Six minutes past eight

Six minutes past eight

Sometimes you could see it coming. A game Celtic had in the palm of their hands with a 2-0 lead and just 2 minutes left on the clock was in danger of slipping away. Poor defending had allowed Dundee United’s Gary MacKay Steven lash home to give the men in tangerine hope that they could salvage a point. Jackie Brolly, high in the Jerry Kerr stand was feeling the tension and shouted, ‘Time’s up, ref! Blow the whistle ya fud!’ As the words left his mouth United fired a ball in from the left and the hapless Efie Ambrose rose to clear it. To Jackie’s horror the ball glanced off Effie’s head and flashed past Fraser Forster into the net. The home fans erupted as the big Celtic support collectively shook their heads. It had taken Celtic 70 minutes to break down United and they were in a commanding position with just a few moments left. How quickly a game could change.

The journey back down the motorway to Glasgow was a little more subdued than normal given the late collapse at Tannadice. ‘I’ll tell ye what,’ said Jackie’s brother Eddie, ‘if we defend like that against Barcelona we’ll get absolutely pumped.’  Jackie had to agree, ‘Cannae see Ambrose keeping oot Messi and co. We’ll need a miracle tae get oot that game wi a point.’  Jackie exhaled, ‘Ye going up to see my da tonight?’ Eddie shook his head, ’Baby-sitting sitting bro, I’ll go on Monday. You cover it tonight will ye?’  Jackie nodded, ‘Aye, nae worries. He’ll no be happy wi that result.’ Then almost as an afterthought added, ‘Mind you wi the currant buns going bust we should still win this league wi a country mile.’

As the bus sped down the motorway Jackie thought of his old man and the times they’d shared together. Sure he was a disciplinarian when they were kids but he’d taught them the right values and guided them into decent jobs. He was always there when they needed good advice or had got themselves into trouble. He recalled as a teenager his old man’s look of anger when he had shouted something vulgar at a Rangers player during a heated match. He had said nothing but Jackie knew the old fella had standards and he wanted his boys to adhere to them too.  He had first gone to the football with his dad and Eddie when he was 7 years old way back in 1986. It was a home game against Aberdeen played in a gale and lashing rain. He had begged his old man to take him and had stood at the front of the old Jungle as Celtic battled to a 1-1 draw with a very good Aberdeen side. From the moment Peter Grant scored on that rainy day, Jackie had got the Celtic bug.

Later that night, Jackie walked through the warren of corridors that led from the new section of the Royal Infirmary to the old block on Castle Street. He climbed the stairs to the ward his old man was in. ‘Why was it always the top floor?’ he mused as he sanitised his hands using the dispenser on the wall outside the ward. He entered the busy ward and walked briskly to where his father’s bed was. He stopped short an uneasy feeling coming over him when he saw that the bed was empty. He turned and approached the nurse’s station near the front door. ‘Can you tell me where James Brolly is?’ he asked a stern looking nurse who seemed to be in charge. She looked at him, her face a mask giving away no emotion. ‘And you are?’ Jackie hid his annoyance, ‘I’m his son.’ She nodded, ‘He was moved this morning to the single room.’ She gestured behind him at the small room. ‘Mr Brolly deteriorated overnight. The Doctor doesn’t think it’ll be long now.’ Jackie fought to keep control of his emotions. He knew this day was coming but it was always tomorrow… tomorrow.

He sat by the bed in an uncomfortable, plastic chair and took his old man’s hand. ‘Alright Da?  Celts blew it today, two-nil up with 2 minutes tae go and it ended 2-2.’ The only sound in the room apart from Jackie’s voice was the regular sound of his old man’s breathing and the odd click or beep from the machines around his bed. Jackie looked at him as he lay deep in sleep, his face so familiar yet he seemed older, weary. The guy who used to carry him on his shoulders and was always so strong, so reliable had been reduced by this illness. Jackie stayed for an hour talking quietly to his old man, mulling over what the nurse had told him. It was a matter of days now. He rose to leave and leaned over his sleeping father kissing him lightly on the cheek. They were never an emotional bunch and not given to overt displays of affection. He whispered in his old man’s ear words he didn’t think he’d ever said to him in his life, ‘I love you, Da,’ before leaving the ward to let his family know the situation.

