Working Class Boy (4 page)

The whole world seemed to have a drinking problem. How come the children didn't eat well or have nice clothes or nice places to live but there was always money to buy drinks? That question always baffled me as a kid. Kids would be cold and hungry but somehow all the adults were drunk and fighting. Maybe that's how they kept warm.

D
on't get me wrong, not all my memories of Scotland are bad. Some are funny. For a start, I think it's very funny that Scots like to sing. They sing anywhere, any time and as loud as they can. We don't care who's listening. Fuck 'em, we want to sing.

I have vivid memories of people standing around drunk, singing about how much they missed Scotland. The best bit was that they hadn't gone anywhere. They were still in Glasgow. Many a night I fell asleep to the sound of someone forgetting the words to ‘I Belong to Glasgow' or ‘Bonnie Scotland'. Surely that must have been a sign that if they actually left, they were going to miss the place. But they left in droves and got drunk in new countries and forgot even more of the words and never once sang about wherever they were now. My folks never sang songs about Australia; they didn't know any and didn't want to know any.

One song I remember, which everybody sang at the top of their voices, was a song called, ‘For We're No Awa' Tae Bide Awa'. It was sung every night in pubs and at people's homes, normally towards the end of a party. The song seemed to be
about not going away from Scotland, and when you didn't go away you should celebrate the fact that you're staying by drinking as much as you could. This could only make sense in Scotland.

For we're no' awa' tae bide awa'

For we're no' awa' tae le'e ye

For we're no' awa' tae' bide awa'

Well aye come back an' se ye
.

As I was walking doon the street one day

I met wee Johnny Stobie

Said he to me will ye take a dram

Said I, ‘Man, that's ma hobby!'

Even as children we sang this song as loud as we could. It seemed all the songs had melodies that were written to tear at the heartstrings of a drunken Scotsman and break even the toughest man down to a crying, sobbing wreck. Or get him ready for battle. Whoever wrote them knew what happened to a man when he got drunk in Scotland and they exploited it as much as they could. As a songwriter I tip my hat to them; they nailed it.

There were other songs too. Every night at the pub or at home when they got loosened up, they would all sing. Loosened up is Scottish for shitfaced, by the way.

There weren't many radios or record players at this time and no one pushed anybody into singing. It was as if they all knew when it was time. A strange silence would come over the room and people would stop what they were doing – drinking, punching someone, chatting up somebody else's wife – and wait for the singer to start.

Someone would look up from their drink and start singing a song like ‘Your Cheatin' Heart'. It would be a beautiful moment, like a lone bagpiper standing on top of a castle wall. Only this
would be a bloke with drink spilled down the front of his shirt, standing alone because no one wanted to be too close to him. He would raise his voice to the heavens, baring his broken heart and slightly battered liver to the world. But after one line everyone would join in and sing with him and fuck it all up. Then someone would yell out, ‘Hey, one singer, one song,' and they would all be quiet again.

This happened song after song. Everyone took a turn singing their own song. Sometimes they didn't know the words and they just made sounds like the words. There would be a lot of mumbling and groaning as the singer, with tears in his eyes, desperately tried to remember the words to this song that meant so much to him.

Then someone would yell out, ‘Aye, son. Tell us all what ye mean.'

And the room would break out in laughter as the tension was released. ‘Aye, that song makes me cry too.'

Everyone would clap. It might not have been perfect but it was good enough to win over the crowd. No one wanted to see a grown man crying.

If you picked the right song to sing you could have them all crying in their drinks and hugging each other. But if you picked the wrong song, like a song that was someone else's specialty for instance, then you could end up in big trouble or even hospital. ‘Your Cheatin' Heart' was my granny's song, ‘Heartaches by the Number' was my mum's and my dad would sing ‘Mona Lisa'.

Mum had a great voice and liked to sing Ray Charles songs, maybe because they were all about leaving someone or throwing someone out. That sort of thing appealed to her for some reason. My dad had a soft sweet voice and could sing like Nat King Cole. He sang ‘Around the World' and ‘Walk Away'. Songs that spoke about not staying anywhere and being ready to drift away at any moment, looking for love. I think these sweet and gentle songs
showed what he was really like. He didn't want to be the tough guy life had made him.

