by Bob Servant
It was a complete overreaction, as if someone had pressed a switch marked Make Everyone Lose Their Marbles. I remember a few years later when Princess Diana died and there was a similar situation. I was watching the news with all the flowers and the hysteria and I shook my head and smiled sadly and said, ‘Me and you, princess,’ and Frank said, ‘Me and you what?’ and I had to give him a three-day ban from my house.
The end was in sight and a matter of weeks after the TV show cheeseburger vans were finally banned in Dundee. The Cheeseburgers Wars were over and like all good wars they ended with a party. Me and all the other van owners met at Broughty Ferry harbour, poured away the rest of our oil which made the most beautiful patterns on the water,70 and then went by convoy to my house. Stewpot brought round a few kegs and things took off. It was a fantastic party with a great atmosphere and a lot of End Of An Era hugs and Best Days Of Our Lives back slaps. Late at night, with the music going and everyone dancing I looked round my house and realised two things. I was a King. But I was a King without a Palace.
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66 See pages 1–14 of The Dundee Courier, 19 July 1988 – ‘The Courier Takes a Stand. (Cheeseburger Catastrophe . . . obesity levels . . . mass truancy . . . the return of scurvy . . . a once proud city . . . laughing stock of the world.)’.
67 See The Dundee Courier, various articles August 1988–August 1990 – (‘Storm in a teacup . . . Piss off back to London . . . Cheeseburgers are healthier than bananas . . . Why don’t you people go and chase proper criminals? . . . We’re bigger than Jesus.)’.
68 Finger, presumably.
69 On 8 August 1990 Bob Servant appeared on Grampian Television’s North Tonight Special Report entitled ‘Cheese Burger or Cheese Murder?’ I’ve got hold of the footage and it’s spectacular. The other guests were a local doctor and a member of the Scottish Obesity Forum. The debate lasted just short of three minutes during which time Bob accused the Scottish Obesity Forum of being both Communists and ‘perverts’, accused the doctor of being ‘knee deep in bungs from the Fish and Chips mob’ and then angrily suggested that the show’s presenter (who had yet to speak) was ‘putting words in my mouth’. Bob walked off the set, only to reappear twenty seconds later to ask who he should speak to ‘about expenses’, at which point the show was replaced without warning by an old edition of Sheepdog Trials.
70 See The Scotsman 4 September 1990 – ‘Dundee RSPCA Investigating Swan “Armageddon”. (“I wasn’t in the Falklands,” said passer-by Arthur Justice, 68, “but I’d imagine it looked exactly like this.”)’.
30
Building the Anything Goes Annexe to Bob’s Palace
When I first bought the house that would become Bob’s Palace it was already a very decent pad. It was nicer than Frank’s for a start. Sometimes Frank and I will sit at mine and I’ll say, ‘Here, Frank, isn’t it funny to think that even before I did all the work my house was nicer than yours?’ and he’ll kind of mutter and grumble and I’ll say, ‘Did you hear me OK, Frank? I was just saying that isn’t it funny to think that even before I did all the work my house was nicer than yours?’ and he’ll sort of look straight ahead and start blinking really fast and I’ll say, ‘Sorry, Frank, I’m not sure if you’re picking this up or not, I’m just saying that isn’t it funny to think that even before I did all the work my house was nicer than yours?’ and Frank will stand up and walk home really, really slowly.
When I bought the house it looked like this –
These days it looks like this –
I know what you’re doing. You’re looking at the Anything Goes Annexe and it’s up with your eyebrows. Well, I can’t blame you and if you really knew what you were dealing with then you’d be peeling your eyebrows off the ceiling. Take your wildest dreams, mix in Sauce, sprinkle it with Excitement and then boil it in a saucepan marked No Rules while wearing an apron made of Danger. You’re getting close.
The Anything Goes Annexe took a year and a good few quid to build (although I used pals so we didn’t have to pay Kriss Akabusi)71 but it was worth the wait because it’s got the lot. Leather seats, a big telly, paintings of women on motorbikes, paintings of motorbikes on women, china dogs, wooden birds, mirrors in surprising places, doors in surprising places and a Hi-fias powerful as a speedboat.