The following Wednesday the two brothers took a break from the strain they were under and headed to Celtic Park to watch Celtic take on possibly the best club side in the world at that point. There was huge excitement in Glasgow which increased the closer they got to the stadium. The fans were singing loudly at the turnstiles as the brothers clicked into the Jock Stein stand and took their seats near the front. The full stadium tifo was a thing of beauty and the songs thundered out into the dark, November sky. ‘I wish my da could see this,’ Jackie muttered to his brother as the teams came out to the most spectacular setting for a game of football. The Champions League anthem began amid a crescendo of noise which cascaded from the stands. The two brothers may have had heavy burdens weighing them down but they’d try to be distracted from them for the next two hours. It seemed a forlorn hope that Celtic could match the array of talents that Barcelona had on the field but then this support often gave the players wings. There was always hope. As the game began to a huge roar, Jackie screamed out, ‘Come on Celtic! Intae them!’

The roars and songs from Celtic Park drifted across the east end as the battle swung this way and that. At 6 minutes past 8 victor Wanyama met a corner from the right and headed firmly into the Barcelona net. The noise which greeted the goal was as loud as any in the 125 year history of the grand old team.

A couple of miles away in the Royal Infirmary old James Brolly opened his eyes. He looked around him as if wondering if the noise he heard was real. He smiled weakly to himself and closed them again. His journey was over, his game played. He was happy to be going home.

Jungle Juice

Jungle Juice

It was one of those blustery April days when the weather couldn’t make its mind up. The playground was the usual hubbub noisy children engaged in a variety of games. At one end a rough game of football was going on while the wall at the opposite end saw a line of girls bouncing rubber balls with impressive skill as they chanted in unison, ‘She is handsome, she is pretty, she is the belle of Belfast city, tell, tell your boyfriend’s name!’ Despite the variety of things going on there was only one subject on the mind of the Celtic daft boys. This was the day Celtic was taking on Atletico Madrid in the European cup semi-final and there was an air of excitement about.

‘Ye going tae the match the night, Geezer?’ I asked my lanky pal who always wore his wooly Celtic hat to school. He grinned at me as if I’d suggested the world was flat, ‘dis a bear shite up a close?’ He had a habit of mangling well know phrases and once described his drunken dad smashing up the house by saying, ‘he was like a fool in a China shop!’ We chatted excitedly about the game and Celtic’s chances before the bell sounded and we ran to our line in the yard. It did not pay to keep Mr Stirling waiting, the rather stern depute Head Teacher kept his Lochgelly belt over his shoulder and its threatening outline was visible under his jacket. He appeared from the school building like a man on a mission and marched to the front of the lines which now quietened. ‘Primary 7, go in.’ he commanded and we obeyed hoping that the school day wouldn’t drag as we were simply bursting to get the day over and get to Celtic Park.

The school nurse was a strict and foreboding woman in her 50s who seemed as wide as she was tall. She also had a face that would not be unattractive to a lonely pit-bull terrier and breathed heavily through her nose as if opening her mouth was too much trouble. Her task was to ensure that minor childhood dangers, such as head lice or scabies, were dealt with in the school. Our class went downstairs to her odd smelling little room, in batches of six later that morning.  One by one she bade us enter and treated us to a rather rough examination. Following our examination, I was told to wait behind as my classmates were sent back to class. She looked at me and shook her head in a weary manner. ‘Crawling!’ she said in a stern tone as she scribbled notes onto a sheet of paper, ‘Come and see me again at 11am.’ I returned to class and My teacher looked at me with that understanding smile of hers and quietly said, ‘Sit down, Patrick.’  I returned to my seat thankful that she was not the kind to inflict further embarrassment on me.

