by Bob Servant
We got there early and each pair was given a rowing boat and a map. There were all these buoys in the reservoir and you had to go between them in a certain route while Alf Whicker watched from the shore. We set off and it seemed we were doing OK. Frank did the navigating and I pulled away at the oars with my muscles and I have to say I was quietly confident at that point because none of the other boats seemed to be anywhere near us. Then we went round a buoy and Frank turned really quiet. He took out the emergency paddle and tied it to the side of the boat pointing outwards. I asked what he was doing and he stood up and passed me the map.
‘I’ve been holding it upside down, Bob,’ he told me, and I saw that he had. I was angry but more confused and I asked again what he was doing. ‘I’ve let you down for the last time, Bob,’ he said. ‘I’m walking the plank.’
Sometimes Frank does something so stupid that I genuinely don’t know what to say and that was probably the first such occasion. Before I had a chance to stop him he said, ‘Let them eat cake,’ stepped onto the paddle and upended the entire boat. The cold of the water was a bit of a shock but the truth of the matter is that we weren’t exactly in much danger. I think that’s what has always annoyed me the most about Frank walking the plank, the fact that we were about five yards from shore at the time. Back when it was popular, walking the plank was one of the most dangerous things you could do at sea but you’re not exactly going to get picked off by sharks five yards from shore. Not at Monikie.
Anyway, Alf Whicker pulled us out, called us a disgrace and sent us packing. I’ve had some depressing bus journeys in my life but that one has to be right up there, seeing as I was dripping wet, kicked out the Merchant Navy and sitting next to Frank. I didn’t speak to him the whole way home and sent him to Coventry for a week which of course he misunderstood and his mum only just got to the train station in time.
I still call him Frank The Plank to remind him but to be honest I think that’s lenient because what a start the Merchant Navy could have given me, both in my life and in becoming a Hero. It was my chance to see the world and Frank stole it from me. Don’t get me wrong – I went to Newcastle for Tommy Peanut’s Divorce Party, and there was a lot of talk in the nineties about Spain but it came to nothing after Frank lost his passport in a door-to-door confidence scam.
But that’s not really seeing the world and even if I’d just gone round the world then came back to Dundee I’d have had a great reception. When Chappy Williams went to Canada to see his uncle people talked about him like he was Christopher Columbus and the guy only went because he got the tickets free with his Hoover. But that’s what it’s like in Dundee – people admire anyone from the city who goes on and grabs international glory because so few of us have cracked it. Off the top of my head I can only think of Brian Cox, Gorgeous George Galloway and that guy from Monifieth who throttled a waiter in Magaluf.21 That’s a gang that I should have been part of and I would have been if it wasn’t for Frank The Plank.
The world would have been my oyster. More to the point, I might have made some black pals.
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21 See The Dundee Courier, 4 May 1987 – ‘Shifty Spaniard Tricks Monifieth Man Into So-called Strangling’.
9
Not Having Any Black Pals
I’m going to put this one in here before I forget. I don’t have any black pals whatsoever, and, let me tell you this, it’s not through lack of trying. For longer than I care to remember I have tried like a bastard to get myself a friend who’s a bit more exotic than the average and all I’ve ended up doing is running into brick walls. I won’t hear a word said against Dundee as a city but there’s no doubt that we don’t have the exciting mix of other places. To be fair, things are getting a bit more interesting now but for years if a black guy popped up in Dundee it was like Beatlemania and we’d be all over him like a cheap suit.
In 1972 we were out doing the windows when Frank got hit on the head by a bucket. There was just the two of us there, and I was directly above him at the time but to this day I won’t take any responsibility for insurance reasons. As I’ve told him over the years when these things crop up, there is his truth, my truth and the insurance form.
However it happened, Frank caught a bucket square on the napper and went down like he’d been shot. Considering how often he fell off the ladder it wasn’t exactly a cause for concern so I patched him up using my spare vest but he whined away like he always does and I had to drive him up to Ninewells Hospital. We’re talking about the seventies, when the NHS got itself into hot water and brought over a few boys from Africa to help with the waiting lists.22 Frank was away with the fairies from the bang on his head so I was having a bit of fun with him, telling him it was Christmas Day and he’d won the Spot The Ball and so on, when this African doctor popped up.
