The Border Fox Wasn't Scottish!

I can remember Booterstown and Dalkey and Dun Laoghaire, you went by them on the Dart as it went along the Liffey to Bray. The hotel there was famous locally for its Irish Coffee’s and I was later told by someone long after I’d left there that the town was ‘the incest capital of Ireland, which is fookin’ saying something’. It was, however, a pretty little seaside town with a vast prom and a big white cross on a hill as if to prove its sectarian credentials. If it was the town for incest then at least it was all among Catholics.

I claimed the dole like the good-for-very-little I was. They paid me right there in the little dole office in ready money even though they barely knew who I was and I’d only been in the country five minutes. Generous people but not all of them. On leaving the little dole hut one day one of a bunch of lads said something under their breath that was abusive about me. I squared up to him immediately and he backed down. I was getting to realise that word must have gotten around that I was a Scot here living in sin with an English lass whose Irish mother was doing something similar with a very posh English crook who was here seeking not to be extradited back to England for property crimes.

I, in thrall to love, had agreed to be trained as an insurance salesman, although I wasn’t overly serious about this endeavour. I went out with the crook a night or two on a trial-run then I was on my own.

“I’ll be back in a couple of hours” sayeth the crook and I went ahead chapping doors.

“It’s a numbers game” says the sage “If you get one in twenty for me to call on you’ll be doing well”

So here was me working and signing in Ireland and being taught to sell insurance by a crook.

“Here on behalf of Irish Life who are in this area offering the best deals in Ireland on life insurance. Our salesman will be in this district on Thursday…!”

This was a Barrett-style housing scheme on the fringes of Bray. The folk here would be joiners and builders and cab drivers living in these mock-mock-Tudor affairs with their families. Then they get this Scottish accent at the door telling them about Irish Life.

This was the time the Border Fox was on the loose having sprung himself from Long Kesh just down the road. There were police everywhere searching for this rebel freedom fighter who’d killed God knew how many in the cause.

Now, I’m not sure why anyone would thing that a cunning disguise for an escaped prisoner would be to wander around housing schemes introducing himself to people as one selling life insurance policies, but, someone phoned the Gardai on me and somehow I knew the approaching siren was for me.

Oh and I forgot to mention. I was an entirely unlicensed insurance salesman who had as much connection to Irish Life as the Border Fox did to the Grand Wizoo of the Loyal Orange Order.

There was a wood nearby and I promptly ducked down into it, scrambling my way through the dark foliage like Tarzan on the piss. Scratched and scraped I was as I emerged to safety back at the house in Bray.

My career as a life insurance salesman was over.

The Pursuit of Happiness

 “I mean, how about if you were to become addicted to happiness?”

A wave of chuckles throughout the room, A few ‘aye, rights’

“Seriously though, happiness”

They look at each other this bunch of self-confessed users of dangerous sweeties and intoxicating liquids.

“Whit dae ye mean happy?” This from a shambles of a man with nippy features. His face had the look of a whippet who’d just sooked a particularly bitter lemon. He hadn’t had one positive thing to say in the entire six-weeks of the group so far. You felt that a good word from him would require intrusive surgery of the soul.

“Happy, you know? Joyous. Fulfilled. Smiling. Happy! When was the last time you were happy, George?”

“Dinnae ken” says the little ray of light and joy as if admitting to such an emotion would be like confessing to paedophilia.

“Anyone else remember a happy time?”

“May 21^st 2016”

“Oh aye, what happened then?”

“Hibs won the Scottish Cup”

This elicits ‘yasses’ and a couple of jeers from the Jambo’s in the room.

“Happiness scares me, man” This from wee Rab the weegie, a man whose face was as cracked as a dry river bed under a roasting sun. Which were wrinkles, furrows or scars was a matter of guesswork even for Rab and his addled memory wasn’t going to help much with the answers.

“It’s like the only way to go when you’re up is down, so it’s less hassle just to stay down”

This downbeat philosophy had been learned playing the hard game named Rab’s Life, available at all good licensed premises and prisons.

“Happiness is a risk then, Rab?”

“But it’s a good risk though, eh?” interjects Alison the Pollyanna of the group. The kind of lassie that oohs and aahs at puppy-dog pictures on Facebook even when her life is a ramshackle mess of abandonments, drug fuck-ups and locked-up boyfriends who’ll only come out to hurt her some more.

I’m the ‘facilitator’ of this group: the Tools for Emotional Aid group (or TEA as we chirpily call it). We meet once a week on a Thursday morning in an old church hall in Leith. TEA provides tea and support for folk who use drugs and alcohol in a way that affects their lives adversely. As an ex-user myself, I have empathy and sympathy with the other participants. I know there are two issues here: the fact that they use the way they do and – maybe more important – the reasons why. When you use substances as a crutch, there are reasons why you feel you need that support. Our methods propose a different, healthier crutch.