However, my trip to the school nurse’s office later that day was more of an ordeal. She poured foul smelling clear liquid onto my hair and massaged it into every part of my scalp. The lotion was nicknamed ‘Jungle juice’ by the children at the school and it stung my eyes and made my nose run. When this was complete she used a large brush to bring some semblance of order to my tangled hair. Now in those times, boys' hair styles were much longer than is the norm today. However my thick hair was made sleek and oily by the nit lotion and she brushed it into a side parted style that made me look like a 1920s Mafia Boss.  ‘Come back this afternoon and we’ll shampoo the lotion off,’ she barked. I returned to class painfully aware of how different I looked. I could also smell the distinctive odour of the nit lotion as I quietly entered the class. Again, Miss Sullivan told me to sit with a minimum fuss, although some of my class mates were undoubtedly regarding me with quiet amusement.  I began my work and within a few moments the remarks began. ‘Pass me that rubber, Don Corleone,’ the boy on my left said. ’Can anybody smell petrol?’ he went on, making a theatrical sniffing motion with his large spot covered nose. The boy in question was called Franny by one and all and was a real pain at times. Like all youngsters however, he had his Achilles’ heel. He suffered from a veritable plague of spots on his face.  Attack being the best form of defence; I took the fight to him.  ‘Fancy playing join the dots on your face, ya plooky bastard’ I sneered. He flushed with anger and muttered under his breath ‘Your dead ya fuckin tramp.’ I wasn’t too concerned about his threats as I felt I could handle him if it came to a fight and recent class history seemed to suggest that he was all mouth. So, I simply looked at him and replied with as much sarcasm as I could manage, ‘I’m shakin’ in my shoes Pizza face.’ I didn’t like conflict but it was sink or swim and I had no intention of sinking.

Lunchtime came and we marched in silence to the dinning-hall.  Another of those ‘thoughtful’ adult decisions had been made and all children with nit lotion on their heads, and there were many, were made to sit in a corner of the hall set apart from the bulk of the school. This added to our discomfort and it was not long before other children were taunting us. ‘Hey Paddy,’ one boy shouted ‘I hear your moving to Nitshill.’  Others mimed scratching their heads and it was hard to ignore the jibes. Luckily another victim of the nit outbreak was another good pal, Shuggie.  He was always ready with an answer to their insults and called back to one particular boy, known as Goofy, due to his less than symmetrical face,  ‘Nits come and go Goofy, but you’ll be plug ugly all your days, ya prick !’  When Goofy kept the abuse up, a well-aimed rubber from Shuggie bounced of Goofy’s rather asymmetrical head and the deputy head stepped in to calm things. Shuggie was ordered from the hall and left with a quick wink at me. On his way out he passed Goofy’s table, and with the speed of a striking cobra, dipped a rather grubby finger into an astounded Goofy’s bowl of custard.  Game, set and match to Shuggie I thought.

I returned to the school nurse’s office in the afternoon and she used a strong smelling shampoo to wash the nit lotion from my head. She then combed it through with a metal dust comb that seemed to be dragging half of my hair out along with the dead lice. When this slow torture was over, she produced a large hair dryer and blew hot air over me until my hair was bone dry. Now, I had never had my hair blow dried until that fateful day and I must confess that it felt rather pleasant and warm. However, it added new body to my straggly hair and a glance in the mirror on my way out of the nurse’s room horrified me. My hair had gone from being sleek and wet looking to being bulky and bushy. I headed back to class in some trepidation.

I slipped quietly into class and there was a short gasp from one or two children. Even the unflappable Miss Sullivan’s eyebrows slightly raised, as she quietly told me to sit but even her gaze was firmly on my somewhat voluminous hair. I sat at my seat and waited for the verbal sparring to begin. Franny, as usual, was first to have a rather obvious dig. ‘Hey, Mungo Jerry, whit time do you make it?’ Now, Mungo Jerry was a singer of the time who sported a huge Afro perm so his insinuation was clear and enough to induce sniggers from a few others. I found it tiresome to go on about his spots again so I thought for a couple of seconds before replying, ‘Franny, I think the school have spelt your name wrong on the register, it doesn’t have an ‘r’ in it does it ?’ It took him a minute or so to work out what I was saying but he got it in the end.