Frank and I were gobsmacked and I have to say I was a little tongue-tied. I managed to get that he was from Kenya but after that it was really just business. I did get one joke in. When he was bandaging up Frank’s face I told him to wrap the whole lot up because I was sick of looking at it. It was only a wee joke, just something to get the ball rolling really, but he didn’t have the chance to come back with a joke of his own because Frank started playing up. He was an absolute disgrace – giggling away at everything the doctor said and then making sure to give his phone number to the doctor who said about five times that he didn’t need it.
For the next week or two Frank was unbearable. Every time his phone went he said, ‘Oh, that might be my Kenyan pal,’ and then he announced that he didn’t want to watch Zulu on Sunday afternoons anymore because he had ‘split loyalties’. He was completely smitten and I suppose I should hold my hands up to a degree and say that he wasn’t alone.
I had started secretly hanging about Ninewells looking for the doctor. When I write that now I’m fairly embarrassed but it was a decision that I made at the time and I just have to deal with it. The guy had got into my head and sometimes that’s the way it is with new pals.
It took a few trips but eventually I spotted him leaving one evening. I followed him to the bus stop where he caught the 18 to Lochee. That’s the wrong side of town for me but I wasn’t thinking straight. The next night I got on the 18 one stop up so when he arrived I was ready for him with the old ‘Oh, it’s yourself, I was just thinking about you there’ routine. He was a bit surprised and I sort of had to remind him who I was but after that it wasn’t too bad.
It became a daily thing and after a week or two we were running out of conversation. Well, I was anyway, he didn’t really have much to start with. He was never up for a quick drink. I asked every night and started getting off at his stop to put on the pressure. He wouldn’t even entertain the idea, even the day I said I’d lost my keys and it would maybe make sense for me to stay at his house. Fair enough, some guys don’t like going for a drink but I still think it’s totally out of order to just walk away when a man tells you something like that. Particularly when he’s crying.
Luckily that night really shook me back to my senses and I left him alone afterwards. There’s been bits and pieces with other guys over the years but nothing concrete. I put up a sign at Safeways looking for a black pal but they took it down because of discrimination, which didn’t add up. There was a Turkish guy who worked at The Fort bar who I had a bit of a chat with on occasion but only ever as part of a larger group and it was never just me and him. Chappy’s uncle came over from Canada for the Millennium and I got on well with him. He wasn’t black though.
My point here, and it’s an important one, is that I always think that I’d have traditionally been seen as more of a man of the world if I’d had black pals. I could have got some early doors through the Merchant Navy and that doctor would have been absolutely perfect but it didn’t work out in either case and there’s no doubt that’s cost me. I mean, you look at the guys I’ve hung about with over the years and they’re not exactly the Harlem Globetrotters.
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22 See The Dundee Courier, 15 May 1972 – ‘Do We Ken-ya Face?’ and 26 May 1972 – ‘A Mala-wee Surprise for Local Woman, (“I went in for my veins but felt like I was on an exciting safari holiday” said Dorothy Chambers, 57.)’.
10
Finding Stewpot’s
I found Stewpot’s bar in the summer of 1963. Sometimes Frank says he found it, which is laughable. We were seventeen at the time and a few months off being legal so you had to pick and choose your boozers quite carefully. I would have been OK on my own – I was six feet tall and walked like Errol Flynn – but Frank looked like he should still be in shorts and the tragedy is that he often was.
It’s not that we didn’t have money for better clothes. Between us we were doing four paper rounds, which sounds impossible but not with the system that I put in. Frank went and did the paper rounds and I waited for him to come home and then collected the money, did the accounts and advised him on any problems he might have encountered that morning.
Sometimes Frank would complain about doing all the legwork and I’d be very patient and explain again the meaning of the phrase ‘horses for courses’. If he kept going with the Woe Is Me stuff then I’d point out that he did more paper rounds than anyone in Dundee, he was the paper-round champion, and if turning someone into a champion was a bad thing then someone should tell the boy that trains Cassius Clay to close the gym.
