Welcome to the Heady Heights Read online

  Welcome to the Heady Heights

  David F. Ross

  For my dad

  ‘Glasgow’s a bit like Nashville; it doesn’t care much for the living, but it really looks after the dead.’

  —Billy Connolly

  Contents

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  July 1976

  One: Glasgow Belongs Tae Me…

  1: Nine months earlier…

  2: December 1975

  3: January 1976

  4: January 1976

  5: March 1976

  6: April 1976

  7: May 1976

  8: May 1976

  9: May 1976

  Two: That Was The Week That Was

  10: July 1976

  11: August 1976 – Friday

  12: August 1976 – Friday

  13: August 1976 – Saturday

  14: August 1976 – Monday

  15: August 1976 – Tuesday

  16: August 1976 – Wednesday

  17: August 1976 – Wednesday

  18: August 1976 – Wednesday

  19: August 1976 – Thursday

  20: August 1976 – Friday

  Three: Obscurity Knocks!

  21: September 1976

  22: October 1976

  23: October 1976

  24: October 1976

  25: October 1976

  26: October 1976

  27: October 1976

  28: November 1976

  29: November 1976

  30: November 1976

  Four: The Final Curtain

  31: December 1976 – Thursday

  32: December 1976 – Friday

  33: December 1976 – Friday

  34: December 1976 – Saturday

  35: December 1976 – Saturday

  36: December 1976 – Saturday

  37: December 1976 – Sunday

  38: December 1976 – Tuesday

  39: December 1976 – Christmas Eve

  40: December 1976 – Hogmanay

  41: January 1977

  42: April 1977

  July 1977

  Playlist

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  Copyright

  July 1976

  The city shimmered in a ridiculous heat. Hottest summer since records began, claimed those who knew about such things. At other times of the year, the smog from hundreds of factory chimneys would have totally obscured the urban terrain from this elevated perspective. It was the end of the Glasgow Fair fortnight; the city air’s annual break from the relentless industrial processes that employed many of its citizens.

  Archie loved the Necropolis. The Molendinar Burn running below it was where St Mungo had founded his church; the seed of Glasgow. It now represented where East End bampottery stopped and the city centre began. A ‘civilian’ had to be wary, of course. The Necropolis was understood to be where Glasgow gangsters liked to pass instructions to their enforcers. Those activities apart, it was a tiered hill of calmness and serenity. He often came up here to look down across the city of his birth, to try to understand his place in the wider scheme of Glaswegian things; and to get pissed in peace, almost always in that order. Even allowing for the liquidity of the light, a man could orientate himself from here. Archie could see the physical punctuation marks that signposted the locations of various social groupings. Away in the distance, the soaring Glasgow University spire marked where the cultured West End started; across the dirty grey Clyde to his left, the Caledonia Road Church indicated the edge of the decayed urban wastelands of the Gorbals. And finally – to his right as he slowly rotated his head – beneath the blackened soot and the smoke stains was the muscularity and crafted beauty of the cathedral’s stonework.

  As he pondered the pace with which the decade’s grains of sand were disappearing, Archie was gradually working his way towards personal objective number three. He was accompanied by his regular companions: Madeline, Lucy and Sandra, who regarded him seductively from their prized place on the side of three Tennent’s lager cans. Madeline lay to his right, crumpled and spent. He had Lucy in the palm of his left hand now.

  Archie was fifty-two years old. One of life’s natural procrastinators, he was aware that life was passing him by. It was happening slowly, and without any real abrasion, but even in his positive moments, he acknowledged that he should do something about it. There were essentially four routes for his kind: the factory shift worker, the Corporation transport worker, the gangster, or the alcoholic waster. Occasionally someone managed to break free – to move up west where the air was cleaner and the prospects more obvious. It might be through raw talent at football, honed in the back courts or on the uneven streets, or a lucky pools win. But in every case Archie was aware of, the booze or the bookies dragged them back. Escaping the fate of the East End weegie was harder than breaking out of Colditz Castle.

