Glasgow (34 page)

SUNDAY BLUES, 1963–65
Kenneth White

Who can forget those Sundays of yore when dreichness entered the soul and Scotland shut down for the day? Glasgow was no different, as Kenneth White (1936–) recalls. Born in Glasgow, he gained a double first in French and German at the university. There followed many years as an ‘intellectual nomad', immersing himself in other places and cultures, eventually settling in France, where he is feted and where he held a chair at the Sorbonne. The following extract is taken from
Travels
in the Drifting Dawn
(1989) and covers the 1960s when White, along with William Burroughs (1914–97), Alexander Trocchi (1925–84) and others, participated as ‘a non-secret agent' in Glasgow in what was called Project Sigma
.

Sunday afternoon.

One of those holy, obnoxious Sundays such as there are fifty-two a year in this god-forsaken place, and to while away the weary time (big, dutiful clocks all over the cancerous landscape), I go for a walk along the docks, coming down Byres Road, then along Dumbarton Road, then, Argyle Street, taking the Kelvinhaugh way down to the river, arriving at Kelvinhaugh Ferry. I cross the river on the ferry, then re-cross, and then re-cross again (the river quiet, the sky a soft grey, the ships berthed in great tranquillity) till the ferryman says to me:

‘Are ye enjoyin' yersel?'

Crossing and re-crossing the old Clud on the ferry that grey afternoon, watching the river-flow and the gulls. After ten or so crossings and re-crossings, I move away along Queen's Dock.

There the smell is strange, and yet vaguely familiar. Whisky – thousands of barrels lined there along the quay filled with sourmash bourbon whisky from Kentucky, USA, with, further on, a load of rye from Indiana. All those barrels, and drunken gulls swooping and yelling over them.

Here and there, too, along the docks, sitting on piles of rope or timber, wee men with bunnets and coloured mufflers reading pink newspapers.

Glasgow. Glasgow.

* * *

Night at Charing Cross, standing at the foot of Hill Street there, wondering where to go and what to do. I see a plaque on a railing:

Rudolph Steiner Centre
Inquiries Welcome

So I decide to go and make inquiries. I push open the gate, enter the gas-lit close, climb to the first floor, see no Rudolph Steiner Centre, continue up to the second floor, and there I see two doors, still no Rudolph Steiner Centre, but on a wall next to one of the doors, I see written in thick pencil the word: Otto (German, like Rudolph, I'm getting hot), so I ring the bell, and then, no answer forthcoming, ring the bell again, which brings an old woman to the door:

‘Excuse me,' I say, ‘I'm looking for the Rudolph Steiner Centre.'

She looks at me as if I'd said I was looking for Rudolph the red-Nosed Reindeer. Then:

‘It's not here,' she says. ‘It's down the stair. And it's not open on a Sunday.' She says Sunday with a religious knell in her voice.

‘I'm sorry for troubling you, then,' I say.

‘Oh, it's quite all right,' she says. ‘Only it's a
Sunday
, you should have known, and it's late, it's nearly ten o'clock.'

‘As late as that,' I say, ‘I'm sorry. Good night.'

Ten o'clock. I go back down the stairs. This time I see a small brown plaque on one of the doors. I ring, just in case. No answer.

Ten o'clock. I continue up Hill Street. Quiet up there. Only an occasional television set shining coldly-blue in some of the big windows. As I walk, I look into the basement kitchens: an old man sitting at a table in semi-darkness with a cup of tea before him; in another, there's just a big bushy cat sitting on a table among the crockery, all alone in its glory.

Then, on the pavement before me, chalked in large letters, I see this rhyme:

I am a mole
and live in a hole

Along Hill Street, then down on to Woodlands Road, then finally I'm in Otago Lane North, at the edge of the River Kelvin, just under the flashing advert for Red Hackle Whisky. I stand there in the out-and-in flashing light, and watch its reflection on the dirty old Kelvin. I stand there for a long while, then I begin to do a bit of a dance, all on my oney-o, singing to myself:

* * *

I continue flinging crazily about the city.

Today, fog and drizzle. A smoky, leaden indistinguishable mass, the river a wide, misty, empty-looking expanse.

Saturday – I've been through the markets of Shipbank Lane.
The Bonanza
,
Paddy's
,
The Popular
,
The Jolly
,
The Cosy
,
The Super
. . . In the lane, on the cobbles running with dirt, a fire is burning.

I go over the bridge into South Portland Street: dark-grey tenements
lining a wide, empty roadway: thousands of uniform windows bare or with a dismal rag of curtain – pale faces behind them. Also dark faces. For many Pakistanis live here – witness the
Kashmir Butcher
, the
Pak Store
, the
Ravi Traders
, the
Wali Dairy
.

South Portland Street continues into Abbotsford Place, in the middle of which is a pub called
The Rising Sun
and at the end of which, in Turriff Street, is the
Glasgow Talmud Society
, and the
Glasgow Maccabi Association
.

Other institutions of the area:
The Medical Missionaries
,
The Muslim Mission
,
The Church of Baptised Believers
.