More important than any of that is the atmosphere. The Anything Goes Annexe has the best atmosphere of any room I’ve ever been in and that includes when the boy at the Eagle Bar put on Laughing Gas Mondays.72 When I think of some of the scenes I’ve witnessed in the Anything Goes Annexe I find myself blushing. They’re not memories a Dundee man should have, they’re the kind of things you’d expect to hear in anecdotes from George Best, Olly Reed or Forrest Whitaker.
The Annexe does strange things to people. Boys come round to mine and I walk them through the Old House and they’re all ‘nice cupboard’ this and ‘wonderful light in here’ that and then they walk into the Anything Goes Annexe and their eyes go like saucers and it’s all ‘Where’s the bar?’ this and ‘Tell the wife I’ve fallen down a manhole’ that. I’ve seen good men, family men, pop round to tell me about a deal in Safeways and a few hours later they’re sitting in their pants and talking about quitting their job to ‘really give the acting thing a go’. I’ve seen one guy nip in for one drink and leave three days later having lost all his beliefs, though it wouldn’t be fair to name him.73
Tommy Peanuts once came over and went home the next day with a black eye, reeking of perfume and with a woman’s name and phone number written in lipstick on his back. It had only been me, him and Frank in the house but Sally Peanuts went bananas anyway. He was still allowed to come round but for a month wasn’t allowed to enter the Annexe. One evening we were all having a party through there when I went back through to the Old House for some ice and clean socks. Tommy was sitting in a chair with his eyes closed and I thought he was asleep until he whispered ‘Shoot me, Bob, just shoot me’.
Building the Anything Goes Annexe put yet another feather in my Being Famous In Dundee cap. It’s been up and running for twenty years but to this day I still get nods and winks all over the city and I can see them nudge each other and say ‘That’s the Annexe, boy’. But it’s not all beer and skittles because, to be fair, I’ve got as little control over what goes on in the Anything Goes Annexe today as I did twenty years ago.
Maybe you think that’s unlikely. Well let me ask you this. If you lived next door to a lion for twenty years would you be confident about nipping round for a sandwich? If you lived with a shark in your bath for twenty years would you be confident about grabbing the backscratcher, throwing your towel off and giving it ‘room for a small one’? No, of course you wouldn’t. Some things can’t be tamed and the Anything Goes Annexe is one of them.
Here’s an example. The other night Chappy, Frank, Slim Smith and Nervous Norrie came round for a game of cards in the Anything Goes Annexe. The cards never even came out the box. All I remember is Chappy being on all fours doing his German Shepherd material, Slim Smith lying on his side and shouting that he wasn’t ‘going to make it’, Frank standing saluting with his trousers over his shoulders and Nervous Norrie getting trapped in the skylight. And that’s a cards night. On a Tuesday.
So, yes, having the Anything Goes Annexe has won me some respect and recognition. But the lifestyle it’s brought with it has cost me a hell of a lot in both time and industrial cleaning products. I’m not sure how many internationally respected Heroes spend Monday mornings wiping every sin imaginable from the walls and roof of their Annexe but I can’t see it being more than a handful. You’re probably looking at me and Hitler.
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71 Sorry, problem with my ‘replace all’ function there.
72 See The Dundee Courier, Tuesday 18 March 1984 – ‘Dundee Publican Fined. (“He never told us,” said furious Eagle Bar local Sid Berkeley, 36, “I had to go straight to my mother-in-law’s cremation. It’s shot my marriage to pieces.”)�
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73 See Saving Father O’Neill from the vice-like grip of God and Jesus
31
The Failure of Hands Across The Water
Right, where are we? The nineties? Right, well, if we’re talking nineties then we’d better start by talking Fife. In case you’re not fully up to speed with the Dundee/Fife set-up here’s a little map I’ve knocked up.
As you can see Dundee and Fife are either side of the River Tay. We’re like two old friends sitting across a table and smiling at each other and saying ‘How’s Your Dinner?’ while cars and trains go over bridges which I suppose would have to be on the table and sometimes a ship goes over the table on the way to the North Sea to see what it can do to help the oil rig boys.