  All the routes open to a male carried a life expectancy that was almost Dickensian. And Archie had already passed the point where the home straight statistically began. The hereditary odds were stacked against him too, but perhaps unusually, his father’s heart had outlasted his mother’s. It was an accepted truth that the men of Glasgow’s East End passed before the women; a life of toil outside the home was perceived as harder than the daily drudgery in it. But Archie thought another life was out there, even for him. He could visualise it; it was tantalisingly close, just beyond the Trongate’s awkward, loose cobbles.

  Archie Blunt was funny, or so he thought. At least as funny as Connolly; and look at him now – mates with Parky, forgetting all about his ain folk. Archie had met him and his manager in a Duke Street pub a few years ago when the Big Yin was singing and playing his banjo. Archie bought them both a pint and opportunistically told an old joke about three men from Calton. It had made Connolly laugh, but apparently not enough to buy Archie a drink back … or to offer a credit when the Cop Yer Whack For This LP came out, with its opening song, ‘Three Men Fae Carntyne’.

  Archie Blunt had that kind of luck: constantly in the right place, but seemingly always at the wrong time. He had successful trials with Celtic as a youngster, but then Adolf intervened, and competitive football was suspended. Along with most of his young, barely literate team-mates, he signed up. By the time the war ended, and normal service was resumed, Archie was pushing twenty-three. Not old for a footballer admittedly, but a disadvantage for a skinny one who hadn’t played for five years and was trying to find a new club. So he looked for other work. But, like everyone else he knew, Archie had left St Mark’s School at fourteen, and without an education to speak of, doors remained firmly closed.

  Archie had had some happiness. He had married. But in the five years since Betty had been gone, he hadn’t been with another woman. This perplexed him. He had his own place in Tennyson Drive. He’d taken over the rent when his ma passed away and his old dad went into a sheltered housing complex. The council were planning to rename it Elizabeth Street in preparation for the Queen’s Silver Jubilee. They weren’t to know, but for Archie it was yet another ironic twist of the knife. He didn’t smile much in public now, not since losing the teeth, but then too much smiling only drew attention, suggesting a big win on the horses, or a full-house bingo windfall. Better not to have people speculating about public displays of sober happiness, just in case. Emaciated frames and bulging, yellowy eyes were the usual characteristics of East End males but Archie, while still slight, now looked like his larder was always reasonably well stocked. All in all, he thought he was some type of catch. So why was he alone? And unfulfilled. Sitting up here night after night with just the pigeons for company?

  But even in such moments of
self-doubt, Archie Blunt remained a stoical son of Glasgow; an unrequited optimist. Like the city itself, he couldn’t be kept down for long. There was always opportunity waiting around every second Glaswegian corner. Admittedly, some wee bam with a blade was often around the third, but these were decent odds for a bottle-half-full merchant. Something new and potentially exciting was always just a random pub conversation away. It was a little over a month since he had finally been dismissed from the Corporation, after nearly six months of unexpected Transport & General Workers Union blocks and threats on his behalf. Even though his pocket couldn’t really stretch to it, he’d headed over to The Marquis for a swift half. And, as Glaswegian luck would have it, Chib Charnley was there canvassing for a new driver. The fact that Chib and his fearsome boss, Wullie Dunne, were indirectly responsible for Archie losing his Corporation job mattered not a jot right now. Being a driver for a dodgy firm wasn’t the life-changing opening he craved and moving over into the precarious and nefarious world of the man known as the Wigwam was dangerous in many ways, but Archie couldn’t ignore the sound of opportunity knocking, and after a ‘purchased recommendation’, Archie was back in business.

  Now, the City of Eternal Optimists glistened and sparkled below him. He wiped his mouth on his jacket sleeve, stood up and stretched. Better head back home to sleep, he reckoned. ‘Dinnae want tae be late on the first day,’ he said aloud to the seated Charles Tennant: eighteenth-century chemist, and renowned champion of those less fortunate.

  Refreshed and renewed, Archie’s heart pulsed with pride that he was a part of this place. It was exciting, amazing, uplifting. Its succour truly was perpetual. At times like this he felt pity and not envy for the tiny few who had left it. Glasgow’s generosity, its relentless pursuit of better things, the gallusness of its people, who would give you the very shirt off their ba—

  ‘Gie’s a wee swally, eh son?’ A frail, ghostly jakey-voice wafted in from the shadows, interrupting the stream.

