxter from his days as a Junior.
So what if I missed serving him! What if I was in the smoke-room for a quick puff? What if I skipped out to the betting shop? Or if I went round to the Imperial Billiards Parlour where I usually spent my lunch break watching the money games? A couple of the salesmen came too, there were always huge queues and no time to play. But on this occasion I would not have wasted time on any such nonsense. I sat at the counter and waited. In case of emergencies I planked the trousers so nobody could find them. They would have to come and find me first.
Unfortunately I had to charge Jim Baxter 10/6 (53 pence) for the alteration to his black trousers. Old Robert was one of these ancient codgers you get in the tailoring business. They glower at ye over the top of their specs, and insist on petty detail. I do not care who he is, away out there and get the ten and a tanner!
In those days football players still travelled on public transport. In the shop doorway of Jackson the Tailor a few Rangers players met in the morning. There was a bus stop outside the doorway. The players were going to Ibrox. They came in from the east coast to Central Station, and crossed the road to wait for a 15 bus along Paisley Road West. Baxter was not one of them. He was not a ‘buses’ kind of footballer. When he left Rangers he went to play for Sunderland. I was at Old Trafford when he came with his new Sunderland teammates.
It was one of those strange games that occur from time to time. After a full 90 minutes’ play the final whistle blows, and the fans walk hesitantly to the exits. Gradually their foreheads start wrinkling, they start looking at one another, some scratching their heads, the puzzled frowns begin. The boys are taking notes, waiting to see what they should think. Then one of the younger men says suddenly, What the fuck was that about?
And another one nods. That must have been one of the weirdest games I have ever seen.
Weird! says a grizzled 60-year-old, I have never seen a game like that in my entire fucking puff.
Aye but what happened? says a younger man.
Fucked if I know!
Then a burly man with the look of a retired boxer strides past, shoulders barging, shaking his head, speechless, just fucking speechless. They continue homeward.
At Old Trafford that day the English fans were not too bothered about Baxter one way or another. But many Scotsmen, as well as Irishmen, attended the games at Old Trafford and they were anticipating something special. Baxter wore the number 10 jersey and played inside-left. He was not outstanding but he played well. I thought it was a great game, and very even. Yet it was one of these peculiar spectacles where you want to discuss important pointers, but cannot find the words. United won 5–1. Of course they did. I know they did. But it was still an even game. How come?
Others among the Sunderland Scottish contingent included a fine ex-Aberdeen winger, George Mulhall, also cousins George Herd and Alec Herd. There was a third Herd on the pitch that day, another Scottish player. Man U had just signed Davie Herd from Arsenal – I think for £45,000 – a right-winger. United fans were perplexed by the signing. He was nothing at all like George Best. He looked more like ‘big Yogi’, John Hughes of Celtic, but without the nifty footwork. This was the day Davie Herd scored four goals.
On their way out the ground the Man U supporters were still unconvinced, not willing to concede the point. One of them delivered the classic cliché: Fucking twat, he only kicked the ball four times.
From the tail end of 1966 through to 1969 I lived and worked mostly in London, until Marie and I married in early November. I had been writing for several months and completed a couple of stories from An Old Pub Near the Angel. We had met the previous March, appropriately enough on St David’s Day, her being Welsh. She was working as a shorthand typist. I sold suits on Oxford Street, laboured on a building site down Harley Street, then a building site at the Barbican, plus spells in other jobs. In one of them it coincided we worked in the same place, the Royal Free Hospital, where she had reported from her agency. We were living together but pretended not to know each other.
A busdriver I knew from Glasgow was living in Bracknell, outside of London. He and his wife, Dorothy, had invited me to come and stay the night. I had just met Marie and invited her to come with me. She refused on the grounds of ulterior motivation. But I was just showing off, acting like a cool guy with friends in out-of-the-way places. If I arrived in Bracknell with Marie by my side maybe they would recognise the striking similarity of the image we presented to that early album cover of Bob Dylan and his girlfriend, her on his elbow, photographed in Manhattan.