They day dragged past to its conclusion and I ran all the way home. My older brothers were already home from high school and were talking about the match. ‘My da’s coming at half five tae get us. We better get in early, it’ll be mobbed.’ I ate my supper with growing excitement as my oldest brother nodded towards me, ‘whit’s going on wi your hair? Ye look like ye’ve had an electric shock.’ They laughed at my expense but I didn’t care. My team was playing in the European Cup Semi-Final that night and that filled my thoughts.

Atletico Madrid? They were good but I was sure Celtic were better. What could possibly go wrong?

Dark Corners

Dark Corners

When I was a kid I used to watch my old man’s face light up when Muhammad Ali was on TV. Of course he enjoyed the boxing skills of Ali who was one of the greatest fighters of all time, but he also liked Ali’s self-confident pronouncements on everything from the Vietnam War and racism to his poetic predictions for his next fight. ‘Jumpin Jive, I’ll take him in five!’ the champ would say before despatching his opponent with his usual grace and power. It wasn’t just that Ali was a great fighter and a lippy character that made my old man warm to him. He also knew something of the racism and discrimination Ali and the African American community in general suffered and on that level empathised with him. Maybe it was the Irish in my old fella that made him side with the underdog but he would watch Ali on TV and nod, ‘Aye you fuckin’ tell them, Ali.’ Every fight Ali won stuck it to those who despised him for being what they hated most; a confident, outspoken and successful black man.

Race and the legacy of slavery have been in the news virtually every day since the death of George Floyd in the USA. Modern camera phones are recording with depressing regularity a minority of American law enforcement officers reacting with brutal and sometimes lethal force against African American men. This has led to prolonged and often violent protests in American cities and indeed around the world. Here in the UK we have seen statues attacked and defaced and in truth some of the actions seen at demonstrations seem counter-productive to the cause they seek to highlight.

Into this febrile atmosphere John Barnes, one time manager of Celtic, seemed to suggest that race played a part in his ill-fated 8 month stint as Celtic manager. Unusually for a high profile former footballer, he crossed swords with folk all day long on twitter in an often vain attempt to persuade them that unconscious bias played a part in his downfall at Celtic. Twitter is a notoriously difficult place to discuss such heavy matters and he had no shortage of voices willing to defend Celtic as they saw it from his apparent accusation.

Barnes is an intelligent and articulate man who undoubtedly speaks from the heart when discussing the cancer of racism. He gave a very interesting and frank interview to ‘A Celtic State of Mind’ and had 90 minutes to explain his thoughts on what went wrong at Celtic during his ill-fated time in charge. His theory; that black managers are given less time than white managers to get things right does seem to ring true especially if you look at the experience of some in England but was this really the case at Celtic?

He arrived in June 1999 and was welcomed with great excitement by the Celtic fans who cared not a jot for his ethnicity; here was a man who was a superb footballer in his day and fans hoped that magic would replicate itself in the dugout. He stated that certain players were awkward with him from the start and there were cliques and arguments about money. As usual the Scottish press didn’t help and it seemed certain players were happy to leak stories from inside Celtic Park. That was difficult enough for a rookie manager but it was compounded by injuries to key men, Larsson and Lambert coupled with Mark Viduka becoming unsettled and these factors saw the team’s early promise dissipate as winter arrived.

