Glasgow

by Alan Taylor

  Tam looked at the breakfast menu. He never had breakfast at all at home. And he had never seen such things for breakfast before. He had read P.G. Wodehouse though and he knew all about country house breakfasts – fried kidneys and bacon and kedgeree and all that. So Tam looked at the breakfast menu and ordered breakfast. He ordered fruit juice and porridge with cream. There was a line under that and Tam went on to the next section, demanding kippers. He ordered bacon and eggs from the section below, and added scrambled eggs. He took toast and marmalade and a pot of tea, and finally asked for toasted bannocks. The two men looked at him strangely as they ordered their fruit juice and cornflakes.

  The waitress brought the porridge and the ordeal began. Tam managed to stagger down the lumpy gruel, and started on the kippers. Bone after bone came in every mouthful. It was like eating a box of dressing pins. Eventually he finished and within seconds two thin rashers of pink bacon appeared on a plate, the grey fat quivering as he touched it with his fork. Two yellow yolks winked obscenely up at him. By now his colleagues were beginning to drum their fingers on the table. By now, too, the other customers were looking over at this amazing boy.

  The scrambled eggs came next, a pale yellow mound set in a little puddle of water, like urine round a street lamp. Tam’s arm ached with lifting the fork to his mouth. The breakfast room was totally silent, every eye in the place fixed on Tam. The toast and the marmalade was like a torture designed by Edgar Allan Poe. At each mouthful the pendulum swung closer till Tam could feel his flesh creep. Another mouthful. Tam couldn’t tell if he’d swallowed it or not. He could imagine his entire intestinal tract, his throat, his gullet, his tonsils, packed with food. He began to envisage himself as an oddly shaped Michelin man crammed with cream buns and kippers and pale eggs. A plate of bannocks, glistening with butter, floated on to the table-mat in front of him. Tam poured out another cup of tea. Just as he raised the tea-cup to his lips, out of the corner of his eye, Tam could see the little windows of the swing doors through which the waitresses came with the food. Both windows were filled with the amazed faces of the kitchen staff. Suddenly their expressions changed and their faces became suffused with laughter. Tam couldn’t hear their mirth through the glass. But he could see in the centre of one of the windows, a finger pointing at him, a finger belonging to the figure obviously saying something to the other chefs and waitresses. With a chill going down his spine, Tam recognised the figure as the chambermaid of the naked encounter.

  The next thing he remembers is that there was a sudden explosion as his superiors backed instantly out of their chairs. He remembers that he was standing up himself. A great jet of half-digested breakfast was thundering across the table. Tam was sick over the table, himself and over the Area Manager. It was some years later that Tam ventured into hotels again.

  WHEN THE CLYDE SWAM WITH SERPENTS, 1967

  Alan Sharp

  Ostensibly a review of C.A. Oakley’s The Second City, novelist and screenwriter Alan Sharp (1934–2013) here takes the opportunity to memorialise the Glasgow he remembered from the perspective of a native of Greenock. The author of two highly praised novels – A Green Tree in Gedde (1964) and The Wind Shifts (1967) – he went on to write the screenplays of several films, including Ulzana’s Raid (1972) and Night Moves (1975). Serial killer Peter Manuel (1931–58) is believed to have been responsible for at least eight murders, seven of which he was found guilty of and hanged.

  There are different ways of writing about places. Mr Oakley in his book about Glasgow has chosen to inform and illustrate; and leave evocations to the memories of his readers . . . For me Glasgow is still the Metropolis, the place one went to escape the provinces. It’s where first things happened. First heavy date, first foreign films, first contact with those denizens of the moral underworld, homosexuals and prostitutes. As the 7.10 rolled over the bridge into the Central and the Clyde swam with serpents of oily neon it was a world of Kafka and Raymond Chandler and Holden Caulfield that we entered, one in which it all might suddenly happen. That it rarely did is why you find a great many people from the outlying towns who decry Glasgow a ‘dump’ or a ‘hole’. There was always a time when they ventured there and returned empty-handed.