On a Friday night we’d usually head to the Cuckoo’s Nest pub on the Claypotts Roundabout. It wasn’t exactly Las Vegas down there – it was bloody dangerous to get to for a start23 – but we could always get served because the Cuckoo’s Nest barman Terry Devine had fallen out with a chip pan and could only just see out of one eye. Me and Frank put on deep voices, which was a lot harder for him than me, and we got served every time. Getting your drink could take a while if the place was busy but it was a good atmosphere with Terry feeling his way along the optics and everyone giving it the ‘warmer, colder’ routine.
But Frank and I wanted somewhere a bit more happening and, to be honest with you, with a better level of skirt. For the first few years after it opened the Claypotts roundabout was unbelievably busy because of the novelty factor24 and it was impossible for any skirt wearing heels to beat the traffic. The women that made it to the Cuckoo’s Nest were largely women who were addicted to danger and although women like that are good to talk to (or listen to in the case of Tina Turner) they’re not usually relationship material.
We’d heard of Stewpot’s, of course, it was a big name back then on the pub scene just like it is today. I knew my dad used to drink there and that the owner had named if after his son, so one Friday night we were leaving the house for the Cuckoo’s Nest when I said, ‘Forget the Cuckoo’s Nest, Frank, we’re going to Stewpot’s.’ His face went like tomato ketchup and he said we’d never get in but using my eyes I told him not to worry.
We went past Safeways, through the Long Lane and up past Toshy’s Hardware. You could hear the laughter from fifty yards away. We walked in and there we were – me and Frank standing in Stewpot’s for the very first time. I’ll never forget the landlord’s words. He said, ‘Have you two lost your football or something?’ and that was the first time that men laughed with me in Stewpot’s bar.
Unfortunately Frank missed the fact that we were involved in a joke with the landlord and started saying that he had lost his ball in Dawson Park and if it had shown up in Stewpot’s then he was willing to take it back without any questions being asked and on and on even though I was giving him a look that said ‘stop talking immediately’.
The landlord was about to chuck us out, and I couldn’t blame him, when I said how I thought my dad used to drink there and said his name and the landlord and the others all looked happy and said what a good guy he was and was I the kid with the pony? I said that maybe that was someone from Dad’s other family and they all kind of looked at their drinks and the landlord went nervous and said we could come in any time and why didn’t we meet his son? Then he shouted ‘Stewpot’ and over came this lad with a nice face.
Stewpot was the same age as us but even then he carried himself very differently. Like any great diplomat – your Ghandis, Mandelas, your Lynams – Stewpot has a manner about him that relaxes people and takes the sting out of the situation. I’ve always said that if anyone from the Ferry took hostages and held off police in an armed siege then I would want Stewpot sent in as the lead negotiator.
(Unfortunately I’ve never had the chance for that theory to be tested but I have high hopes for a guy who works at Safeways. He’s in the Territorial Army and he’s always angry. I’ve heard him swearing at the vegetable section, really laying into them on a personal level, and once caught him beating up a trolley in the car park. ‘Must make you feel like taking a few hostages?’ I said hopefully to him that day in the car park but he pretended not to know what I was saying. It would be nice to know if taking hostages at least featured in the guy’s plans but it’s a hard thing to bring up. I suppose taking hostages is something that people do at very short notice for security reasons so I’ll just have to wait and see if it pans out or not. But if the guy from Safeways does take hostages, and as I said it’s not guaranteed, I have absolutely no doubt that it should be Stewpot sent in to negotiate, with me offering support and Frank locked in his house.)
Having said all that, just because he’s my tip as a hostage negotiator doesn’t mean I think that Stewpot’s perfect – far from it. He didn’t exactly get much of a handle on my Gin Crisis, which we’ll come to, and I suppose if we’re going to nitpick then we’d point out Stewpot sold me a fair portion of the gin but that’s business and when I had the cheeseburger vans I sold Slim Smith more burgers than I care to remember and that was after he’d given up stairs. Not only is Stewpot a businessman, though, he’s also a bloody good one. He’s got the timeshare in Pitlochry, the Sierra and more nice jumpers than anyone I know. He doesn’t flaunt his money which, being a self-made man myself (with a lot of money), I very much respect.