It’s only five minutes’ drive over the Tay Bridge and with it being so close there’s a lot of Dundee families who have seen members move over. There’s always a lot of concern when it happens74 but usually they manage to get messages across every few weeks and make sure that any children involved are still being taught the right traditions.
It’s not Fife’s fault that it’s such a tough place. In the seventies and eighties the pits and the shipyards went and then in 1992 came the final-straw hammer blow with the sudden closure of the Dunfermline joke shop factory. That place employed 5,000 people and was the centre of the world’s joke shop industry so when it went tits up things got critical.75
Every day there were more sob stories in the paper and it was hard for me to sit in my big house and look over the river and not feel bad for all those people. One morning I was sitting outside on my patio chair looking at Fife and something clicked in my head. It was as if Bob Geldof had got a train from London to Dundee, then a taxi to my house, paid the driver, sneaked round the back, crept up behind me, lay on his back, slid under the patio chair, poked his head between my legs, arched his back so his head suddenly appeared above my crotch and shouted ‘For God’s sake, Bob, do something!’
When you experience a moment like that, you don’t piss about. I stood up, walked into my house, took a bit of paper and wrote four words – ‘Hands Across The Water’. Hands Across The Water was one of the best ideas I ever had and, like Communism and the side parting, just because it ultimately led to murder and famine that should not take away from how good an idea it originally was.
The first thing I did was nick a leaf out of Geldof’s book and grab some celebrity endorsement. I took the Terry Wogan bucket out of retirement and wrote on it so it looked like Wogan was saying ‘Do It For Fife!’ That was me off and running. With the bucket in my hand, clever stuff going on in my brain and wearing a face that was serious but with a couple of touches involving my eyes to show I was still up for a joke if suitable, I walked with my head held extremely high into Stewpot’s.
Now, I knew there would be a mixed response. Stewpot’s has it’s share of boo boys just like any other public institution, but I expected some decent stuff as well, such as smiles and nods, the odd cheer and maybe a rogue clap. And yes, if I’m being honest here, then I did wonder if the ‘H’ word would cross a few minds even if the people wouldn’t have the confidence in themselves to actually say it.
Instead it was like I’d walked into an AGM of the Idiots, Boo Boys and Complete Bastards Club. Stewpot said he already had a window-cleaner (which was demeaning) and Frank went outside to do some breathing exercise which he said was unrelated but I’m fairly sure he’d seen the bucket and panicked about time travel. When I explained to the rest of the bar why I was there things got even worse. Tommy Peanuts said that this was what happened to men when they don’t get enough skirt (which was demeaning and untrue) and Chappy started calling me Mother Theresa and tried to put a teatowel on my head.
I said that if everyone just threw a couple of quid in the bucket it would soon add up and I could go over there and help out the Fifers. The boo boys started up with stuff about me doing it for my own glory and how I should just hand over the money myself seeing as I was always banging on about being rich (which is total nonsense – I’ll only admit to having a few quid if someone asks me, or looks like they want to ask me but are too nervous to do so).
I said I’d be willing to personally cover the majority of my expenses for the trip to Fife and, surprise surprise, that set them off again. Even when I said I’d only use donation money for basic stuff like drinks and maybe a set of golf clubs as a little ‘thank you’ to me for putting the whole thing together, they still didn’t seem to get it. I told them it wasn’t like Geldof had to buy his own fucking guitar for Live Aid but there’s no point arguing with these people.
In the end I told them to forget the donations but that I was going over to Fife tomorrow to help them out anyway and then I played my trump card. The joke shop workers had staged a factory sit-in that had turned into a stand-off with the police76 and so I gave it a bit of a shrug and ‘But look lads, if you’re scared you’re scared, do you know what I mean?’
Smash, bang, wallop they were in my pocket. Stewpot shouted that we could take his Sierra, Chappy shouted he’d drive the Sierra if I bought lunch and Slim Smith shouted that he’d come if we didn’t make any comments about how much he ate at lunch. I said, ‘That’s better,’ and went outside to find Frank and tell him the plan. He said he’d come if I didn’t bring up the time he tried to show the guy at the Tay Bridge tollbooth his passport and I told him the request was noted.