  The essence of Glasgow has always lain for me in its humour and its devotion to the national sport . . . There is in Glaswegian wit a black, sour quality, of whose genuine mordancy ‘sick’ jokes are but an effete reflection. There is, for instance, a real texture about the quip that Peter Manuel could have pleaded insanity because ‘when they picked him up he had a Third Lanark season ticket in his pocket’. Or the woman, children around her coat-tails, following her staggering raucous husband home from the pub and as she passed the Citizen’s Theatre and its emerging patrons cocked a head towards her spouse and said: ‘Drama.’

  With football it’s the same . . . It is on the barren slopes of Hampden that much of Glasgow manhood has had its character formed, moulding that lyrical pessimism which is the hallmark of the West Coast Scottish imagination . . . In Glasgow, as in all industrial societies, there is the week and there is the weekend. Life accumulates a tension, a log-jam of energy from Monday to Friday and erupts on Saturday. Sunday is shot through with a remorse and melancholy that finds external image in the flavour of the Sabbath; the quiet streets, the slant of empty sunlight and the slow drift of hymn-praise from the congregations battened down in the hold of God.

  A SUPER YO-YO, 1968

  Pearl Jephcott

  Built in the north-east of the city, the eight Red Road tower blocks were intended to address a housing crisis, and to a certain extent they did. But as Pearl Jephcott (1900–80), a pioneer of social research at Glasgow University in the 1960s, makes clear, their height introduced problems planners had not foreseen. There were some compensations. On the upper floors you could see the Campsie Fells to Ben Lomond and the Arrochar Alps, then west past the Erskine Bridge and out to Goat Fell on the Isle of Arran, continuing south over Glasgow and east towards Edinburgh. The highest floors of the blocks were reserved for communal drying, which was grand if the lifts were working. The last of the flats were demolished in 2015.

  Complete breakdown due to an external cause such as an electricity failure or a strike is one of the hazards that faces the lift user. Glasgow’s 1968 hurricane cut off the electricity in certain blocks. At Red Road some families had the alarming experience of walking down to the ground floor, the children terrified because unfamiliar shadows were cast by a candle. A few months later a strike of maintenance men meant that, in a number of cases, one of the block’s two lifts was out of action for up to three weeks. One mother told how she had to lug a pram and toddler up 18 flights; on another estate a man walked up and down to a 17th floor four times in one day; in another case an invalid had stumbled down 9 flights, unaided but for her two sticks. The lifts also vary in their basic reliability, in the efficiency of the firm’s servicing, and in the caretaker’s ability to deal with the minor troubles he is authorised to handle.

  Any block with a high proportion of children is especially vulnerable. There is always a critical stage, the early days of the block’s occupation, when both the children of the block and those of the vicinity ‘play the lift’, using it like a super yo-yo. Trouble also tends to occur when the load is heavy, i.e. when school comes, and during holidays. Another strain is caused by the small child who can only reach the button by jumping, using a stick, etc. One real sinner, in that he holds up the lift, is the milk boy who props its door open with his crate while he collects from perhaps 16 flats. Or on a quiet floor footballers have been known to use the lift cage for a goal!

  The necessity to use a lift can have odd repercussions on the tenant’s daily life. Somehow one needs to be tidy if going in the lift. Thus it deters people from popping out in their slippers for the odd bit of shopping, or seeing what the kids are up to. Or again, there is the pensioner who, if he has to use the lift, won’t bother to take a turn round the estate before the evening sets in. The occasion
al whiff of fresh air, and the occasional brief spell away from the rest of the household, are useful in terms of health and temper: but they have gone as far as the ‘typical’ flat-dweller is concerned. That the lift may even dictate the pattern of the tenant’s day was shown in the case of the mother who never went out in the afternoon because of the risks of the early evening queues which meant she could not be sure of getting back in time. She was also liable to incur black looks if her pram stopped others from squeezing on to the lift, a matter that did not make for good relationships within the block. The lift’s uncertainties had other repercussions. People spoke of the difficulties doctors had in getting to their patients because of lifts not coming, or out of order, and of workmen who went away disgusted with the jobs not done.

