Billys, Dans and Cossacks
The
years after World War One were difficult ones for the city of Glasgow. War
production was scaled down and factories, shipyards and munitions plants laid
off many workers. Men returned from military service to find work scarce and
social conditions often appalling. By 1932 over 20% of British workers were
unemployed. This at a time when social security was in its infancy and those
without work were barely given enough to live on. When you mix together this
cocktail of mass unemployment, poor housing and health, then throw into the mix
thousands of bored, workless young men drifting along in poverty, it’s a recipe
for trouble. As the difficult twenties turned into the hungry thirties, a
minority looked for a scapegoat to blame for the scarcity of work and, as is
their way in most societies, turned on the immigrant communities; the largest
of which was the Irish and their Scots-born offspring. The majority of this
community was Catholic, which added the sauce of sectarianism to the mix.
The
urban conurbation around Glasgow, Lanarkshire and Paisley was home to over
600,000 Catholics, the majority of Irish extraction. Many had proven their
worth by fighting for Britain in the First World War and some had paid the
ultimate price. A minority had supported the nationalist rebellion in Ireland
and the subsequent war of independence. This did not sit well with some of
their Scottish neighbours and heated further the flames of resentment some had
long harboured against them.
Glasgow,
like other cities in the UK, had long establish street gangs who periodically
caused mayhem in working class communities. As mass unemployment hit hard in
the years between the wars, the gang problem only got worse. Some gangs grew
until they had hundreds of members and clashes between rival gangs came to
resemble medieval battles. In working class communities, to this day, people
still remember the names of these gangs; the Tongs, the San Toi, the Cumbie,
the Shamrock, the Parlour boys, the Tim Malloys, the Fleet, the Beehive, the
South Side Stickies, the Norman Conks and of course, the Billy Boys. There were
many more and in the inter-war years their activities began to alarm the
chattering classes who urged the corporation to act.
The
city fathers brought in Percy Sillitoe, a tough Chief Constable who had
authorised the use of what he termed ‘reasonable force’ to break the grip of
the gangs in Sheffield. His Police unit in the Yorkshire city was known as the ‘Special
Duties Squad’ was made up of the toughest cops, men who were trained in Ju
Jitsu and given free reign to beat up anyone they suspected of being involved
with the gangs. Sillitoe had learned his trade in Colonial Police force in
Southern Africa, where the rights of suspects were routinely ignored. It was
here that he sired a secret child with a teenage African girl- a secret he took
to his grave.
When
he arrived in Glasgow, he gathered information on the gangs and set about
organising a group of the biggest, toughest cops he could find into a unit that
became known as ‘Sillitoe’s Cossacks.’ He had police cars fitted with radios so
that his ‘Cossacks’ could react quickly when trouble broke out. Previously, a
Police officer would have to run to a police box and phone for help. His ‘Cossacks,’
some on horseback and others hidden in large furniture vans, would be ready to
act when required. When they did wade into a gang fight, their long batons took
a heavy toll on anyone foolish enough to hang around. The gangs knew there was
a new force in town and one they had to reckon with.
In
the Bridgeton area of Glasgow, two of the biggest gangs and bitterest of
enemies had fought out battles for years. The Billy Boys, led by Billy Fullerton
were staunchly anti-Catholic in their outlook and had formed a gang, hundreds
strong. Their adversaries were the Norman Conks, who hailed from the area
around Norman Street. The ‘Conks’ were an Irish-Catholic gang who were
ferocious in the defence of their streets. They were led in the early 1930s by
a tough young man called ‘Bull’ Bowman, and were known for their trademark
weapon of choice- three feet long pick axe handles. The Glengarry area of
Bridgeton had also been home to displaced Scottish highlanders. Being mostly
Catholics too, they were no friends of Fullerton and his gang.
The
Billy Boys had their own Orange Band which took part in various parades in the
summer months. They liked nothing more than booming out their party tunes in
the Catholic streets near their fiefdom. This had often led to trouble as the
Conks were no shrinking violets and could rely on local people to open their
tenement windows and pelt the bandsmen with all manner of objects. When Percy
Sillitoe got wind of a plan by the Billy Boys to march through the very heart
of the Conks’ territory, he knew they had to be stopped or a riot might ensue.
Sillitoe knew well what happened when the orange bands tried to march in these
streets and said in his biography…
‘As
soon as the distant strains of his offensive music were heard by the Conks,
they manned all upper windows, and even the roofs in their street, and when the
Billy Boys’ band tried to march past, it was met with a downpour of bricks,
missiles, buckets of filth, and broken glass. If the Norman Conks could
have made boiling lead, I am sure they would not have hesitated to use that
too. It was certainly all that would have been needed to complete the picture
of a medieval siege.’
When
the bandsmen approached a line of police officers blocking their path, they and
hundreds of their belligerent followers pushed past them, planning on getting
into Norman Street via Celtic Park. It was then the police decided to act in a
more robust manner.
The
signal was given and the police poured from their vans, truncheons already
drawn. The horses carrying Sillitoe’s Cossacks moved in too and a ferocious
battle ensued. Fists flew, bottles were thrown but the bandsmen and their
followers were no match for the mounted units and the well-trained foot police
who used their batons to great effect. In the ensuing melee, the big Lambeg
drum carried by the band had its skin burst as the flailing batons of the
police drove back the crowd. Many were injured as the police sent the
interlopers back in the direction from which they had come. The days of the
gangs ignoring the forces of law and order were over.
The
battle which took place near Celtic Park was talked about for years afterwards
and took on an almost legendary allure. The gangs would never truly be
eradicated but as another war approached in the late 1930s, the young men of
Glasgow would be given ample outlet for their aggression. Today, there are only
echoes of those times in the streets of Glasgow’s east end. The massive slum
clearances of the post war years broke up teeming communities and sent their
people to soulless new estates or the new towns springing up around central Scotland.
Norman Street, Poplin Street and French Street, once vibrant, crowded areas are
still there but hugely depopulated. Ironically, today they sit behind the
modern Police Scotland, Clyde Gateway headquarters.
It was also in this area that the Sacred Heart School had been established in 1874. Its first headmaster had been a young Sligo man named Andrew Kerins. He is better known to us today by the name the Marist teaching order gave him- Brother Walfrid. He organised football matches on Barrowfield Park, which sat by French Street. These football matches raised funds he required to feed the children and unemployed of the area and often involved teams like Clyde, Dundee Harp or Hibernian.
In the end he saw the sense of forming a side in the east
end to help these worthy causes. He called his side Celtic.
