Bob Servant

by Bob Servant

  It opened my eyes to violence and taught me that it could be an important weapon as long as you used it on someone that wasn’t as good at it as you were. I was also scared, just a little bit, but scared enough. Even with the shift changes, you never knew when you’d bump into someone from the mousetrap factory in the streets around the school. I was lucky enough to avoid some of the hidings that others got but I picked up the odd slap and got chased home once by a woman that had just come off the nightshift.

  It wasn’t really something that I could bring up at home. Conversation was always encouraged at our house but not if I was involved. That was a pretty rigid rule which made it very hard for me to introduce topics. Every night Mum and Dad gave me a bag of chips and a glass of Barr’s Limeade then sat me in front of the telly while they went off and did their own thing. Don’t get me wrong – if I did try and talk to them they wouldn’t just ignore me but they’d point out that they were busy people and I should really wait until I had something worthwhile to say. Looking back I can see where they were coming from, but at the time it left me a little bit lonely.

  Being scared of going to primary school and being lonely at home is a tough combination for anyone, particularly children, but everything changed when I discovered The Lone Ranger. I remember it very well. The old Bakelite TV, the picture fuzzing at the edges and then that theme tune. Christ, it seems like yesterday. The Lone Ranger, flying about on his horse Tonto, saving all the skirt.5 It used to break my heart when Tonto would look over at The Lone Ranger, swish his tail and call him Kemo Sabe.6 I’ll never forget when . . .7

  These memories seem like yesterday inside my head but they’re also tough to think about because, frankly, The Lone Ranger turned into a real monkey on my back. I get angry thinking about it even now. As far as I’m concerned it should have been made very, very clear that the show was made up and wasn’t a documentary. When you’re that age you pretty much take anything as gospel and that includes shows on the television. If other people, many of whom are old enough to know better, also suggest to you that a programme is based on real life then, to be fair, you’re going to believe them.

  The number of shoeings I picked up through The Lone Ranger years was ridiculous, but when you think The Lone Ranger has your back then you feel invincible. I’d be in the playground with all the hard nuts circling me like ants and I’d be whistling like a bastard and looking up the Great Eastern Road and thinking ‘Come on, Tonto, you’re cutting this a bit fine.’

  When I was ten I came home from school with the dead leg from hell and Mum finally told me that The Lone Ranger was just George Seaton in fancy dress. She said that my dead leg was a credit to George Seaton’s acting and that as an amateur actor herself she hoped that one day she would be able to affect audiences in the same way.

  It was very disappointing for me to hear that The Lone Ranger was a lot of bollocks and, looking back, I think this was the first example of why I haven’t become the Hero of Dundee. How can you be a Hero when people get together to shaft you like that? Everyone was in on it. Mum, Dad, the kids at school, even the fucking postman who used to pretend to have a gunfight with me on his way up the path.

  Let me ask you this. When your life starts with the whole world pretending that you’re a cowboy and best pals with The Lone Ranger then what chance have you got?

  _________________________

  4 For a forty-year period, from the 1920s to the mid 1960s, the Daly and Sons factory on Dundee’s Great Eastern Road was the centre of the European mousetrap industry. The factory closed on Tuesday 3 August 1965. See The Dundee Courier of the same date – ‘Mice Celebrate on Black Day For City’.

  5 Incorrect. The horse was called Silver, Tonto was the name given to the Lone Ranger’s laconic Red Indian sidekick.

  6 Tonto did use this phrase regularly but again he wasn’t a horse, he was a tail-less Red Indian.

  7 At this point I have deleted a further four paragraphs on Bob’s memories of The Lone Ranger, all of which were inaccurate, including the protracted description of an episode where Bob misremembers The Lone Ranger making love to a string of women while Tonto (again listed as a horse) offered vocal encouragement.