The only time I’ve ever seen Stewpot flustered was when Frank’s nephew showed him that thing on the Internet25 and Stewpot went shaky, called them ‘faceless cowards’, stormed down to the cellar and, rumour has it, kicked the living daylights out of a sack of lemons.
All in all, Stewpot is one of life’s diamonds and I’ve had forty-seven years of good times in his pub (his dad gave him Stewpot’s for his 21st birthday and went off to run a bed and breakfast in Carnoustie that I would infamously attack with an airgun during The Gin Crisis) but even then I must admit there’s days when I wonder if Stewpot’s bar is one of the reasons I’ve not made the big time. Going there pretty much every day all these years must have cost me a bit of time if you add it up and there’s no-one who goes to Stewpot’s every day that’s really made it at an international level.
On the other side of the coin I’ve got great memories of the place and I suppose I’ve made some alright pals from going there. But on the other side of the coin26 I could argue that those forty-seven years have boiled down to forty-seven years’ worth of stupid jokes from Chappy Williams, Tommy Peanuts moaning about Sally Peanuts and Frank asking Stewpot if there’s ‘any surprises on the sandwich menu’.
Still, back in 1963 we were pleased enough to find it and we celebrated Frank’s 18th birthday there shortly after. Not that he remembered.
Frank’s 18th Birthday27
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23 See The Dundee Courier, 17 January 1963 – ‘Pub Marooned On City’s First Roundabout (Dundee City Council’s Planning Committee today denied that there had been “serious gaps” in their knowledge of the country’s new roundabout system.)’.
24 See The Dundee Courier, 26 March 1963 – ‘Inverness Couple Delighted With Roundabout Trip (“. . . everything we hoped for and more . . . it’s like being on the moon.”)’.
25 See TripAdvisor.com’s sparse Dundee section for an April 2004 review written by Dusseldorf1976 entitled
The Worst Day Of Our Lives Yet! (‘We thought that this place was a traditional Scottish cafeteria but this was not the case. The people were not like people that we expect to ever meet again. The men were angry and had faces red not from the sun and shouted even when they stood close. There were not any women we do not think.’)
26 I hope Bob has kept this physics-defying coin in a safe place.
27 Photo courtesy of Bob Servant’s private collection, all rights reserved. Inscription on back of photograph reads: ‘Frank ruins his own 18th birthday party, 1963.’
11
Chappy Williams and Tommy Peanuts
I remember the first time I met Chappy Williams very well. He walked into Stewpot’s wearing a golf jumper and looking like he owned the place and me and Frank sat there and thought, ‘Look at this prick.’ And you know what? Nearly fifty years later, if you were to come down Stewpot’s bar, you’d find Chappy walking in there wearing a golf jumper and looking like he owns the place and me and Frank sitting there thinking, ‘Look at this prick.’
Chappy was fairly well known at the time because he was a champion schoolboy golfer so he was always in the paper holding up trophies and doing the old Look At Me routine. We spoke to him a bit that night and to be fair he wasn’t too bad with the talking and the jokes and from then on we’d always have a bit of a To And Fro when he came in. That’s not to say he wasn’t a pain in the arse from the start. He’d practise his swing at the urinals which was both annoying and dangerous and when you shook his hand he’d say things like ‘Don’t steal my grip’ or ‘You’re crushing the moneymaker’.
Because of that nonsense I wasn’t too bothered when Chappy’s golfing career came to a sudden halt, though I have to say I did feel sorry for him on a man-to-man level. He got to the final of the Scottish Amateur Open and whoever wins that usually flies into the professional game. But around the world there can’t be more than a handful of golfers who have seen their whole career crumble in front of their eyes because of Tony Jacklin farting and Chappy was just unlucky to be one of them.28