The next morning I got up early, made sandwiches for the trip and went to knock on Frank. He was a lot calmer than I thought he’d be but then told me he was wearing a wetsuit under his clothes in case he had to get back across the river if things kicked off. Unfortunately I didn’t have time to make fun of him properly because Chappy beeped and we went outside and got in the Sierra where Slim was finishing off a pizza. I told him it was a bit early for a pizza but he said it was ‘just a wee livener to get things going’.
The drive over the Tay Bridge was good fun. I brought up the time Frank tried to show the guy at the tollbooth his passport which raised the spirits of most people in the car and Slim polished off the sandwiches, which was annoying but also impressive, coming hot on the heels of the pizza.
We spent the morning driving around Fife. There were lots of Fifers about and only some of them had small faces like the boo boys say they do. We kept the windows up and the car was always moving but some of the Fifers looked not too different to us and when we waved at a few they just about managed to wave back. By lunchtime we were getting pretty hungry and, with things seeming relatively peaceful, we decided to risk a pub.
We found one in Tayport, not too far from the bridge, and Chappy parked up so the car was facing the road. We got out and went inside very, very slowly so they couldn’t rush us. Slim asked to see the menu and I ordered a round of drinks and told Frank to get his wallet out. There was hardly anyone else in the pub so I relaxed a bit and told the barman we were over from Dundee and hoping to help out with the Fife situation. He looked a bit confused but didn’t have time to answer because Frank leant over the bar and shouted at him ‘I ONLY HAVE POUNDS WILL THAT BE OK, CHICO?’
I told Frank to take it easy and said to the barman that we’d read in the papers about all the hardship and were launching a charity drive in Dundee called Hands Across The Water. He asked what Hands Across The Water was all about and I was going to tell him when Slim said if he didn’t eat something soon he’d pass out and Frank shouted ‘DO YOU HAVE FOOD FOR US, AMIGO?’ and acted out eating with his hands and mouth.
Chappy whispered, ‘We’re losing it here, Bob,’ and I had to agree with him because the barman was starting to go a bit red. He asked what kind of help I was suggesting that Fife needed and I said that maybe Dundonians could boost Fifers’ spirits by donating old clothes, or broken musical instruments or any sandwiches that they didn’t particularly fancy. I don’t know if it was my suggestion which made him snap or Frank asking if he’d like to be his penpal but things got very dangerous very quickly.
T
o this day I’m sure it was a metal bar that the barman pulled from under the counter. Chappy has always said it was a baseball bat, Frank suggested a sombrero and at the time Slim said big sausage but in hindsight he admitted that that his mind was playing tricks on him by that point and he’d already mistaken my head for a Christmas pudding.
We raced out the pub and got into the Sierra with seconds to spare. The barman chased us up the street but Chappy put his foot down and we Nigel Manselled it back over the bridge.
When you leave a place in that manner it’s best not to go back and my relationship with Fife never really recovered. For months afterwards I’d sit in my garden looking at Fife and getting more and more angry. Hands Across The Water could have launched me into the Big League of famous charity Heroes but, because of the stubbornness of the Fifers, the whole shebang was cabbaged at the first hurdle.
1993 Broughty Ferry Harbour Day77
I’m man enough to admit that it all got a bit bigger in my head than it should have done, and things peaked at the 1993 Broughty Ferry Harbour Day. I was down there and everyone was admiring the boats and the demonstration from the Police Snorkelling Team but all I could see was Fife over the river and it felt like they were all laughing at me and winding me up and shouting unnecessary abuse about Hands Across The Water.
I took out a pen and wrote I’D RATHER BE A LIFER THAN A FIFER on my hanky and stormed the flagpole. The harbour master ran up there after me and managed to stop me getting my hanky up but I got a couple of good V-signs away. The paparazzi might have got me but I made my point and after that I felt ready to move on with my life.
