by Bob Servant
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74 See multiple stories in The Dundee Courier, for example 19 July 1985 – ‘Police Can’t Help Distraught Family (“Under the current legislation we are unfortunately unable to consider their son’s apparently forced relocation to Fife as a kidnapping,” says a Tayside Police spokesman. “We understand their concerns, particularly on a safety level, but at the end of the day we have to consider the fact that he’s thirty-two years of age.”)’.
75 See The Fife Herald, 17 February 1992 – ‘The Joke’s Over For Fife (Workers not laughing over factory switch to China . . . Environmental fears over “Sneezing Powder Mountain” . . . “I’m 53 years old and all I know is the correct voltage for a hand buzzer, what do I do now?”)’.
76 See The Fife Herald, 22 February 1992 – ‘Police Surround Occupied Factory (“We have intelligence that the main entrances have been defended with clusters of dog faeces and spiders,” says a spokesman for Fife Police. “Although we believe that the vast majority of these items will in fact be plastic reproductions, there is always the risk that the saboteurs have taken a Russian Roulette approach.”)’.
77 Photo © The Dundee Courier, where it appeared alongside a 14 June 1993 article – ‘Protester Only Blemish On “Best Ever” Harbour Day Party (“I never thought I’d live to see snorkelling like that,” said local man Arthur Justice, 71, “and I was in the Falklands”.)’.
32
Saving Father O’Neill from the Vice-like Grip of God and Jesus
The first time I came into contact with Father O’Neill was during Tommy Peanuts’ divorce. Sally Peanuts ran off with a guy from Maryfield who by all accounts had a Fiat Corsa and an unbeatable line in sarcasm and, almost definitely as a direct result, Tommy really lost the plot for a few months. We tried everything – ‘forgetting’ to make him buy his round, ‘accidentally’ telling stories that were based around New Beginnings, pointing out how much money he was going to save on groceries and shampoo. Nothing seemed to work and the next thing we’d heard he’d met some priest in Safeways and had decided to go to him for advice instead.
I wasn’t particularly happy. Being subbied in favour of a priest for advice on skirt was a bitter pill to swallow but to my credit I bit my tongue and wished Tommy all the best. A few days later my patience was rewarded when he came into Stewpot’s and said he was on the mend. Tommy reckoned this priest, who was called Father O’Neill, was ‘one of the good guys’ and that he didn’t take Jesus or God too seriously and was willing to have a laugh at their expense.
I still wasn’t too bowled over with the situation but the next night Tommy brought Father O’Neill into Stewpot’s and the guy was a massive hit right from the start. Not only was he up for a laugh but he was more than happy to deal with the usual questions – does he pay for the communion wine, what’s the funniest thing that the Pope’s ever said to him and what’s the nun situation? Then I asked where he lived and he said the church gives him a house and we just about fell off our stools.
I said that the only other jobs where you got a free house were a lighthouse keeper and the Prime Minister. Father O’Neill said that in one of those jobs you spent your days looking down at people and in the other job you were a lighthouse keeper. It was a clever joke, one of those ones where you say something like it’s going to be one answer and at the very last moment you pull the rug away from everyone’s feet and bring the house down. I appreciate a clever joke like that and although everyone was laughing I made it obvious with the way I looked at Father O’Neill that I completely understood the joke unlike certain others who were just laughing to be part of the crowd.
I went home that night feeling about ten feet tall. Fair enough, it was Tommy that had found Father O’Neill but he’d brought him into Stewpot’s so as far as I was concerned he was fair game. I knew that if I could get Father O’Neill onside as a confirmed pal then all sorts of possibilities could open up for me. First though, I needed to get him away from the church. Being part of our gang takes a huge amount of commitment and if he was going to be involved then I had to free him from the vice-like grip of God and Jesus.
Getting people out of a religion isn’t easy. There was the English long-jumper that gave up on God after punching that woman on Songs of Praise78 but generally speaking it’s hard for people to walk away because of the brainwashing. I decided that the only way I was going to free Father O’Neill was to use what must have coaxed him into the religious web in the first place. Words.