  2

  Dad

  My father was a great man, so everyone says. I never saw much of him but the guys that say he was a great man are all pretty decent so I’ve got no reason to go against their opinion. They would know better than me. I don’t think it had anything to do with The Lone Ranger cock-up but Dad wasn’t around much after that. He said he was working on the North Sea oil rigs, which sounds impressive enough but this was the 1950s and oil wasn’t discovered in the North Sea until 1970.8

  For a while Mum and I clung to the theory that Dad was a visionary. Unfortunately for us he was a bigamist. She should have guessed. He’d head off for two weeks with his swimming trunks, a sieve and a copy of the Racing Post. No-one knew much about the oil game in those days but even as a youngster I remember thinking that he must be pretty good at his job to get much oil with that gear.

  Dad’s other family lived in Monifieth and I always respected him for that, not having them too close to home and rubbing me and Mum’s faces in it. He told us all about them eventually, which was pretty tough and must have been one of the worst anniversaries he and Mum had ever had.

  It was annoying not having Dad around but, as he explained, the fifteen-minute bus journey from Monifieth was pretty boring and to be fair he always came back for his birthday. He’d arrive all excited and we’d have to get out the presents we’d got for him. It was the one thing that I remember him being strict about. The presents weren’t allowed to be homemade and we had to give him the receipts with them in case he wanted to take them back. I remember Mum once giving him a pink shirt and Dad said that he wasn’t even going to go through what he called the pretence of taking it out the wrapping. He was always using words like that and I greatly admired him for it.

  I remember the day my father died very well, largely because it was the day he died. I was sitting at my desk at school and spotted Mum in the corridor. She’d been called into the school a few weeks before after I was involved in a misunderstanding in Religious Studies and I thought that nonsense had maybe cropped up again but, no, she was there to tell me Dad had kicked the bucket.

  Mum said the timing was awful because her Amateur Dramatics group were about to start a two-week run of Oliver Twist at the bowling club so I was to go and see Dad’s other family and sort out the funeral. It was a lot of responsibility for a ten-year-old but I think Mum must have followed the Alex Ferguson policy of ‘if they’re good enough they’re old enough’. Plus to be fair to Mum she was doing well with the Amateur Dramatics at the time despite that ridiculous stage name9 and she’d been given the part of Fagin which is a big ask for any actor, let alone a woman.

  After school I caught the bus to Monifieth and went round to see Dad’s other family. His other wife wasn’t home, just a lot of people I didn’t know, but they told me it would be Saturday morning for the funeral. There was a depressing air about the place and I just wanted to get out but I feel bad saying that because it was a nice house and Dad had obviously put a bit of time into the garden.

  The funeral was a strange old day. Mum had to go straight to a matinee so she was in her full Fagin costume which I was a bit uncomfortable with but I soon forgot about that when Dad’s other wife arrived. I knew that her nickname was Bazookas and I presumed that she was maybe in the army but when she walked into the church I saw that she most definitely wasn’t in the army and that wasn’t why she was called Bazookas.10

  I’ll never forget the minister’s face when he came out to see the front row of me, Fagin and Bazookas. He must have thought he was part of a joke and to be fair he put on a decent show under the circumstances. After the funeral Mum and I had to rush off so she wasn’t late for the matinee and I never saw Bazookas again. Sometimes I think Dad deliberately died just so I would meet her and learn a little bit abo
ut women. Usually though, I think it would probably have worked out better for me and Mum if he hadn’t met Bazookas at all.

  As I said, over the years a lot of people have told me Dad was a great guy but I think it’s fair to say he didn’t do a massive amount for Yours Truly. He did at least leave a joke in the will that was just for me. ‘And give my golf clubs to my only son Brian,’ he wrote.

  The guy didn’t even play golf.