A wretched display during the cup exit to Inverness Caley Thistle at Celtic Park was to be the final act in the Barnes tenure in charge. Celtic, in their usual ham-fisted  way handled his dismissal poorly but did he deserve to go? Would he, as he suggested, have been given more time if he was white? Barnes admits that not having the dressing room nor indeed, the boardroom behind him, doomed his Celtic career from the outset. His central thesis that White Managers are given more time though is difficult to sustain. He was fired after 8 months in charge when a series of matches were lost. Three days before that ICT match, Hearts came from 0-2 down to win 3-2 at Celtic Park. All was clearly not well behind the scenes and these man management issues were perhaps more critical to his chances of remaining in post than the poor results. Either way the combination of both was fatal to his Celtic career.

When faced with a struggling team behind at half time against ICT, a manager and his coaching staff need to reorganise and motivate the team to turn it around. Mark Viduka’s response to Eric Black cajoling him to try harder was deeply unprofessional but perhaps not unexpected from this volatile player. They ended up coming to blows and Viduka refused to play in the second half. It contributed to that disastrous exit from the cup and Barnes’ downfall as head coach. That there were strong characters in the dressing room and cliques among some players is no excuse for a manager losing control in that manner but perhaps as a rookie coach he wasn’t given the support he needed. He said…

‘I never had the dressing room, when I got there on day one, I didn’t have the dressing room. The players didn’t like me. It had nothing to do with my race.’

Barnes’ theory that unconscious bias works against black coaches in football is an interesting and in the context of English football, a not unconvincing one. However it seems unlikely that the club who gave John Barnes the job just 8 months earlier would, even subconsciously, fire him with more haste than they would a failing white manager; Lou Macari was sacked after 8 months and Tony Mowbray after 9. Both of these managers would admit themselves that results were not good enough and that this cost them their jobs.

Barnes demonstrated a lack of understanding of the Celtic psyche when he suggested that had Jock Stein and Kenny Dalglish not been as successful as they were at Celtic then their Protestant upbringing would have seen them given less time than a Catholic to turn things around. This struck me as ludicrous; this is the club of John Thomson, Bertie Peacock, Bobby Evans, Tommy Gemmell and Henrik Larsson. We pride ourselves on being inclusive and indeed used it as a contrast to the tawdry and grubby policy pursued by our main rivals for over 70 years.   Kenny did endure barren spells at Celtic and the club wasn’t always successful during his playing career there but no one was demanding he went; on the contrary many where devastated when he did finally leave in 1977. Jock Stein had a nightmare final season as boss in 1977-78 but there was no clamouring for his head as fans recognised the contribution he had made to Celtic. Rather many supporters were disgusted at the way the board of the time handled his departure.

Barnes also stated that that ‘Celtic is no more racist, nor less racist, than any other club’ and when reminded that it was Celtic fans who renamed Glasgow Streets in honour of some of the victims of racism said; ’So because of George Floyd we are we outraged now?’ Implying that Celtic fans are jumping on the ‘Black lives matter’ bandwagon now is to deny long years of anti-racism activity from many supporters. We’ve all seen the banners condemning racism at Celtic games. We’ve seen the anti-discrimination football tournament the Green Brigade organise every year. We supported the ‘match the fine for Palestine’ campaign which raised over a quarter of a million pounds for Palestinian charities. 

Yes, there will be some racists among the Celtic support as we saw with the despicable behaviour of some towards Mark Walters 32 years ago but the furious reaction of the majority to that incident spoke volumes. It was wrong, it was wicked and it against everything Celtic stands for. To this day we have hypocritical Rangers fans reminding Celtic supporters about the Walters incident and conveniently forgetting it came at a time when they were only just contemplating playing Catholic players after a lifetime of footballing apartheid. Indeed at the game in which Walters was so despicably abused their supporters continued their ‘fuck the pope’ songs throughout.

To imply Celtic supporters are only interested in anti-racist activities since the tragic death of George Floyd is simply wrong. There are many articles on this various subject down the years written by Celtic supporters condemning racism. I have even written some myself. Barnes also made a statement when reminded of the prejudice Celtic and their community have faced in Scotland which struck me as odd. He said; ‘Anti-Irish racism in Scotland? The Irish aren’t a different race, that’s not racism.’ This is the old trope we have seen regularly in Scotland; reduce racism to sectarianism and then blame both sides as being equally culpable.