The next morning I tracked him down to the Jasper Carrott Soup Kitchen in Albany Road and asked if I could have a word with him. We went for a wee walk in Dawson Park and I softened things up with a story about skirt and Father O’Neill said that when it came to women he had a ‘look but don’t touch’ policy and I told him Frank had been following that policy for years which made Father O’Neill crack up big time.
I waited until he’d finished laughing and then frowned as if this was all Off The Cuff and said, ‘Here, Father O’Neill, this is probably bollocks but someone told me that Jesus has a massive nose like an ice-cream cone and great big feet like a clown. Anything in that?’ Father O’Neill looked a bit shocked and said, ‘No, someone’s pulling your leg there, Bob.’ ‘Ah, OK,’ I said and kept walking. I gave it a wee while and then asked, ‘So you’ve met him then?’ Father O’Neill said, ‘Met who?’ and I said, ‘Jesus.’ ‘Jesus died two thousand years ago, Bob,’ he said and I tried a ‘Really? Two thousand years? Time flies, eh?’ comeback.
I went back to the walking and looked around the park as if we were about to talk about the park and how nice it was and then BANG I went back with, ‘So you’ve seen a photo of him then have you? Or a bit of video?’ Father O’Neill was all over the shop by this point, he didn’t know whether he was coming or going. ‘Of who, Bob, Jesus? Of course I haven’t,’ he said. ‘So how do you know he didn’t look like that?’ I asked and he said there were a few descriptions floating about and that I was being ridiculous. I held up my palms to say Just Relax and finished Stage One of my plan with, ‘It would be hard to worship someone who had a nose like an ice-cream cone and big feet like a clown, that’s all,’ and he didn’t say anything. That was the seed planted.
I suggested we went and had a go on the swings, which he didn’t look too pleased about, but I said I just had a few more questions and that he could have first go. We went over and he sat down and I started pushing him which he enjoyed and once things were back to normal I told him I had a story to tell.
I told Father O’Neill that someone had told me about this guy called Trevor Turnips. I said that Trevor Turnips had apparently died a long time ago and no-one had ever seen a photo of him and no-one knew anyone who had actually met him, but there were rumours that Trevor Turnips was a really good guy and had done a few magic tricks and because of that some people were thinking of giving up their Sundays to go and sing songs about Trevor Turnips even though no-one really knew if Trevor Turnips was a real person or not and there was even the possibility that Trevor Turnips had a big nose like an ice-cream cone and great big feet like a clown. I asked Father O’Neill if he thought it made sense for me to become a fan of this Trevor Turnips guy because as far as I could see it looked like there were better things I could be doing.
Father O’Neill asked me to stop pushing him, got off the swing and walked away without a word. Later that night I was sitting in my house when there was a knock at my door. He came in and we went through to the Anything Goes Annexe. Three days later Father O’Neill left and the last I heard he was working as a taxi driver in Coupar Angus. I will never, ever reveal what happened in those three days other than to say there were a few scenes that I will take with me to the grave. Crying, screaming, curling up into a ball. And that was just Frank when I sent him in to clean up.
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78 I think Bob is referring to the British triple-jumper Jonathan Edwards who regularly hosted teatime TV Christian favourite Songs of Praise
until the 2007 news that he had lost his faith. Amidst a flurry of newspaper articles a friend of Edwards told the Daily Mail that the former athlete had suffered a ‘spiritual meltdown’. The suggestion from Bob, however, that Edwards struck a female participant on Songs of Praise is entirely untrue.
33
Accepting There’s a Possibility That It’s Just Me and Frank
I’ll often turn on the telly or read the paper and there will be some article about how having sex can be tricky when you’re older. I’ll think to myself, ‘Well you’re spot-on there,’ because over the last few years I’ve found it increasingly difficult to find someone to have sex with.
