Belonging to Glasgow

Jim Higgins

I must confess that I like Glasgow. I like the place despite its blackened air of unkempt squalor and despite the fact, according to my own subjective internal thermometer, that it is five degrees colder than London. In particular I like Glaswegians, almost without reservation. Over the years I have travelled there quite often; on each occasion my only precautions have been an overcoat and a return ticket.

In 1975 Glasgow celebrated the 800th anniversary of its charter, but despite its great age it is essentially a nineteenthcentury town. Readily available coal and iron, dispossessed Highlanders and Irish immigrants provided the raw material and the labour for Glasgow's heavy industrial base in that Victorian age of carboniferous capitalism. At its height the population was over one million, the factories and yards had all the labour they needed and the tenements had more than their intended quota of tenants.

The Glasgow tenements, grim, forbidding stone buildings, were for basic shelter only and clearly not designed to elevate the human spirit; for that you went to church or the public house. Today there are twice as many pubs as churches and the latter are generally empty and the former generally full. Nowadays most of the worst examples of Glasgow slumdom have been pulled down to be replaced by monstrous tower blocks, insubstantial modern equivalents or, too often, with nothing except rubble and urban detritus. If the worst has gone, a lot of what is left is not over-salubrious. The tenements that were put up all at once are falling into decay all together. Even sound buildings become uninhabitable because the sewers have cracked due to subsidence from the old mineworkings that honeycomb the Glasgow strata. With its blackened tenements, high-rise horrors and rubble-strewn demolition sites it gives the impression of a mouthful of decayed teeth only partially refurbished by an inept dentist.

It is probably not necessary to look much further than the heavy manual labour of the Glasgow trades and the cramped housing conditions to find the reason for the desperate style of Glasgow drinking. In any one of the normally grim drinking establishments the usual etiquette is to take your alcohol in a vertical posture at the bar. Vertical that is, until you have taken too much, when you may adopt a horizontal position on the floor. Your fellow topers will make every effort not to tread on you. One who revels in the abundant squalor of Glasgow pubs is Hugh McDiarmid who once wrote: 'The majority of Glasgow pubs are for connoisseurs of the morose, for those who relish the element of degradation in all boozing'. Mr McDiarmid is often morose and fond of a tipple; his small wiry frame also gives him an unfair advantage at crowded bars.

The Calvinist-inspired restrictions on drinking hours add to the sense of desperation and give rise to a number of stratagems to ensure maximum consumption in the limited time available. The 'half and a half' (large scotch with a beer chaser) certainly gets the alcohol coursing through the arteries. Another Glasgow atrocity is the mixing of whisky and lemonade. This, I am told, makes the absorption rate much faster, although it is also claimed to be a function of Glaswegians' love of sweet things, being equally reflected in record sales of cakes and other confectionery. All of which may account for the exceptionally high incidence of false teeth in Glasgow adults, but then, as one Scotsman told me, 'At least they can't bite you to death'.

The darker side of Glasgow boozing is to be found in the convictions for drinkrelated offences, three times the national average. The Glasgow Sheriff's court is the busiest in Europe. The Quarter Sessions are now held monthly to get through the lists. Scotland stands third in the murder league, behind Hungary and Bulgaria.

But for all that, and it is quite a lot, there is a deal of pleasure to be had in Glasgow. It has a very fine art gallery, an opera house

and a transport museum containing some very beautiful old trams. The population, now reduced to 800,000, is probably about the right size for the town. Public transport is good and frequent, at least to anyone driven daft by the vagaries of London Transport. Best of all, a veritable treat in itself, is the subway. Built in the 1890s, it still utilises much of the original rolling stock. As befits machinery built on the Clyde, although small, it gives the impression of great strength and stability. Which impression is only partially negated by its heavy rolling action in transit. Its period charm is much enhanced by the fact that it arrives punctually every three minutes. Unfortunately, the ageing carriages and motors are getting beyond repair and plans are well advanced to install modern trains. Costs for this project, escalating a la Concorde, may delay things for a while but eventually swish modern trains will inevitably take you to your destination. Probably no faster, almost certainly less frequently, and undoubtedly at much higher cost.

But it is the people of Glasgow who are the main attraction. Aggressively and firmly proletarian, they display a sturdy independence that is most clearly displayed on the highways. Kerb drill is unknown, jaywalking a point of honour. With complete disregard for life and limb they will stride purposefully across the road in the face of oncoming traffic. With defiant mien they will, if the opportunity is afforded, rap smartly on 'the bonnet of any car-borne plutocrat. There is a Glasgow demotic humour that is scabrous, self-depreciatory—much like Jewish humour—extremely witty and much taken with the joy of seeing the mighty laid low. Again there is a Glasgow habit of addressing all and sundry as 'Jimmy'. For one unfamiliar with the usage it can prove quite disconcerting if, like me, your name happens to be Jim.

The man who has done most to popularise Glasgow humour is Billy Connolly. He comes from that genera/ion of young Glaswegians, all of whom seem to have a facility with songs, guitar-playing and long, involved anecdotes. Connolly has raised all this to an art form. In a town much exercised by religious differences (mixed marriages are those between Catholics and Protestants), he is apparently licensed to be irreligious. He tells a story of Jesus, 'The Big Yin', entering the pub where his disciples are all having a `bevvy'.

knackered,' says the 'big yin', 'performing they miracles. Just take a look in the street at all those dead punters carrying their beds around.' Such is his popularity that he gets away with sacrilege of this sort.

Currently Glasgow is a Labour town, but it is Labour with a strong left-wing, Marxist component that dates back to the days of the Red Clyde. The fact of the Marxist up the next close frequently engenders a high level of sophistication in barroom discussion. Where else would You, find an argument on the relative merits ot

Marcuse and Althuser and eloquent denunciation of Popper and Hayek ? Official Labour, though, is currently running scared.

In Glasgow however, an SNP vote is far less likely to be the result of any great desire for Home Rule and much more the expression of protest at bad housing, unemployment and low wages. It is this gap that Mr Jim Sillars and the Scottish Labour Party hope to fill. In a couple of months' existence the SLP has recruited over 2,000 members, which is not bad at all. Mr Jim Sillars is distinctly less than charismatic. Billy Connolly, who it must be said is a keen Labour Party supporter, likens Sillars to a Boys' Brigade officer, a subtle piece of abuse, which, in Glasgow terms, suggests: short haircuts, self-importance, upward social mobility, button-down collars and a button-down mind.

Whatever the future holds for Glasgow Politics is, however, beyond the scope of this article, which is an attempt to sing the praises of Glasgow, to celebrate the Proud spirit of its inhabitants and decry the environment that gave rise to that spirit. And so I will finish on a happier note. On my last night in Glasgow I was seated, the hell with vertical drinking, in a licensed Premises near the central station. Beside me Was a smart and soberly dressed citizen; he was very drunk. We exchanged one or two Confidences about the weather and the state of the crops. At least I think that was what we confided—he was less than clear and highly vernacular. Then without warning he slowly keeled over finishing up lying across my lap. In no time at all he was being carried, all limp and unresisting, by two large potmen towards the door. Opening his eyes, his parting words to me were clear and beautifully articulated: 'Hey, Jimmy, see you in here the morn'. I treasure that man, even though I shall avoid him on any future visits. Glasgow is truly the home of the brave—they need to be to stay there.