But maybe not. Chris Harvey was not easily impressed, not then, not now. Back in Glasgow he had been over 21 so could drive buses. I was under 21 so I could not, I was the damn conductor, then serving my third or fourth sentence. Harvey gave me no peace, insisting on the merits of Sartre, in opposition to Camus, of Mann as opposed to Kafka, van Gogh rather than Gauguin, Russell against Wittgenstein; he saw merit in Thomas Hardy and D.H. Lawrence, and thought The Go Between one of the finest novels ever written. I disagreed with everything he said, never having read the damn books, and no wonder. I was unwilling to consider these possibilities, strictly on a point of logic. But Chris is not the model for the character Willie Reilly, busdriving sparring partner of the central character in The Busconductor Hines. For one thing he is English and for another the bastard knew too much, even at 21.
For my and Marie’s wedding night party we had four singles: ‘Lazy Sunday’, The Small Faces; ‘Lay Lady Lay’, Bob Dylan; ‘I Heard It through the Grapevine’, Marvin Gaye; and a nice one by Billy Preston whose title I cannot remember.
A friend in North London, Gavin Allison, gave us the use of the front room in his flat so we could have a party. Gavin was another good reader and we bumped heads frequently, usually on the subject of James Jones, his favourite author.
Marie was pregnant and had to stop work late November. Accommodation in London was not easy to find, not on a labourer’s wage, with a baby on the way. We tramped around looking. Racist stuff still applied. Blacks and Irish were unwelcome, Scots had it easier, but babies were out the question unless one was loaded with dosh. Swansea or Glasgow became the option. We decided on Glasgow. By this time my father was back self-employed and had found that decent wee workshop in Garriochmill Road. He ‘spoke’ for us with the factor, laid down some key money as a wedding present, and we rented the room and kitchen up on the second floor.
Our next-door neighbours were an elderly couple by the name of Bradford. Mr Bradford came from the North of Ireland. He looked and dressed like a proper businessman in the three-piece suit and soft hat. His business was a private lending library in a wee shop across the street: the Garriochmill Library. He charged threepence to borrow a book.
He had just retired when we came to stay there but his house was full of old library books, most of which were written by Lloyd C. Douglas and Edgar Burroughs, but included a few by John Steinbeck, Erski
ne Caldwell, Walter Greenwood and A.J. Cronin. I could borrow any I wanted and he always enjoyed a chat.
After he died his widow let me take what I wanted. I have to confess there were not too many I did want, but a few I still have. The circumstances surrounding his death were sad. Mrs Bradford had been away staying with relatives and he was alone. We had not seen him for a few days. Myself and Frank McGoohan, the upstairs neighbour, were banging on his door. Then we forced it in. He took one side of the flat and I the other. I found him dead, in the act of getting into his bed. He had the alarm clock in one hand and must have been setting the alarm, and just sank back when the heart attack hit. I stood there looking. Frank came ben to tell me that a taxi had just drawn up on the street and Mrs Bradford was getting out. We had to move quickly, meet her on the stair, take her into my house.
This part of North Woodside was full of life forty years ago; small businesses by the score. Butchers, bakers, carpentry shops, chemists, drapers and domestic repair shops; secondhand bookshops, launderettes, chip shops, newsagents and dairies; a sweetie shop, a crockery shop, secondhand furniture stores; many pubs, bookies, pawn shops, fish shops and licensed grocers: all within five minutes from the foot of my close, and from South Woodside Road to St Clair Street, taking in Henderson Street, Mount Street, Carrickarden Street and Dick Street. We did not need Great Western Road or Maryhill Road. I am not even including Raeberry Street in this, although I recall the Shakespeare Bar served three-course lunches for 2/6 around 1972. Nah, my memory is surely defective on that one.
When my family returned from the States things were tough and my mother needed to go out to work. But doing what? She began the long haul to become a teacher. She secured the necessary Highers at day school then entered Teacher Training College. Napiershall Street Primary School was a short walk from my close. My mother taught there from the late 1960s for a period of six or seven years. It was her first job since 1942. My elder daughter Laura was one of her pupils for a year. She was under instructions never to greet her in the playground and never to say ‘grannie’ in the classroom. She was allowed to give secret smiles.
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