Another great time for my folks and all their friends was July the twelfth, the day of the Orange Walk. Mum and Dad and all their friends were Protestants. I know this because for many years Catholics were not allowed into our house. I know the Walk was also supposed to be about celebrating the Battle of the Boyne or something, but for Christ's sake, that was back in 1690. Let it go. But they didn't let it go. Scots can hang on to things for a long time – grudges, throats, you name it.

In those days the Orange Walk was a day when the local Protestants could walk through the streets, carrying banners and flags and wearing orange sashes with bowler hats – and get to fight the Catholics. It looked like a sport of some kind, only much more vicious. Like a sport where you were allowed to carry open razors, which seemed to be the weapon of choice in Glasgow. These players liked to leave a mark on their victims, especially on their faces, so people could always tell that someone had got to them – they couldn't hide it. You see big scars on the faces of a lot of people from Glasgow.

We had to stay indoors while the Walk was on. We would hang out the windows and watch as strangely dressed men walked down the road, acting like they were some sort of royalty. Their banners and sashes had slogans from a time when it might have mattered what religion you were or what you had to shout to the world. But these days, it just didn't matter anymore. Everyone was downtrodden by someone else and the truth was, God had failed us all. Maybe we should have been fighting the church and not each other. But that would have been no fun. Churches don't scream and bleed. As it was, men could get drunk and act like animals and next day get up and go to work as if nothing
had happened, happy knowing they had fought for what they believed in, but not able to remember what that was.

They worked right next to each other too, Catholics and Protestants – working as one. You couldn't tell the difference by looking at them. They all had the same colour hair and the same skin and they all had kids to feed. They all loved Scotland and Glasgow, but when a drink was had, suddenly it was as if the same guy you worked with had murdered your family. The conversation would turn to religion or football or both and a riot would break out. The hatred was overwhelming; that same hatred that had been passed down to them from their fathers was passed down to their own kids.

I liked the music side of the whole parade. Pipe bands would march down the street and the marchers would cheer and sing along with them. The Scots always like music, any time – at parties, weddings and funerals. When we went into battle, the pipes were in the front of all the troops. The sound of bagpipes makes my heartbeat quicken and the blood surge through my veins. Even as a child I felt like this. All the people we knew would lash out and fight, party or sing when the bagpipes were played. The bagpipes made us believe we could get through anything. We could take on the world if we had to and quite often did. We didn't know when to give up. That's something that runs in our blood. It comes from years of fighting to retain your sense of self when all the while you are being stood on and pushed into the gutter.

So let's talk about football for a minute. Football was something else in Scotland. Growing up I thought there were only two football clubs in the whole world – Rangers and Celtic. To say the names alone at the wrong time has been the cause of many a violent incident. I have never seen anything like the Scottish
football fans anywhere else in the world. In Scotland, football is really much more than just a sport: it is about religion, it is about repression. Football teams are all most people have to look up to. They are gods; the only light in a very dark existence.

Rangers are basically a Protestant team with the same colours as the Union Jack, whose devotees sing songs about loyalty to the crown. The chants they scream out at football matches cry out for the blood of their one true rival, Celtic.

Celtic fans fly the Irish flag, and are of course Catholic and hate anything to do with the monarchy. They too have songs and chants about standing knee deep in the blood of their sworn enemy, Rangers.

Now, I know what you're thinking here. There's nothing wrong with a bit of a laugh and taunting the other team. This sort of stuff happens all over the world. Good healthy rivalry, right? Wrong. This is way beyond healthy. This is deep-seated hatred. If you shout out a team slogan or wave the wrong flag in the wrong place, you can end up battered and bleeding. If you wear the wrong colour shirt in the wrong place, you can end up dead.

I made the mistake of going to an Old Firm game when I was much older, when I first went back to Scotland in 1980. The Old Firm game is what they call it when these two teams clash.