It’s strange because if anything I’ve got more handsome as I’ve grown up. I was always a looker but I used to be a wee bit rough around the edges and now I’ve developed into one of those older men that you look at and your heart just melts, like Warren Beatty, Clint Eastwood and Eric Bristow. I’ve got the silver hair, the experienced walk and a whole range of smiles and looks that can do anything I want them to. My muscles are still there, you’ve just got to look a bit harder for them, and I’ve kept up to date with new fashions for clothes and swearwords.
So my problem with getting a bit of the good stuff isn’t anything to do with me. It’s all the fault of skirt levels, which are traditionally at their highest when you’re in your twenties then begin to fall as skirt get picked off by other boys. From then it’s a gradual decline apart from the occasional divorcee spike and a short-term boost after Hogmanay and April Fool’s Day when there’s a lot of trial separations going on.
By the time you get to my age, skirt levels are so low that available skirt should be made to wear flashing lights on their head. You end up looking for them and trying things out in unlikely places, and if I’ve been banned from Safeways once I’ve been banned a hundred times, but you just need to dust yourself down, apologise, put the baguette back on the shelf and move on.
Better to have the odd misunderstanding in a supermarket than end up trawling through your back catalogue, which I tried a few years ago with horrendous consequences. I started by phoning a few old flames and, to a man, they were a complete let-down. Sorry, to a woman. In fact I’d rather that they were men because at least then we could have got the saucy stuff out the way and had a wee chat about football or any belters that either of us had heard. Instead I had to listen to various excuses about marriages, families and the wish to forget a so-called ‘moment of madness’ up to forty years ago. I even went to a school reunion which was OK I suppose. I told a few stories from the old days and got a few people smiling and nodding but then it all got a bit confused at the end.79
My point is that you have to move on in life and for me that’s becoming more and more about accepting that it might just be me and Frank until the game’s up. Now, that would be depressing for anyone but for a man of my potential it cuts me to the quick because when I think about why I’m not a Hero to the punters I often wonder if it’s the lack of regular skirt. Whenever you see these politicians on the telly, for example, they’ve always got skirt available to stand beside them in the garden when they admit to other skirt.
Ach, I’ve had plenty of adventures though. I could show you photos that would make you cry with pleasure and tell you stories that would make you want to do a Reggie Perrin on your family and move to Lochee. And I’ve not thrown the towel in completely. Hope springs eternal round my house, especially in the Annexe, and just this week I’ve put out a little feeler.80
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79 See The Dundee Courier, 16 November 2005 – ‘Man Ejected From School Reunion (“They should have made it a lot clearer in their advertising that it was only for people who went to the school,” says Servant, 59, of Broughty Ferry.)’.
80 I tracked down what Bob’s referring to here. The Dundee Courier currently has a weekly section called Lovestruck In Dundee where people post sightings of others who have taken their fancy. I have included a selection, amongst which you might be able to spot Bob’s.
34
Not Becoming A Celebrity Even Though I Didn’t Want To Be One Anyway Because I Hate That Stuff
My first book coming out was a wonderful time for me and those around me. That’s not to say that there weren’t a few hiccups along the way. One of the biggest hiccups was that, in hindsight, I probably started the build-up for the book coming out a little early. I’d been told that Word Of Mouth was the big one in building up interest so I started talking in Stewpot’s about the book and the fact that I’d written a book around a year before publication.
After a week I was forced to wrap up the Word Of Mouth campaign when the Bitter and Twisted Brigade (led by, surprise surprise, Bitter and Twisted General Chappy Williams, Admiral Tommy Peanuts and Private Frank The Plank) reported me to Stewpot and he said I would be banned if I didn’t stop ‘blowing my own trumpet’. I told him that if that was blowing my own trumpet then whenever Chappy won a golf tournament we had to listen to a fucking brass band, but he said the decision had been made and that was that.
I was forced to keep my head down on the book front for nearly a year but when publication came round no-one could stop me talking about it because it got a belter of a review in Cruncher’s magazine81 and The Courier plastered me all over the front cover.82 It’s possible I got a little carried away in The Courier interview but it was an exciting time for me because I was very confident the book would be the fuse to light a Hero cannon and fire me into Stardom Sky.