  ‘Nae bother,’ shouted Archie, into the descending gloom. ‘Here, have a swig ae Sandra. It’s aw nae bother at all, pal.’

  ONE

  Glasgow Belongs Tae Me…

  1

  Nine months earlier…

  He waited and waited and waited, becoming increasingly agitated. It was early morning and bitterly cold; the hurricane had now done its worst according to Michael Fish, but Glasgow didn’t seem to be listening. The storm-force winds were still battering the boarded-up shopfronts and rattling the few panes of glass left in the three tenement floors above them. And the bus was late. And so was Chib Charnley.

  He’d observed Chib hirpling along the street. The wind was behind him, but he still moved like a man of twice his age.

  ‘Where the fuck’ve you been? Jesus, Chib!’

  ‘Ah’m sorry, boss,’ said Chib. ‘It’s my hip. Man, it’s absolutely heavin’.’

  ‘Aye, well.’ Wullie Dunne sighed. ‘Get it looked at properly then.’

  Wullie found it hard to lambast Chib Charnley. He’d taken a bullet for his boss, after all, and although that had been more than a decade ago, Wullie would always look after his minder. It was the least he could do. He wasn’t going to be like other bosses, who went through hired muscle like Richard Nixon went through tape recorders.

  ‘Finally!’ sighed Wullie as the bus pulled up for them. It wasn’t a recognised stop, but the driver and conductor were both on a modest cut for making the weekly Thursday morning exception.

  Things were going through a rough cycle. Everybody was having to rein in the expenditure, which was why Wullie Dunne had been using the top deck of the number 61 bus for ‘business meetings’ every Thursday morning for almost a year. It was the route used by Tollcross residents to get home on giro day. Since he had collections to make from most of them, it seemed like common sense to combine the two – saving on the escalating cost of the petrol. The Arab oil embargo might’ve taken its time in getting here, but it was now well and truly hitting the streets and petrol stations of Shettleston.

  ‘Sorry, Mister Dunne,’ said Archie Blunt. He held out a hand to assist Wullie onto the bus’s back platform, even though Chib was the one who needed help. ‘Duke Street was blocked off. A Milanda bread van was on its side. The wind blew it over. The stuff was everywhere, like. Christ, ah’ve never seen so many seagulls! An’ they’re aw fightin’ with the dossers for the scraps. Mental, so it was! Just like that Hitchcock movie.’

  ‘Fuck sake, Ah’m frozen stiff, here! Let us on an’ gie it a rest with the film reviews, eh? Didnae expect Barry Norman tae be takin’ the fares this mornin’.’

  Amid rasping splutters and clouds of diesel fumes, the aging Corporation bus pulled way, chugging through the sideways rain like a glistening Irish tricolour. Archie held onto his pole, leaned out, peaked cap at a suitably jaunty angle, and looked ahead. A man he recognised gesticulated at him. It was Bobby Souness. Archie’s finger was poised over the bell. The bells were rarely used; most drivers preferred to control all movement by use of their mirrors. Regular crews often employed coded, choreographed clouts on the ceiling of the driver’s cab. But Archie’s new driver was still learning the ropes. Archie had the power – the final say-so on whether or not the bus should make any unscheduled halts. The bell remained silent. At that moment the bus swerved in closer to the kerb and ploughed through a large puddle. A comedy spray enveloped Bobby Souness. He hadn’t been sharp enough to jump back. The young driver hadn’t intended this outcome, he was simply pulling in to let an ambulance pass, but Archie applauded him anyway.

  ‘Ya fucken walloper, ye!’ yelled Bobby Souness, shivering. Freezing water dripped from his bearded chin, down his neck and inside his shirt. He heard the triple ring of the bell, and the bus slowed again. Archie Blunt glared out from the open rear access.

  Bobby Souness had never quite understood why Archie Blunt hated him. As he ran towards the still-moving bus, he couldn’t recall any slight, deliberate or accidental. Bobby was a Rangers supporter, admittedly, but not one of the staunch King Billy 1690 brigade. And Archie Blunt had never come across as overtly fervent in his following of the Celtic. It was a total mystery. Out of breath and still dripping wet, he leaped onto the rear platform as the number 61 slowly picked up speed.