My cousin Joanne was dating a guy called Jim Duffy, who she has since married. Anyway, Jim was a great footballer and a great bloke. He later became one of the best footballers in Scotland. As it happened, at the time he played for Celtic, although on this day he wasn't playing. He knew I was from Australia and wasn't caught up in the brutality of the rivalry and he didn't think twice about getting me some tickets for the game when I asked him, but he gave me a little advice. He said, ‘Don't wear the colours of either team, keep your head down and don't yell out too much.' But I was travelling with a good friend of mine, a girl called Jan who I was seeing at the time, and when we arrived at the game,
she was wearing red boots, blue jeans and a white top – Rangers colours. And it was too late to change. Jim walked us to the game and left us outside the stadium. His last words to us were, ‘Meet you here after the game. I'm not sure where your tickets have you seated, so be careful.'

I took our tickets and went to our seats, not expecting anything other than a great game of football. I was in for a shock.

As fate would have it, with me being brought up a Rangers supporter, and the colours the young lassie was wearing, guess where we were sitting. Right in the middle of the Celtic stand. I was in neutral colours as instructed but I looked at my date and I thought that I might be in trouble. I've been told that Celtic supporters can smell blue blood a mile away. Luckily for me, the stand we were in seemed to be mostly filled with older Celtic supporters – the ones who had long ago given up killing people for fun. Not only that, they immediately knew by our accents that we weren't from around there. I did bung on a bit of an Australian accent out of fear and self-preservation.

‘G'day you blokes, where do you get a beer around here?' I asked loud enough to be heard all around the stand. Luckily Jan was a pretty girl and I'm sure that helped. The Scots get all charming when there's a good-looking girl around. They didn't kill us and much to my surprise we survived the game relatively unscathed. I was the target of a few jokes but all in good fun and I could take that. I was a little wounded, as Rangers lost one–nil in extra time, but I would live.

Anyway, what followed was the most frightening display of soccer hooliganism I have ever seen. Both teams' supporters took turns charging onto the field. It was like trench warfare, charging from the safety of their own end, onto the pitch and into noman's-land. More people joined in every time.

What went on in the name of football on that field scarred me for life. People were being beaten to the ground then picked
up and clubbed with lumps of wood. The police were taken by surprise by the scale of the riot and tried everything to stop the violence but they couldn't; it was out of control. In the end they had to ride through the screaming crowd on horseback, swinging big sticks, knocking people to the ground, in an attempt to break them up.

In shock, we went to meet Jim. We found him on the street outside the game, surrounded by Rangers supporters. Jim had picked this place thinking it would be safer for us than being left standing among the Celtic fans. But here he was, in the worst place he could possibly be, surrounded by thousands of rampaging lunatics, burning green shops and overturning green cars. We walked in silence back to Jim's car, heads down, none of us daring to look at anything or anyone. It was a long, long walk. As a Celtic player, Jim would have been a prize trophy for one of the marauding Rangers supporters. If they had recognised him they would have put his head on a stick and marched up and down the street. I read that this was the most violent day in Scottish sport since 1926. It certainly felt like it. This was not sport, it was war. I lost my taste for football that day, at least until I was back in Australia where being brought up on sport included being good sports.

But believe it or not there were times when Scotland would unite, when the Celtic and Rangers fans joined forces and became brothers, bloody brothers; but only when Scotland played. I often wondered how they could have hated each other so much and then become partners in crime so easily. There was only one thing that made it make sense, ever – England. We all hated the English. The Scots could put away their petty arguing and fighting to go and start petty fights with the real enemy – the English. Now I see how it all works; all that fighting with each other was just training for the real battle against England. After all, we are all brothers, we are cut from the same bloody cloth.
And of course there was a host of songs to be sung about ripping our old enemy apart and tearing out their black hearts – if they had hearts – not to mention lots and lots of songs about being away from Bonnie Scotland that always seemed to sound better when being sung on Scottish soil. Funny that.