Working Class Boy by Jimmy Barnes Read Free Book Online Page B

drink as much as anybody but this was just a bar; nothing happened there, no entertainment, nothing except the odd sing-song. Then they would probably go home to their wives and eat dinner with nothing to say to each other.
    â€˜What did you dae the day?’
    â€˜Nothin’, just drank.’
    Anyway, I was at the bar, and I got served before this old guy and he turned on me. He was about eighty years old and five feet high and he wanted to take me outside for a fight. I was a bit shocked. Was he serious? Not knowing how to react, I laughed – not at him, but at the situation. He went nuts and I could see in his eyes that he was not kidding. Had it been a few years earlier, I’m sure I would have already been out for the count. He had the air of a man who, in his prime, no one would have fucked with.
    Anyway, my uncle came to his rescue – or was it mine, I’m still not sure – and said to him, ‘Hey, Jimmy’ (everybody in Glasgow is called Jimmy, by the way, even if you’re not called Jimmy), ‘this is Pop Swan’s grandson.’
    The old guy’s demeanour immediately changed and he even looked a little scared. He apologised to me and insisted on buying me a drink. Whether he was an old mate of Pop’s or an old foe,I’m not sure, but what I did learn from that meeting was if you accidentally caught the wrong guy at the wrong time in that town, it didn’t matter if he was young or old, you could be up to your neck in it before you had a chance to back away.
    Much later on, when I went back to Glasgow to do some shows, I was walking down the main street of Glasgow with Armando Hurley, a rather big black American who was singing in the band with me. Now Armando looked mean; he was built like a tank and had a mohawk haircut. Really he was a gentle soul, but you wouldn’t know from looking at him. He liked to bung it on a bit and keep people away from me. Anyway, we were crossing the road and this old guy with a cane was coming towards us.
    â€˜Get the fuck oot ma way,’ he snarled.
    â€˜Sorry, mate,’ we both said. We were being extremely polite as he was an old guy. But the streets were crowded and for some reason he thought we were getting in his way on purpose. He turned and scowled at me, ready to fight.
    Now this guy could hardly walk; he was about ninety. He glanced at Armando and turned back to me and then back to Armando quickly and said, ‘Ye wouldnae be so tough if you didn’t have Mister T wi’ ye.’
    Then he grunted and swore under his breath and kept on shuffling down the street, saying something about Armando’s mother as he left. I called Armando Mister T from then on. That’s the mentality of old Glaswegians. They can make me laugh or they can make me afraid very easily.
    Before we moved to Australia we lived at 22 Abercorn Street, Cowcaddens, close to the city. The old tenement buildings we lived in have now been turned into trendy inner-city dwellings but back then it was scary. Each building had a common entrance,or close, and a toilet outside in the back court. The back court wasn’t the nicest place. There would often be drunks asleep or up to no good in the back courts. People would be making out in them or being killed in them. They were dark and you couldn’t see into them from the street. So any time we went down to the back court was a traumatic experience. Unless, of course, we were with a bunch of mates or our brothers and sisters. Then we’d be the ones up to no good.
    I heard something about one of my sisters being dragged into a back court by a stranger. I don’t know exactly what happened. No one spoke about it. But the story I heard was that the police caught him and locked him up in a cell with my dad for fifteen minutes before they charged him. Old-fashioned Scottish justice. Violence with violence.
    I used to wonder how I got like I am but after writing this stuff down I think