  ‘CITY OF RAZORS’, 1969

  Eddie Linden

  Who Is Eddie Linden? was the title of a book by Sebastian Barker, which was subsequently adapted for the stage. It was a question that had long perplexed many writers, many of whom had been published in Linden’s legendary magazine, Aquarius. By any standard, his life was remarkable for the Dickensian cruelty that was visited upon him. Of Irish-Scots extraction, he was born in 1935, ‘illegitimate’, adopted and rejected. He left school at fourteen and abandoned Glasgow to take up a number of menial, low-paying jobs in London. Homosexual, he has had a love–hate relationship with Catholicism. By the time of his eightieth birthday, in 2015, he was one of the few, true surviving bohemians. His poem ‘City of Razors’ is his less than fulsome salute to the place that made him and very nearly broke him.

  Cobble streets, littered with broken milk bottles,

  reeking chimneys and dirty tenement buildings,

  walls scrawled with FUCK THE POPE and blue-lettered

  words GOD BLESS THE RANGERS.

  Old woman at the corner, arms folded, babe in pram,

  a drunk man’s voice from the other pavement,

  And out come the Catholics from evening confessional;

  A woman roars from an upper window

  ‘They’re at it again, Maggie!

  Five stitches in our Tommie’s face, Lizzie!

  Eddie’s in the Royal wi’ a sword in his stomach

  and the razor’s floating in the River Clyde.’

  There is roaring in Hope Street,

  They’re killing in the Calton,

  There’s an ambulance in Bridgeton,

  And there’s a laddie in the Royal.

  ‘CHOLESTEROL’, c. 1970

  Adam McNaughtan

  Is there a ‘Taste of Scotland’? Or, for that matter, Glasgow? Undoubtedly. We are talking here about saturated fats and a surfeit of sugar. Fruits and vegetables are for sissies. What we like are puddings and pies, with a side salad of chips. Those who know about such things say with authority that the shrivelled size of Glaswegians came from their dismal diet, which led to disease and early death. As the historian Tom Devine has opined: ‘It was clearly safer to endure the privations of life in the Western Highlands than a hazardous existence in the perilous conditions of the wynds and alleyways of Glasgow and Dundee.’ Be all of that as it may, there are still countless Glaswegians who, like the folksinger Adam McNaughtan, are still to be convinced by the advocates of healthy heating.

  Ah’ve been taking advice on the right things to eat

  Since shortly before Ah was born,

  From the National dried milk and the cod liver oil

  To powdered rhinoceros horn.

  In thae days they tellt us to lay aff the starches

  The sugar, potatoes an’ breid;

  Noo they’ve done a U-turn, tell us breid and potatoes

  Will gi’e us the fibre we need

  So Ah’ve made up my mind that the menus designed

  By the experts just urnae for me.

  Nae trained dietitian nor general practitioner

  Dictates what Ah huv for my tea.

  Brown bread with a low-fat paste thinly spread on

  May be healthier than a meat pie

  But who wants to grow old eating St Ivel Gold?

  I would rather taste butter and die.

  Cholesterol, Cholesterol,

  My chance of surviving is small

  But Ah’ll no get a dose o’ Anorexia Nervosa

  Cause Ah love my cholesterol.

  Now the thing that has brought this affair to a head

  Is the ‘Good Hearted Glasgow’ campaign.

  Ah just said ‘What’s that?’ an’ the doc had his needle

  Sucking blood oot my handiest vein.

  Two weeks later they measured my height an’ my weight

  An’ took my blood pressure and all.

  The computer said, ‘Mate, to survive at your weight

  You would need to be seven feet tall.’

  But Ah’m no going to take the suggestions they make

  About changing the wey that Ah eat:

  Cutting out cheese and nae chips if you please,

  Nae chocolate, nae ice cream, nae meat.

  Oh they tell you to gi’e up these goodies below

  And they promise you pie in the sky.

  Well, semi-skimmed milk might diminish my bulk

  But Ah’ll take double cream till I die

  Cholesterol, Cholesterol,

  My chance of surviving is small

  The cream I consume it could lead to my doom

  But Ah love my cholesterol.

  Now it’s a’ right for you that smoke 40 a day

  Or spend every night in the bar

  You can tell the health visitor you’ll cut it down

  She’ll say, ‘What a fine fellow you are!’

  But when Ah tellt her Ah’d never smoked in my life

  And Ah was teetotal to boot

  She said, ‘Go away! There is nothing to dae.