Not that I wanted to be a celebrity because I hate that stuff. Back in my day you’d turn on the telly or open a paper and you’d look at the people and you’d be thinking, ‘Oh there he is again but he deserves it so good luck to the guy,’ and ‘She gets better every year and I must buy her new LP,’ and so on. These were people you respected because of what they’d managed in life. They were brilliant actors, wonderful singers or genuinely world-class serial killers. Who do we get now? A bunch of no-marks and amateurs.
Unfortunately the coverage from Cruncher’s magazine and The Courier didn’t quite set off the clamour that I thought it would. A few days went by and then a few weeks and finally I had to face up to facts. As much as I hate that celebrity stuff it seems to be what the media want so I went to the newsagent and bought all the tabloids and the famous people magazines. One theme I noticed a lot of was secret photos of famous people who hadn’t officially said they were shacked up along with articles giving it the Are They Or Aren’t They routine.
That’s what made me think of Lorraine Kelly. When she’s not doing the telly stuff in London, Kelly lives in Dundee and I think she’s married and so on but I thought that maybe the two of us could give the tabloids and famous people magazines ‘something to play with’. I wrote her a letter suggesting a series of secret photos such as the two of us smiling and eating chips in Broughty Ferry harbour or walking along the beach holding hands or ‘innocently’ looking at the ring display at Simpson’s Silver. Then I thought I could spot the photographer and he could get some shots of me giving the V-Sign and waving my hands and shouting ‘Piss off!’ and ‘Give us some respect’ and ‘Go and chase real criminals’.
It was a plan that would have benefited us both (my book would have flown off the shelves and she’d have had more viewers than ever for Countdown) but I never heard back, which was tough but bearable because things had picked up in the meantime. Out the blue I’d had a call from Radio Tay who wanted me to go on Ally Bally’s show which is big-time and, to be fair, I went down an absolute storm.83
After the success of my radio appearance I decided I should make hay while the sun shines and put posters up at Stewpot’s and Safeways that I thought would bring in a bit of business but, surprise surprise, the Dundee public lacked the confidence in themselves to pick up the phone.84 After a few days of sitting looking at the phone and performing the sigh and shrug combination I thought, ‘You’re better than this, Bob,’ stuck on my jacket and went for a Cheer Up For Ch
rist’s Sake walk along the Esplanade.
I was feeling a wee bit better when some boy cycled past and asked if I was the ‘guy that wrote that book’. Straight away I felt about thirty feet tall. I said, ‘Yep, you’re spot-on there, pal,’ and he said that he’d read it and then he said something else but it was quite windy and he was getting a bit further away and I shouted, ‘What was that, mate?’ and he tried again but he was pretty far away by that point so I started jogging and then I started running but he just kept cycling and then I was running like Linford Christie but he was cycling like Chris Hoy and it’s no match when one boy’s got a bike and he disappeared off up the Monifieth Road and I had to stop before I passed out.
As I stood there hunched over, spitting on the ground and my heart feeling like a football, I thought, ‘Is this the Scottish big time? Does Billy Connolly chase boys on bikes along the road in America? Does Annie Lennox bomb it down streets in London because she thought she heard a whisper about her new LP? Does the boy from the Corries jog round the car park at Ben Nevis trying to get recognised? Because if this is the big time,’ I thought to myself down at the Esplanade, ‘you can keep it.’
(Then I just went home.)
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81 See the Winter 2007 edition of Mumblings From The Margins (‘. . . not without flaws but a charming bathroom companion.’)
82 See the bottom right hand corner of page 37 of The Dundee Courier, 10 October 2007 – ‘Broughty Man Says Book Can “Heal” City (“This recession must be terrible for the normal punters out there and I hope that I’m putting a smile back on their credit crunched faces . . . I think my book will bring the city together and remind people that dreams do come true . . . More than anything I hope I’m an inspiration and I’m fairly confident that I am.”)’.
