MEMOIRS OF A TYPICAL C-STREAM PUPIL

Bloody odd if you think about it really.

There was I, nine years old, plugged smack into the Glasgow grammar school
system.

Nine till eighteen I was there, no time off for bad behaviour.

And what was the best I got?  My mummy got told, "Your son is a typical
C-stream pupil."

Wow.

Well, things could be worse.  At least I knew where I was. Meant I could
handle the bullying, racism (sub-variety anti-semitism) general gung-ho jock
ethos -- all the usual crap that comes with the territory if you do Glasgow
Grammar stream.  Not that easy if you live in Dennistoun. Even ifn your
daddy is a minister.

Boys oh boys, whole bundle of laughs, but.

But at least I had a Sense of Identity.  Knew where I was, third rate and if
I was slightly lucky second rate and really, it would be better had I been
drowned at birth.

Well, no, come on, wasn't that bad.  Been that bad, I'd simply have topped
myself.  Seven to fourteen I was living in Denniston, after school hours I
was free. What was Dennistoun?  Gorbals without the gang structure, the high
point of a Saturday night was gazing with admiration as the mental boys
faced up outside the Denny Palais with belts ...

Things you (pretend you) forget -- everyone wore belts.  Studded belts.
Studs on the inside.  Sharpened.  Two things you could do with a belt --
wrap it round your fist or use it as a whip.  Either way, you could open up
someone's face no problem.  Single edged razor blades tucked into the tuck
of your tie.  Want to know what the Dennistoun knuckleduster was?  Clutch a
pencil in your sweaty palm, pack it with three sharpened penny pieces.
Cheap, and you could hide it quick.  Who me, mam?

K, I romantise.  The one souvenier I have from The Dennistoun years is a
neat triangular scar on my left kneekap, and that has fuck all to do with
being gang-handed or weaponed up.  Simply, age ten, I kited down the hill
behind the Denny Palais on a copy of the Beano Annual perched on a single
roller-skate.

I was doing mibee forty miles an hour when I hit the wall and turned my left
kneecap into raspberry soup.

    He went intae a pub, cam oot paralytic
    Oh oh, Lanliq and cider
    Ah haw, what a helluva mixture

    In the dancin' he met Hairy Mary
    Oh oh, the floo'er o' the Gorbals
    Ah haw, glory hallelujah

Way I heard it, where the Brigton hardman met Hairy Mary wiz ootside the
Denny Palais, and he was drinking VP and the cider.

Big difference.

Anyway, there I was, left kneecap turned into a soup of blood and bone.