  _________________________

  8 See The Dundee Courier, 10 October 1970 – ‘Arrogant Aberdeen in Unlikely Oil Claim’.

  9 See The Dundee Courier, 5 November 1954 – ‘Ribeye Servant Sizzles Again’.

  10 I tracked down a photo of this woman from the period. Taken long before the era of airbrushing and other image manipulation, I was as astonished as Bob was. I discovered she died in the 1970s. When I told Bob he voiced sadness, quickly followed by speculation as to the shape of her coffin which he suggested must have looked ‘like a camel’.

  3

  Teachers Not Appreciating My Help

  Getting on with teachers would have been good for me. I’d have got all my exams and gone off to shake things up as a scientist, lawyer or chat-show host. But that’s not how it worked out and by the time I was twelve I’d just about had it with that lot.

  As a profession (if you can call it that, they get more holidays than Alf Whicker11) teachers must be the most sensitive mob around. Don’t get me wrong – they’re not alone. When it comes to having a laugh I’ve never got much change out of judges and I can tell you with confidence not to waste any good slapstick on doctors. But teachers are in a different league for taking themselves seriously. They always think they know best and try and take charge of the conversation.

  After The Lone Ranger problems I got sent to Bell Street Primary. With me not having much of a chance to chat at home, I saw it as an opportunity to really get things going on the conversation front, but oh no, the teachers weren’t happy with that. It was an absolute joke. A lot of the stuff in school is pretty much up for debate, especially Religious Studies, but when I tried to get a wee conversation going they’d always pull the We Know Best card.

  The irony is that most of the time I was trying to help the teachers and it was trying to help that would eventually get me expelled from Bell Street Primary. We had this guy Mr Conway for Maths and he was a real hopeless case. Being a teacher is about entertaining kids but very few of them could hold a story and Mr Conway was the worst by far.

  I saw an opportunity to both help the poor guy out and make a little something for myself so I waited behind in class and offered, very kindly, to supply some jokes to Mr Conway for 15p a time. I said that, although I obviously wouldn’t name names, people were talking about him and none of it was good and this would be a chance for him to start the long journey back to respect (that was a phrase my Dad had used on me a few years before after I had an accident in my trousers and it had stuck with me ever since).

  I thought that Mr Conway might haggle on the money or supply a few taboos I shouldn’t cross with the jokes but in fact he reacted by clipping me on the ear. I told him, very calmly, that I had now lost any remaining respect that I had for him and he reacted by clipping me on the other ear and escorting me to the headmaster’s office. I told Mr Conway that I was more disappointed in him than angry and he went a funny colour (which was the first funny thing he’d ever done) and told me to wait outside while he went in to give the headmaster his Woe Is Me act.

  I wasn’t too worried because I liked the headmaster and I saw a lot of myself in him. He could tell a great story for a start. Some of the assemblies were really top drawer. To this day I smile when I think of one week when he told an absolute belter about Jesus that had me off my seat at the end. I got into trouble for that, which is unbelievable really, getting into trouble for giving the Top Dog a standing ovation. That’s the kind of logic I was dealing with at Bell Street Primary.

  Anyway my point is that I wasn’t too worried when Mr Conway stormed off and I was called in to see the headmaster. I remember really enjoying the experience because the headmaster had these leather seats in his office so sitting there talking to him felt like he was a chat-show host and I was a chat-show guest. Apart from the fact he was giving me into trouble and the fact that I was wearing shorts.

  Overall, the headmaster was pretty decent. He got a bit angry when I referred to the situation as The Mr Conway Problem but I decided that was misplaced loyalty. We were getting on pretty well when he said something that nearly made me fall off my chair. He looked really tired and said that the school was full of problems and he didn’t need another one. I knew exactly what he was telling me. I thanked him for his time, which he looked a bit confused about, and left.

  It took me a week of hard work. I did a bit in lessons when the teachers weren’t looking and then stayed up late at night which wasn’t a problem because Mum was out starring in a production of Oklahoma.