I like John Barnes as a man and as a footballer. He fights for what he believes in and speaks with inteligence about an issue that clearly impacted upon him during his footballing career and indeed in his life. I do believe though that the fact he had little control over his players at Celtic and the subsequent sequence of results cost him his job and that bias, unconscious or otherwise, played no part in it.

As a society and as individuals we must seek to eradicate prejudice of all sorts. That means challenging it when it rears its ugly head and not being afraid to shine a light into our own dark corners.

My old man’s favourite boxer said when he was drafted into the army at the time of the Vietnam war… 

'Why should they ask me to put on a uniform and go ten thousand miles from home and drop bombs and bullets on brown people in Vietnam while so called negro people in Louisville are treated like dogs and denied simple human right?' 

Ali called out the hypocrisy and racism he saw around him in 1960s America. I hope we all have the courage to do so in our own time.

Keep going

Keep going

This week saw alternative street names being stuck to the walls of buildings in some of Glasgow’s grander streets. The person or persons who stuck the new street names in place obviously has knowledge of the history of Glasgow as most were placed in streets named after Tobacco Lords. The new names spotted included Rosa Parks, Harriet Tubman, Sheku Bayoh and George Floyd.

Rosa was of course the courageous African American woman who in 1955 refused to sit at the back of the bus which was then the designated ‘coloured section.’ Her actions led to her arrest but set in motion the bus boycott in Montgomery, Alabama which in the end led to change. The courts declared that segregation on buses was unconstitutional and when the city appealed to the United States Supreme Court it too found the practice unconstitutional and ordered that the buses desegregate immediately. The post war civil rights movement had won a victory but the war against prejudice and oppression was far from over.

Harriet Tubman was born a slave in 1822 and was beaten and whipped regularly in her early life. On one occasion an angry slave owner threw a heavy metal weight at another slave but hit Harriet on the head causing her a severe wound and lifelong dizziness. She escaped slavery and made at least 13 missions to help free other slaves from the slave owning states and return then via the ‘underground railroad’ of safe houses to places of safety. She later served as a spy for the union army and was a life-long anti-slavery activist. She died aged 90 in 1913 having spent her life fighting slavery and racism.

Sheku Bayoh and George Floyd were two men who died at the hands of the Police; Sheku died here in Scotland and his death is still under investigation while George died in the USA. George’s death was recorded on a camera phone and posted online. It led to huge anger and demonstrations which continue to wrack the United States. The placing of Street signs bearing the names of these people on streets named after men whose fortunes were built on slavery was no accident.

The 1707 treaty of Union gave Scottish merchants access to the American colonies and this coincided with the deepening of the river Clyde. Being on the western fringe of Europe, Scottish ships had an advantage in that they could get to America more quickly than others and return with their cargoes of tobacco, cotton and sugar. It was tobacco though which led to vast fortunes being made especially after the French monarchy allowed Glasgow a monopoly to import tobacco into France. The ‘Tobacco Lords’ oversaw a boom which lasted 50 years and saw Glasgow expand hugely. Their names still linger on in street names and in the buildings built with the vast profits they made. Names such as Buchanan, Cochrane, Glassford, Oswald, Spiers and Dunlop are still visible in Glasgow as the city honoured them in their day by naming streets after them.

These wealthy men built huge houses and churches for themselves and today we can still see some of them. The current Gallery of Modern Art in Glasgow city centre was originally built as a private mansion for tobacco merchant William Cunninghame at a cost of £10,000 (£1.8m at today’s prices) in 1777. Modern Glaswegians may smile at the irreverent placing of traffic cones on the head of the statue of the Duke of Wellington which stands in front of the ‘GOMA’ but perhaps should also consider the beautiful building behind it was built by the profits of the slave economy which drove the tobacco trade.

