Scotland - the land of mist, mountain, midges - and murder

Ah, Scotland.

The land of mist and flood, of mountains and heather, of men in skirts and the mighty midge – a small creature that, like the Glasgow hardman, packs a powerful punch.

But behind the haggis and shortbread image so beloved of biscuit tins and soup cans, there was always another Scotland – and it’s one that has leapt to the fore with all the force of William Wallace despatching an English nobleman.

Tartan Noir, they call it, and it’s not a label I particularly like but it works as a handy marketing tool. According to lore, it was first coined during a conversation between our own (or oor ain) Ian Rankin and US legend James Ellroy. I’m not sure which of them came up with it but it stuck.

You can’t toss a caber these days without hitting some best-selling author delving into the dark side of Scottish life. Some credit William McIlvanney and Laidlaw for beginning this mini-industry. Mr McIlvanney, who knew his literary lore, always denied it.

The truth is that Scotland had a tradition in crime writing going back further than that.

Settle in, folks, because we're going to cover 200 years of history here.

James Hogg was known as The Ettrick Shepherd and his 1824 novel ‘The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner’ is a precursor to serial killer novels like ‘Dexter’. Hogg’s character is a Calvinist who believes he is justified in killing those out of favour with his God.

The novel certainly influenced Robert Louis Stevenson, who was fascinated by the darker side of the psyche, most obviously in a wee book about a certain Dr Jekyll and his chum, Mr Hyde, but also in ‘The Master of Ballantrae’. The sickly boy from Edinburgh also wrote the short story ‘The Bodysnatchers’, inspired by the Burke and Hare case, and what is ‘Treasure Island’ but a story about vicious crooks?

And if you want to talk about a more obvious contribution to the crime canon, I’ve three names for you – Arthur, Conan and Doyle. Sherlock Holmes wasn’t the first fictional sleuth but he is, as sure as God made the little green things, the most famous and his deductive powers were inspired by Dr Joseph Bell, one of Doyle's professors in medical school in Edinburgh. Bell, as a pathologist, was involved in a number of celebrated real-life cases in Scotland's capital.

Which brings us to true crime and I give you William Roughead, a lawyer with a wicked sense of humour and a fine turn of phrase who detailed many famous cases from Scottish legal history. You may not know it from their lack of exposure on TV but Scotland does have a plethora of fascinating historical true crimes over and above the aforementioned Burke and Hare, a shadowy (alleged) serial killer nicknamed Bible John and Glasgow gangsters. But that’s a rant for another day.

Perhaps one of the most famous Scottish crime books is ‘No Mean City’, a blood-spattered tale first published in 1935 and still in print today. The storyline deals with the notorious razor gangs of Glasgow, who turned the dear green spot blood red in the 20s and 30s. Its author was Alexander McArthur, a baker in the Gorbals area of the city, but his rough-hewn wordsmithery had to be smoothed down by journalist H. Kingsley-Long in order to make it more reader-friendly. The City Fathers – then and now – deplored its content but there was no denying its power even though today it is quite a difficult read. It was McArthur’s only success and he died a sad death, a penniless alcoholic.

Perth-born John Buchan - the 1st Baron Tweedsmuir, don't you know - is seen as one of the fathers of the modern thrillers. Alistair MacLean took it to new heights. It could be argued that all modern thrillers writers owe a debt of gratitude to this gruff former school teacher. Yet he set only one in his native land – When Eight Bells Toll, the film version of which is a favourite on afternoon TV.

His niece Shona, under the name SG MacLean, carries on the literary tradition with many fine historical thrillers and I recommend them to you.

And we should not – must not – forget Glasgow-born Helen MacInnes, who wrote many fine thrillers, a number of them filmed. Her early works concentrated on wartime thrills but later she turned her attention to the cold war. She may well have known quite a bit about that, for her husband, classics scholar Gilbert Highet, was an agent for MI6!

Their influence can be seen in other Scottish writers like Campbell Armstrong and the Late Jack Gerson, whose thrillers richly deserve a wider audience. He cut his teeth writing for TV on series such as Z Cars and was in the forefront of creating the three-part TV thriller which was in vogue for a time before these things had to extend to six episodes or even more, which someone had to invent padding. 