The Gorbals. Ancestral grounds. All the ghosts.

I find myself in Portugal Street.

There's a play park there, a monstrosity of a play park. A pond, full of bricks and old plaster. An underground cavern of brick, on the outside of which, painted with whitewash, you can read: ‘Paddy, you mancit bastard. Buddha. Itali.' There are thick poles too, with a conglomeration of dirty, frayed rope festooned around them. The ground is beaten earth, uneven, strewn with bricks and bottles. The whole surrounded by a high wire fence.

The building opposite deserted – all the windows smashed, except three, in which there is a pale light shining.

It's half past two. Time for ‘Bright Hour' at the
Medical Missionaries
.

I go into the
Oriental Cafe
, round from Kidston Street. When I was a kid, if I remember rightly, this cafe was called
Joe's
. The Gorbals have been orientalised.

I drink a coffee, eat a chocolate biscuit; and then start walking again – up the Gushetfaulds, then down into Eglinton Street . . . I'm still walking when night falls.

THE ROAD TO WEMBLEY, 1967
William McIlvanney

For football fans, the England-Scotland match at Wembley, which happened every second year, was not to be missed. Some did miss it, though, invariably because – as novelist William McIlvanney (1936–2015) intimates – of over-indulgence en route. Incidentally, in 1967 Scotland beat England, newly crowned as World Cup winners, 3–2, after which the players were dubbed the ‘Wembley Wizards'
.

The scene is the compartment of a Wembley Football Special from Glasgow. Slumped in one of the window-seats is a man in his 30s. He is ruminatively drunk. Every so often his eyes rake the other passengers. But there's no cause for alarm. He is merely flexing his malice for London.

His mate comes in and sits beside him.

‘Aye then.'

‘Aye.'

‘Whaur i' the rest o' the boays then?' the man at the window asks.

‘Faurer up the train. They've flaked oot like. The beer's a' by. It couldny last forever, eh? Only twa dizzen cans.'

‘Aye. Right enough.'

The man at the window wipes the misted pane with his hand, peers out.

‘Whaur's this we're gawn through onywey?' he asks.

‘Crossmyloof.'

‘JOHN, YOU'RE IMMORTAL', 25 MAY 1967
Hugh McIlvanney

When Celtic won the European Cup by beating the mighty Inter Milan 2–1 in the final it was the first time this had ever been achieved by a British club. It was seen as a triumph not only for manager Jock Stein and the players, but also vindication of a style of play that depended more on attack than defence, on flair rather than negativity. Remarkably, the Lisbon Lions, as the eleven heroes came to be known, were all born within a 30-mile radius of Glasgow. A few days later Rangers narrowly lost the European Cup Winners' Cup Final to Bayern Munich, further confirmation of Glasgow's pre-eminence in the beautiful game
.

Today Lisbon is almost, but not quite, back in Portuguese hands at the end of the most hysterically exuberant occupation any city has ever known. Pockets of Celtic supporters are holding out in unlikely corners, noisily defending their own carnival atmosphere against the returning tide of normality, determined to preserve the moment, to make the party go on and on.

They emerge with a sudden flood of Glasgow accents from taxis or cafes, or let their voices carry with an irresistible aggregate of decibels across hotel lounges. Always, even among the refugees who turn up at the British Embassy bereft of everything but the rumpled clothes they stand in, the talk is of that magical hour-and-a-half under the hot sun
on Thursday in the breathtaking, tree-fringed amphitheatre of the national stadium.

At the airport, the impression is of a Dunkirk with happiness. The discomforts of mass evacuation are tolerable when your team have just won the greatest victory yet achieved by a British football club, and completed a clean sweep of the trophies available to them that has never been equalled anywhere in the world.

They even cheered Helenio Herrera and his shattered Inter when the Italians left for Milan yesterday evening. ‘Inter, Inter, Inter.' The chant resounded convincingly through the departure lounge, but no one was misled. In that mood, overflowing with conquerors' magnanimity they might have given Scot Symon [the manager of Rangers] a round of applause.

Typically, within a minute the same happily dishevelled groups were singing: ‘Ee Aye Addio, Herrera's on the Buroo.' The suggestion that the most highly paid manager in Europe is likely to be queueing at the Labour Exchange is rather wild but the comment emphasised that even the least analytical fan had seen through the hectic excitement of a unique performance to the essential meaning of the event.

Mundo Desportivo
of Lisbon put it another way: ‘It was inevitable. Sooner or later the Inter of Herrera, the Inter of
catenaccio
, of negative football, of marginal victories, had to pay for their refusal to play entertaining football.' The Portuguese rejoiced over the magnificent style in which Celtic had taken retribution on behalf of the entire game.

A few of us condemned Herrera unequivocally two years ago after Inter had won the European Cup at their own San Siro Stadium by defending with neurotic caution to protect a luckily gained one-goal lead against a Benfica side with only nine fit men. But he continued to receive around £30,000 a year for stifling the flair, imagination, boldness and spontaneity that make football what it is. And he was still held in awe by people who felt that the statistics of his record justified the sterility of his methods.