  You’ve nae vices that you can cut oot.’

  Now Ah don’t mind them probin’ in my haemoglobin

  If it’s just for a case history

  But it puts the health visitor into a tiz

  At her duty: to try and save me.

  She says ‘Fresh fruit and yoghourt’s a lovely dessert.

  Why don’t you give it a try?’

  But Ah don’t gi’e a hoot for her yoghourt and fruit.

  Ah’ll have Black Forest gateau and die!

  Cholesterol, Cholesterol

  My chance of surviving is small

  The wey that Ah dine, Ah’m on course for angina

  But Ah love my cholesterol!

  STAIRWAY 13, 2 JANUARY, 1971

  Andy Ewan

  The Old Firm derby between Rangers and Celtic was always an occasion of heightened emotion and unbridled passion. In 1971, in front of a crowd of 80,000 at Ibrox, Rangers’ ground, the game was goalless as it entered its final phase. In the 89th minute, however, Jimmy Johnstone scored for Celtic. Believing their team was destined to lose, Rangers’ fans began to leave. But seconds later Colin Stein equalised for Rangers and their jubilant fans attempted to return to the ground. Andy Ewan was one of many supporters who found himself caught up in what was the worst Scottish sporting tragedy in the twentieth century. In total, sixty-six people died as a result of crushing and asphyxiation.

  I was lying face down about four feet from the cold concrete steps, trapped from waist to toe in the massive crush of bodies. It was halfway down Stairway 13 at Ibrox Stadium on 2 January 1971, just before 5 p.m. Immediately around and above me it was strangely silent, with only muffled cries and sobs but higher up, at the top of the Stairway and beyond, I could hear the singing and chanting of happy football supporters. Amazingly, a matter of yards in front of and below my straining body, hundreds of fans were reaching the bottom of the steps and walking casually towards the exit gates, completely unaware of the disaster they had escaped by seconds.

  A policeman, shocked and staring, came up the stairs and began to help those of us at the front of the huge pile of bodies. He was able to pull some people out but I was so tightly j
ammed that he found it impossible to release me so he moved on. All the time I could feel the tremendous weight on my legs increasing as supporters approaching the Stairway from the passages at the top of the terracing continued to press forward, unaware of what was happening below. There was a sudden movement in the bodies above me, I felt my legs being twisted round and was now lying almost face up with my back to the ground. Up until then I had felt a sense of shock and unreality rather than fear but now a stab of panic went through me. I could feel the strain on my back increasing and was seriously concerned about what further movement above me might bring. I was lucky – after a few minutes, the crushing weight on my legs seemed to ease slightly and I called to the policeman again for help. This time he gripped me firmly under the armpits and, with a powerful heave, pulled me clear. He half-walked, half-carried me to the bottom of the Stairway and I collapsed heavily on the lower steps, still unable to grasp fully what had happened. I had only been trapped for about ten minutes or so but it seemed a lifetime since the referee had blown his whistle for final time on that fateful afternoon.

  Unless you have experienced it, it is difficult to explain just how helpless and vulnerable you feel when trapped in the middle of a large crowd of people, especially on steep or uneven ground. You are completely at the mercy of hundreds of others, many of whom you cannot even see. You are swept along, unable to influence what is happening and can only concentrate on keeping your arms high, out of the crush and staying on your feet. By the time I reached the top of Stairway 13 I was scared. I had been caught up in big match crowds before but never had I experienced the level of pressure that was now being exerted on everyone around me. All of us were suddenly aware that this time it was worse than usual, that danger genuinely threatened. People were shouting, trying to get others to stop pushing forwards from the back and sides but it was hopeless. As we began to descend the stairs I felt a slight tug on the bottom of my jeans and was horrified to just make out the hand of someone on the ground. He was trying desperately but hopelessly to rise against the mass of people so tightly jammed together it was almost unbelievable that he had been able to fall. Someone else trod on my heel and I immediately pulled my foot out of the shoe, thankful that I was wearing slip-ons instead of my usual lace-ups. My other shoe soon followed as the pressure intensified. People were now really suffering; there were cries for help, agonised gasps for breath and faces with veins and eyes bulging. By this time I was about half of the way down the stairs and intent only on keeping upright and staying alive.