Gerson produced a number of cracking novels, including a Kennedy assassination conspiracy thriller 'The Back of the Tiger' and the Ernst Lohmann thrillers set in Nazi Germany.

For TV, he created 'The Omega Factor' which is seen as many as the forerunner to 'The X Files', and his daughter Natasha, who featured in the original show, continues the tradition by penning original audibooks based on the series.

On a personal note, Jack was also very supportive of me when I worked on a local newspaper in the west end of Glasgow, where he lived. He was a funny, decent and knowledgable man.

Ayrshire-born Edward Boyd wrote predominantly for TV but also co-scripted the movie ‘Robbery’, directed by Peter Yates, which helped set the template for British crime series like ‘The Sweeney’.

But, for me, it was Boyd’s ‘The View from Daniel Pike’ that really put Scottish-set crime on the map.

It started off as a one-off drama in the BBC2 compendium series ‘Menace’ and spun off into a series.

Roddy McMillan played Daniel Pike, a down-at-heel Glasgow private eye with a no -nonsense approach to life, a fine line in snappy patter and, under a gruff exterior, a heart as wide as the Clyde. It was a hugely under-rated show but was incredibly influential on one young man living then in a new town near Glasgow.

That young man was, of course, me. Until then I would never have believed that a crime thriller could be set in my home city but Eddie Boyd and Daniel Pike opened my eyes.

Some of the scripts were later adapted by journalist and writer Bill Knox – himself no mean crime scribe with a host of ‘Thane and Moss’ cop procedurals to his name – and released as a book.

Boyd was so highly regarded that many of his scripts and plays are now part of the library at the University of Glasgow. He, like Pike, is waiting to be rediscovered and venerated.

While we're talking scriptwriting - Greenock's Alan Sharp wrote a number of notable scripts for Hollywood, including the crime thrillers 'The Last Run', which starred George C Scott, and the classic private eye movie 'Night Movies,' with Gene Hackman.

And Gordon Williams, born in Paisley, may have been of a literary bent but his potboiler 'The Siege of Trencher's Farm' was filmed as - wait for it - 'Straw Dogs' and he also created London private eye Hazell with footballer Terry Venables.

Earlier, Hugh C. Rae issued a number of crime stories from his typewriter, beginning with ‘Skinner’, loosely based on the real-life serial killer Peter Manuel. The Glasgow author later abandoned the grit of the streets to pen, under a host of historical romances under a variety of pseudonyms (notably Jessica Stirling, originally with Peggy Coghlan). When Jessica was revealed to be a Hugh, he quipped 'a tall, dark, handsome fellow, suave as a yard og shantung - and a born liar to boot.'

And then along came ‘Laidlaw’ and, hot on its trail, TVs ‘Taggart’.

Like Boyd, William McIlvanney was from Ayrshire, in his case Kilmarnock. His book generated a great deal of heat and there were always rumours it would be filmed. One report said an American company wanted to shoot it – in New York. McIlvanney refused. To date, it’s not been adapted for the screen.

But a show called ‘Taggart’ did hit the tube and anyone who’d read McIlvanney’s book spotted similar themes. However, to be fair, it is a pretty universal theme – tough, street-wise, seen-it-all cop is partnered with a bright-eyed and enthusiastic young detective to investigate murder.

However, in Glasgow at the time there were two very large motor dealers in competition. One was Laidlaw’s. The other was Taggart’s.

File it under ‘Life’s full of coincidences.’

So from there it was straight to Rankin’s Rebus, right?

Wrong.

First there was Peter Turnbull. Okay, he’s a not a Scot but we won’t hold that against him. In 1981 he produced the first in his P Division thrillers, ‘Deep and Crisp and Even’. Police procedurals, with an ensemble of characters, set in Glasgow, they followed a direct line from Ed McBain’s 87^th Precinct novels, which is fitting as Glasgow is deemed the most American of British cities – and is even known as the 51^st State. He produced 10 novels in the series, ending in 1998.