  The day I was finally ready was one I’ll never forget. I got up early, did my hair really nicely, walked to school and straight into the headmaster’s office. He was surprised to see me and even more surprised when I placed the folder on his desk, winked and said that A Little Birdie had told me he was looking for this. On the folder I’d written in block capitals –

  I will tell you right now that for a twelve-year-old that folder was a bloody work of art. I had diagrams, sketches and some really well-written material. I’d identified the main character flaws in all the teachers, including the headmaster, and I’d also collected all the major rumours floating around, including about the headmaster. Of course, in my report I called for the firing of Mr Conway but I suggested that the headmaster saved Mr Conway embarrassment by announcing at Assembly the reason that Mr Conway wasn’t at school any more was because he’d run away from home. I also had some great stuff on school lunches and was well ahead of my time by suggesting what we know today as a buffet.

  I couldn’t have done much more for the headmaster but, well, he didn’t exactly appreciate it. Looking back, it was probably one of the best chases that I’ve ever been involved in but at the time it was terrifying. Luckily for me he tripped over his bin in his hurry to get round the desk at me so I had a bit of a head start. I was down the corridor and halfway through the playground by the time the headmaster made it out and shouted to a janitor to stop me.

  The jannie tried to catch me but I dropped my shoulder and gave him the eyes and I was away and through the gate. Reform Street was hard work. Every time I turned round the headmaster and the jannie were closing in like ospreys. I twisted and turned my way through the shoppers and took a short cut down Bank Street past the fire station and that pet shop where the owner got done for talking dirty.12

  I made it onto Commercial Street but by now I was getting tired and when I turned round the headmaster was only about twenty yards away. I dashed into Debenhams, ran up the stairs and found myself in the Ladieswear Department. There was a row of dresses hanging up and I slid under and got inside one. I was just in time because I could hear the headmaster arrive and ask if anyone had seen ‘a little fucking lunatic’ which I thought was completely inappropriate language for a headmaster to use anywhere, but especially in the Ladieswear Department.

  All in all, I was inside that dress for about an hour. I have to say that, on what was otherwise a tough day for me, I enjoyed it. It was nice hearing people go about their business while I stood inside what felt like a big, flowery tent. It was my own little world where nothing bad could happen to me. Don’t get me wrong – I knew I couldn’t be inside the dress forever. If I’d stayed inside it forever and grown up inside the dress then at one point I would have gone from being inside the dress to wearing it and that’s a different business. I waited until I couldn’t hear the headmaster’s voice, ducked out of the dress and made my way home feeling like someone had used my heart as a football.

  Not getting the respect I deserved for

  hit me har
d. That folder should have made me famous and put me halfway to Hero status before I was out of shorts. I could have been a child star like Mozart, Mickey Rooney or Jimmy Krankie. But instead I was expelled and after the summer holidays I was sent to Grove Street Academy. It was the last school left for me in Broughty Ferry so I knew I had to keep my nose clean or I’d really be in trouble because Mum didn’t like being bothered with what she called paperwork.

  So I went to Grove Street Academy and, just when things couldn’t get any worse for me, I met Frank.

  _________________________

  11 I think Bob is referring to the television presenter Alan Whicker of Whicker’s World fame.

  12 See The Dundee Courier, 12 August 1955 – ‘Pet Shop Owner Fined, Parrot Freed (“Not only have you upset a number of female customers,” summed up Magistrate McLelland, “but your lies subjected a defenceless animal to a gruelling experience, one from which he or she may not recover.”’).

  4

  Meeting Frank

  Grove Street Academy was slap-bang in the middle of Broughty Ferry and very much the place to be for a thirteen-year-old. I was at the age when boys start really appreciating skirt and there was plenty of that about so when I took up my seat on the first day of term I was happy enough. Then I turned round and caught sight of Frank. Frank was funny-looking even as a kid. He wasn’t one of those people who look OK as a kid then get funny-looking later, like Michael Jackson or Alf Whicker,13 he looked funny right from the start. But it wasn’t even Frank’s looks that made me laugh the first time I saw him, that’s how ridiculous his jumper was.