  ‘Cunt.’ Bobby Souness wheezed at Archie. He looked around the lower deck, briefly considering whether he’d get away with nutting the bastard. Too many witnesses.

  ‘Prick,’ hissed Archie as Bobby struggled for breath in front of him.

  A grudged handful of copper was passed over, an equally grudged full adult single ripped from Archie’s heavy ticket punch machine, and Bobby Souness headed for the top deck. He sat down without looking up. He checked his remaining match. It was still viable despite the soaking. It sparked into life and was deployed into lighting a moist Embassy Regal.

  ‘They things’ll kill ye.’

  Bobby Souness looked up sharply, his heart sinking to the bottom of a bowel of digested porridge. The voice belonged to Wullie Dunne, the businessman bookie. Bobby Souness owed the man known as The Wigwam – for loans and bets. Two hundred pounds and counting. In his current predicament, it might as well have been two million. He wasn’t alone in featuring in The Wigwam’s book of debtors; virtually every East End male Bobby knew of had a similarly threatened income.

  ‘Of aw the buses, eh Bobby? Almost didnae recognise ye there, son!’ The Wigwam was at the other end of the bus, in the front seats the smaller kids normally dragged their stumbling parents to so that they could pretend they were driving.

  ‘Ah was hopin’ for a wee word in yer shell-like.’ Wullie nodded sideways in the direction of Chib Charnley, his half man, half granite rockface enforcer.

  Chib began to move towards Bobby. And with Archie inadvertently blocking the stairwell, Bobby Souness was forced to think fast. Survival instincts kicked in. His eyes darted about. A dreep out the back of a moving bus on a busy Tollcross Road had its obvious risks but he’d take them over the one
s inside. In one movement he vaulted over two slashed seats like an Olympic hurdler and hit the release lever on the rear emergency window. He landed on the road like Olga Korbut. He still had it: the instinct for self-preservation that had saved him many times as a younger man. Flat feet planted, Bobby rolled with the forward momentum through a rippling stream of shallow dirty water. His bunnet stayed on his head, the fag remained lit and smoking and, as he moved into an upright position, he ran. Sodden but still with the use of his legs.

  ‘Fuck sake,’ said Chib. ‘That was a bit ae an over-reaction, eh?’

  ‘Never mind, Chib,’ said Wullie, from the stationary bus. ‘We’ll get tae him later. Bigger fish tae fry th’day!’

  Archie’s novice driver shouted nervously for him to leave it, but Archie couldn’t hear. He gave chase. Another fucking bum diving out the alarmed back window of his bus. That made it four in a month, and Archie got a disciplinary every time it happened. Had it been anyone other than that waster Souness, he might’ve left it. Well, not this fucking time!

  2

  December 1975

  WPC Barbara Sherman looked across the office. Cigar smoke hung in the air, and whisky and Brut 55 fumes combined to make a toxic mix. In the corner, Radio 2 played Bing Crosby, eternally dreaming of a Christmas very unlike the dreary, wet, grey one that the officers of Beat 22 were experiencing. Some of the men had brought turkey legs and round bread rolls back from the canteen. They fooled around with them, pretending to be Chaplin. There was a slackened ambience, as if the shift was celebrating a major operational breakthrough. It wasn’t; the inspector had simply relaxed the rules on drinking near the muster room.

  Barbara’s desk was jammed into a corner, facing away from her colleagues – as if she were a disobedient schoolgirl being publicly punished. Posters of bare-breasted women with false smiles jostled for space with more official papers on the walls in front of her. This was the only seat available to her when she joined the division straight from passing out of basic training at Tulliallan. Her initiation day at Tobago Street three months ago was shared with five others; all male. None of them wanted that desk. And she wasn’t given the choice. It was adjacent to the door that led to the toilets. The door didn’t close properly. The hinge had been broken during a fight between two young police officers. The smells that emanated from those toilets were truly horrendous – hell came to mind, after the devil had had a heavy night on the sulphur, celebrating a genocide somewhere.