Turnbull has returned to his native Yorkshire and left P Division behind but the series is well due for rediscovery.

And then, in 1987, along came Ian Rankin and Val McDermid, both Fife born. That their fine work took Tartan Noir (there’s that label again) to new heights is a given and hot on their heels marched an army of writers who have littered the streets, alleys, fields, rivers, lochs and mountains with more bodies than any small country deserves.

Memories given a Help!ing hand.

Howdy, Type M folks, Douglas Skelton at the keyboard.

I want to talk about triggers today. Not the ones that crime writers usually talk about - you know, the ones that makes things go bang. 

Yesterday (Saturday) I was watching '8 Days a Week', Ron Howard's brilliant documentary on The Beatles, and as soon as the song 'Help!' began I was instantly transported back to when I was very young on the streets of Springburn in the north of Glasgow. There is a bond between the words melody and memory, for the former lingers on the latter for a lifetime. 

A few years ago I went back to those streets and this is what I wrote:

The man was talking to someone I couldn’t see. Or maybe he was talking to someone only he could see.
All I knew was that when I reached him, there was no one at the top of the steps.
He carried a plastic supermarket bag and he looked about my age. He was wearing a dark jacket and his shoulders were stopped but his hair was still dark and full. As I neared, he turned, nodded to me and walked away.
I wondered if he’d lived here all his life. I wondered where he’d been, where he was going.
I wondered if, at one time, I knew him.
I was back in Springburn, where I spent part of my childhood. We moved around a bit – I usually say that we moved whenever the rent was due. From Glasgow to Manchester to Ashton–Under–Lyne back to Glasgow to Cumbernauld to East Kilbride (the latter two new towns built to tackle what was called the overspill from Glasgow).
But this was where I was born, in the very street I saw the man talking to someone who might not even have been there.

Valleyfield Street. There used to be tenements on both sides but now only one. There was a little shop here then, Dale’s Dairy. I remember I used to think about a popular radio show called ‘Mrs Dale’s Diary’ whenever I saw the sign.
I’d had a lunch meeting just down the road (boy, that sounds grand) and had a few hours to kill before meeting a couple of close pals for dinner. At the lunch I’d talked about Springburn, about being born there, living there.
My memories, though, are fragmented. Snapshots, really. Shadows of time that flicker in my mind and then are gone. Some may be false. Memories can be tricky.
My grandmother – my Nana – lived in Adamswell Street, up the flight of steps from Valleyfield Street. It was a much longer street back then. Part of it has been bulldozed to make way for a wider road taking traffic to and from the M8. All the tenements have gone, although the street remains.

Snapshot
The café at the corner sells drinks for a penny. Irn Bru in little glasses, just like the cowboys used in the films. We sashay in, order a drink, slap our money down and stand at the counter like it was a bar. And, if we’re flush, there are Penny Dainties and Blackjacks and lucky bags.

I remember coalmen in leather jackets with no sleeves carting huge bags up the stairs of the tenements to the flats, big, burly men covered in coaldust, and they lifted the heavy loads with such ease I thought they must be supermen.
I remember, or think I do, men with little ladders lighting lamps but that can’t be, because we’re only talking the mid-1960s and that didn’t still happen, surely?
I remember the rag and bone man on his cart, calling out RAAAGS, RAAAGS. And his horse, which I hope was cared for properly but we didn’t think about it back then.
I remember bits and pieces, and many came back to me like flashbacks that day.

Snapshot
I’m running through a dark passageway. We call it ‘The Dunny’ and it runs from the back courts of Adamswell Street to Valleyfield Street. I’ve been dared to go through and honour dictates that I do it. It’s pitch black and seems to go on forever. There’s a smell of damp. And there’s water dripping somewhere, I’m splashing through it. But there’s something else here, I know it, something breathing in the shadows. Something watching. Something waiting for my step to falter so it can pounce. But I keep moving, faster now, feeling the fear build with my beating heart and when I finally burst back into the daylight that fear escapes in a giggle. I’ve made it. I’m safe. And my honour is intact.