Another tobacco Lord, John Glassford, had a grand family portrait painted which contained cryptic clues about how his fortune was made. In the portrait the family sit in Georgian splendour while some curious features have been added. A squirrel can be seen on the floor near John Glassford and represents industry and hard work. A parrot is in the window and represents the West Indies where Glassford had plantations. Indeed up to a third of slave plantations in Jamaica were owned by Scots. On the extreme left of the picture is the unmistakable and haunting image of a black slave boy.

St Andrew’s Parish Church, one of the finest 18^th century churches in Britain, sits today in St Andrew’s Square near Glasgow Green. It is an ostentatious and grand church by Presbyterian standards and was built at considerable expense by the tobacco merchants as a fitting place to worship. It was a very public demonstration of their wealth and these ‘Christian’ gentlemen obviously saw no contradiction between their faith and the evil practices of slavery upon which their wealth was built.

The American Revolution brought the tobacco boom to an end and ruined some of the tobacco lords. Others managed to retain their wealth and continued to prosper in the industrial revolution which followed. They left their mark on Glasgow and few questioned the immoral basis of their wealth until modern times. The trans-Atlantic slave trade saw millions of Africans brought across the sea in chains to endure lives of hardship and cruelty. Britain may have been to the fore of trying to end slavery but it cannot and must not obscure the role the country played in this wicked trade. Scotland profited from it too and it is heartening to see people educate themselves about what occurred in those years and how it echoes still in the lives of modern African-Americans today.

African Americans have made progress in the years since the abolition of slavery but they are still likely to be poorer, die younger, go to prison, be less well educated and be victims of crime. One recent report highlighted that the rate of incarceration in the USA was 1730 per hundred thousand for African Americans and 270 per hundred thousand for whites. That is to say African Americans are 6.4 times more likely to be imprisoned than whites. Study after study demonstrates the link between social disadvantage and poverty on crime figures yet little is done to cure the underlying causes of such disadvantage.

Here in Scotland we see that to a far less severe rate among the Catholic population. In 2001 Catholics made up 17% of the population but also made up 28% of the prison population. The 2011 census demonstrated that Catholics were almost twice as likely to live in areas of multiple-deprivation as the rest of the population and that link between deprivation and crime is clear. Catholics are not inherently more criminal than any other sector of society despite what some bigots say. They have also made great use of education as an engine of social mobility and now take a full part in every sector of Scottish life. It is of course hugely inappropriate to compare the disadvantage suffered by African Americans to that of Catholics (mostly of Irish descent) in Scotland as the sheer weight of historical prejudice bearing down on African Americans is vastly heavier, more insidious and longer lasting.

Some have argued for reparations and restorative justice to help the poorer communities of African Americans join the mainstream of society and not be left as a poor underclass. Better schools, homes, jobs opportunities and aspirations would be a start but it seems that a politically polarised USA isn’t listening. The anger being played out on the streets of America is being met with predictable brutality and adding fuel to the fire. History casts a long shadow in the land of the ‘free.’

The street signs in Glasgow will probably come down soon as they contravene local planning laws. It takes more than changing street names though to make real change in a society. Glasgow is a warm and welcoming city and has a social conscience too. Nelson Mandela once praised the city as the first to stand with him in his struggle against the apartheid regime in South Africa. Today a street bears his name too.

It can be hard to judge people who lived long ago using modern values but the tobacco lords for all their wealth must have known and in some cases seen with their own eyes, the suffering upon which their wealth was made. Those fine building which survive to this day were built on foundations of human misery and we should never forget that.

The struggle for equality and dignity is a never ending one. All societies will have wrongs which need righted and the good people who seek human advancement will always keep going.  As Harriet Tubman wrote all those years ago to escaping slaves…

“If you hear the dogs, keep going. If you see the torches in the woods, keep going. If there's shouting after you, keep going. Don't ever stop. Keep going. If you want a taste of freedom, keep going.”