“Why were we not taught about happiness in school?”

An interesting question. Scottish comprehensives in the 70s seemed to have as little to do with the commodity called happiness as the Orange Lodge had to do with pope promotion: they seemed to thrive on humiliation and a social station system so subtle yet damning that Karl Marx himself would have given up analysing it and gone for a pint instead.

Happiness was not on the curriculum. Counting down the days until you could leave certainly was!

He Was That Much Of A Hun...!

 “He wis so much ae a hun that he cried his dug ‘Ibrox’ which wis a bit uv a riddie fur um cos it niver won an’ he widnae run it at Carntyne cos ae says it wis a tim track”

Greyhounds are just dogs really only they look weird, all skinny and tall and a bit stupid looking, but they run fast, which is a good thing really in the dog world. If you look that glaikit it’s as well you can run fast. I mean, they’re that stupid that they’ll run after an electric rabbit time and time again without ever suspecting it’s a ruse (or maybe they do and just do it for the treats and the claps. Maybe, in fact, they think their owners a bit dim for getting all excited at dogs chasing a rabbit doll on a pole).

“In fact, he wis that much ae a hun that he beat his girlfriend up for praying for him in a chapel”

“A chapel?”

“Aye, a Catholic church. She goat it intae hur heid that he hid cancer and telt him he prayed for um and he belted her”

“Whit did he dae wi the duff greyhound?”

“Forced to keep it even though it couldnae run fur toffee. Changed its name tae ‘Shitey’”

Recovery

Ah don’t know why some folk are like that! I guess it’s a wee power trip for thum. Take it oot on the dolies kind of thing. It amazes me that some of thum have no’ been set upon, y’know one dark night doon an alley or suhink. Some o’ deserve it that’s for sure.

Bit thurs folk on the dole for aw sorts ae reasons: made redundant, bad injury, that sortie thing. But, they get treated just the same; as if ye smell or suhink. Like a modern-day leper. Don’t get me wrong cos maist ae thum are awright, it’s jist a few bastards, but if ye happen tae get wan o’ thaim on yer case watch out cos they’ll do ye soon as look it ye. Sanctioned fur bad spelling or a hair oot ae place. ‘You’re no’ fit fur work, look it the state o’ ye. There’s a sanction fur ye, fuck yer whale life up. Nae money, nae rent, fuck all.

Only they’ll no’ tell ye that tae yer face ‘case ye kick aff at thum. Ye’ll get a poxy wee letter a fortnight later tae tell ye the score. They’d be too cowardly some o’ thum tae tell ye tae yer face, tho’ some o’ them wid. Fuckin enjoy it anaw.

Ahm Tam McGraw. No’ the Glesga gangster gadgie, jist wee Tam McGraw fae Leith. Wis oan the removals until ah dun ma back in tryin’ tae lift a cooker oan ma ain. First rule of removals broken right their. Protect yer back at aw times in that gemme cos it is yer livelihood. Bastard social’ll no’ sign me aff as unfit for work cos its ma back an’ neabdy kin prove nuhin no’ even the doacters an’ they think ahm at it at the medical thingy so that’s why ahm hivin tae dae this joab centre rigmarole evry foartninght. Fuckin’ diary they want me to keep anaw. Like fuckin’ Samuel Pepy’s ahm takin’ in every two weeks. Whit ahv been dain tae find work. Whit fuckin work? But, they’ll no’ hiv that. Thurs work oot ther if ye want it, they say. Aye pishy work fur pishy pay an’ ah cannae dae it onywiy cos o’ this back.

Wee bit o’ the Catch-22 goin oan there. Canny dae the joabs but they’ll no’ pit ye oan the sick so ye huv tae apply fur joabs ye canny dae sortae syndrome.

Truth be telt ma back isnae ma only problem. Ahm in whit they call ‘recovery’: recovery that is fae the booze but the old bad back and piss-head routine cuts nae ice wi’ the medical folk. Ma mates tell me ye’ve goat tae act it up wi’ thum; really lay it on thick. Last time ah wis up for one o’ thae medicals it wis like a zombie film, thon Michael Jackson’s Thriller. Cunts moaning and groaning and draggin’ legs behind thum. It wis embarrassing, really, bit it’s the only way tae work it.

“Tell thum ye’re aye wakin’ up pished in puddles, an’ ye cannae get up cos ae yir back”

But that’s no’ me at aw. Dinnae really want money on false premises. Jist makes it harder for those that are genuine.

 

The wind gusts up Great Junction Street like it has behavioural problems. It blows the hats off little bairns and whips the trees along the Water of Leith. It’s early autumn but feels like March. Lothian weather is as unpredictable as an injured dog, you’re lapped in sunshine one minute the next you’re as drookit as a drowning man.