I was asked during the lunch about street gangs in Springburn. I’m sure they existed but I was too young to be aware of them. Our gang was made up of the kids from Adamswell Street and there was a brief rivalry with kids from a neighbouring street.
I recall us facing them down one day. There was about six of us and maybe a dozen of them, strung out across the street. They had sticks and leather belts as weapons. We had a few cheeky comments and not much else. There was at least one coward among us that day, and he ran off and hid up a close. I couldn’t help myself. I’m no fighter. The street battle didn’t amount to much in the end. A lot of shouting. A lot of running. No one was hurt. I’m not even sure any blows were actually struck in anger. So much for my juvenile delinquency.
The other side did capture two of our guys, though, and I redeemed myself by sneaking over the old disused wash house roofs to free them. They’d been tied to an old metal washing pole and I’d watched their captors running round them and whooping like the Native Americans we’d seen on the telly. We didn’t call them Native Americans, though, for these were less than politically correct times. Being PC back then meant getting into blue serge and keeping your thermos and sandwiches in the blue police box on Adamswell Street.

Snapshot
An old car. Rusting. Abandoned. Unlocked. We can climb in and pretend we’re driving, hands running up and down the steering wheel in exaggerated fashion.

My old primary school is still there – Hyde Park. It’s now a business centre, but you can still see the two entrances, one for Girls, one for Boys. It was my first experience of school and I was there twice – before we moved to Manchester and after we came back.

Snapshot
I’m fighting with a boy outside the gates. I don’t know why. We’re rolling around the ground and landing weak punches. There’s very little pain but real tears. Especially from me because I’m losing. My honour is not so intact now.

We used to walk down the hill to Valleyfield Street and the dinner school, a collection of low pre–fab buildings (or that’s the way I remember them). We used to sing a hymn every day before food was served. All Creatures That On Earth Do Dwell. I now can’t hear that without smelling boiled cabbage.
There are houses on that bit of ground now but as I stood looking at them I remembered the dark day I ended up with a severe gash on my leg. We’d snuck into the dinner school grounds, the mean, fierce, scary old man who watched the place must’ve been away, and we were playing at the far end, up against what is now Flemington House. There was a steep concrete ramp from the grass to the fence at Adamswell Street and we used to take a runny up to try to reach the top. There were metal railings at the side of the building, big, rusting old spiked things, and somehow – I still don’t remember how, although I was probably climbing them – I managed to slide down one and gouge a large flap of flesh from my leg. There was pain and there was blood and there was crying and there was more blood, so much blood.

Snapshot
I’m being carried out of the grounds. There’s a crowd of people at the gate. My sister, Katrina, is there. An ambulanceman is there. They take off my shoe and it’s filled with blood. I remember nothing else.

I still bear the scar of that encounter.
What I don’t remember are the names of my friends and that makes me sad. I know some of them lived across from my Nana but that’s all.
So maybe that guy, the one with the companion who may not have been there at all, maybe he has lived around there all his life and maybe we once knew each other. And if that was the case, what’s he been doing all these years? What has he seen, what has he done, what’s happened to him that he talks to the air?
Did he see ghosts?

Snapshot
I’m walking back from a youth group, passing the great cavernous sheds where they used to build the locomotives. Springburn was famous all over the world for its locomotives. They’re empty now, the din of the machines and the riveters and the voices of the men who worked them has stilled. But now and again I find a way to peek into the empty sheds and faintly, behind the steady and incessant drip of the water from the holes in the roof, I fancy I still hear hammering and tapping and shunting.

The past. It’s not what it used to be. But it never dies.
They can bulldoze the buildings and they can build factories on parkland and they can turn the schools into business centres. They can flatten the old washhouses and the bin shelters we called middens. They can take away entire streets and create new ones. They can do all that but the old places – the way they were – live on as memories.
We grow out of childhood but it also never dies. It nestles within us, living, breathing, the way we were shaping what we are. Good, bad, happy, sad, loved, neglected. It’s all in there.
And that day parts of it came back to me. Snapshots, certainly, but vivid and real.  Chronologically I didn’t live in Springburn for very long but wherever I am, I will forever take a piece of it with me.