The day was grey as a jakey’s pubes and this was reflected on the faces of the citizens of Leith. The usual suspects were gathered on the benches next to Auld Vicky’s statue at the Fit o’ the Walk, handy for a gab but also for the two pharmacist shops nearby. Methadone scripts had been cashed in some time ago and the chat was as expected: who was in jail and who was just out: who had the best vallies and whose were to be avoided.

“Fuckin’ brutal thae east European wans. Sent me fuckin’ schitzy”

They could make a film about the denizens of the benches at the Kirkgate, but it would be X-Rated.

There’s an accordion player down by the North Leith parish graveyard gates playing polkas. This is not as incongruous as it sounds. There’s a plangency to this music from Budapest or Prague which fits the scene perfectly. It’s just that the dancers have disability sticks and a tendency to go crazy when they get the steps wrong or the drugs wear off.

What life had this polka player left on the banks of the Danube that a career as a busker outside a Leith graveyard was preferable? Maybe Buda or Pest was simply awash with accordion players playing polkas or maybe he was an exile from his own troubles back home. Everyone has their own story and it isn’t always pretty. Go to any SMART or AA meeting in Leith to have your eyes open to the grim side of life.

Any SMART or AA meeting in Leith

This is a smallish room which is slowly filling up with human life. There is a tea urn in a small kitchen and the makings of tea and coffee and a few digestives on the two biggish tables pushed together around which the punters were to sit. These punters had one thing in common: recovery. Booze misuse, cocaine, heroin, Valium. Maybe a mixture of many substances which help you to blot out the clouds with temporary sunshine. Mostly men but a sprinkling of women.

You’d be amazed at the factual and emotional honesty that goes on in this room. Scots are not meant to show emotion. It takes some amount of continuous self-inflicted adversity before they’ll even begin to open up and tell total strangers about the intimate tragedy of their lives. Lost love, estranged children, personal horror and the reasons why. The reasons why they do what they do to themselves. They’ve come a long way down the road just to be confronted by one word: Why?

 Actually, they’re not all Scottish by any means. There are some who have gravitated towards Scotland for reasons they barely remember. Maybe a drunken sleep took them past their stop and they just decided to stay? There’s a fella here from New York who is doing really well. He even helps facilitate the groups but if you had experienced even a tenth of his life which he describes now so vividly and without drama you would have drank too. The brutality of his existence up until a few short years ago makes Bukowski seem like Harry Potter. We are in awe of this man but he refuses to be awesome. He’s up making tea for folk and spraffing away in his Lou Reed accent. A humble human who has at last found a way of dealing with his demons and becoming the person he always was beneath the hurt and mayhem.

“Whit about ye, Tam?”

“Aye, daen away, Terry, jist daen away”

 The facilitator is hard of face but gentle of heart. She’s been working here since Moses was a baby and doesn’t take any crap.

“Right chaps and chapesses. How about a wee check-in?”

The check-in is where you take your turn to say how you’ve been doing good or bad and any issues that may be useful to discuss. “I’m doing OK” is not the sort of cursory statement that’s usually accepted, not unless you explicitly state that you’re not up for talking right now.

“I’m doing OK. Still taking my Antabuse but I’m in a wee bit of a frenzy about a meeting I’ve got coming up with my social worker about access to the bairn”

“It’s really making you anxious, Terry?”

“Aye, it’s make or break. I need to prove to them that I’m clean and sober but they keep referring back to the last time when I fucked up. ‘Scuse my French.”

And so it goes on. Folk who have spent a lifetime coping with life’s problems with drink and drugs now trying to find better, more healthy ways to do so.

Two steps forward, one step back. One step forward, two fatal steps back. Finally, they hope, one step forward and then another.

 

“Ahm Tam McGraw and I’m an alcoholic dole-scrounger wi’ a bad back fae Leith. Y’see docter I wis pished and fell in this big puddle at the Kirkgate. Cos ae ma back ah couldnae get up but, y’know whit? Ma mates goat thegither an’ lifted me right outta there. So ye kin take yer dole money an’….”

The Scheme of Things

 Kennishead Flats, Early 70’s (Barry Blue might have been at number 1)

The seabirds are not afraid of heights. They soar high among Glasgow tower blocks shitting freely on unlucky punters below. On days drab and sploshy, the grey seeps into souls. Young lads shiver but refuse the coat for fear of losing face. The wind whistles its random tune around concrete and rust and spoils games of football with its artless gusts.

“On a clear day, you can see the next block”

Bunnets fly off elderly heads and land in puddles stagnant with fag-ends and drunk men’s piss.

This is the scheme of things.

“Tam McGurk found a deid grass-snake up the fire escape”

“Must have been a suicide”

The fire escape: a pleasure-dome in the sky. Sexual initiates in clumsy congress amid the smell of stale piss and fag-smoke.

“Ma first time? I dinnae mind who he wis, but Ah remember the smell”

The ice-cream van bells chime in the distance.