Billy Connolly - Made In Scotland

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Epub ISBN: 9781473531673

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BBC Books, an imprint of Ebury Publishing,

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London SW1V 2SA

BBC Books is part of the Penguin Random House group of companies whose addresses can be found at global.penguinrandomhouse.com

Copyright 7 Wonder Productions, 2018

Cover design by Two Associates

Billy Connolly has asserted his right to be identified as the author of this Work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

This book is published to accompany the television series entitled Made in Scotland first broadcast on BBC in 2018. Made in Scotland is a 7 Wonder production. Directed by Mike Reilly, Managing Director: Blake Chaplin.

First published by BBC Books in 2018

www.eburypublishing.co.uk

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN 9781785943706

Where do you come from?

Its one of the most basic human questions of all. Luckily, it is easily answered what kind of prick doesnt know where they were born? But there is another question, which might sound a wee bit similar but is actually very different:

What do you come from?

And, let me tell you, that question can take you all sorts of strange places

Last year, just in case you didnt know, I was knighted. On 31 October 2017, I went down to Buckingham Palace and Prince William put his sword on both of my shoulders and made me Sir William Connolly CBE. I got it for services to entertainment and charity. When I was young, I would have hated the very idea of being given a knighthood. The hippy Billy Connolly would have thought it was all nonsense. But Ive mellowed as Ive got older and I have come to appreciate being given things by people. If somebody or other in authority wants to tell me, Youre very good, therefore youre entitled to this, it is a charitable act. They are doing it for the very best reasons and to turn it down would be churlish, in my opinion. Just take it. Be nice and appreciate it.

So, I took it and I said, Thank you. Its not like having a knighthood has made any great difference to my life. I dont spend my days now hanging out with other goodly knights or rescuing damsels in distress. The only thing that it has changed is some peoples attitudes towards me. I have noticed that some people get a great delight from calling me Sir Billy: Sir Billy, will you do this, please? Well, good luck to them, but it doesnt really mean anything to me.

In any case, if I am honest, I didnt really cover myself in glory when I got knighted. Prince William asked me a few questions but I was very nervous, and what with that and my Parkinsons disease, my mouth suddenly stopped working at the most inopportune moment. I flubbered and I bejabbered. The prince asked me something, fuck knows what it was, and I said, Flabgerbelbarbeghghghgh. Honestly, he must think I am a complete simpleton. Id love to meet him again to apologise, and to show him that Im not a total idiot.

After my knighthood was announced, a woman from the BBC came to Glasgow to interview me. We sat down in a lovely hotel in a nice part of town, and she hit me with her first question:

This must mean a lot to you, with you coming from nothing?

I looked at her, and I laughed.

I didnae come from nothing, I told her. I come from something.

I mean, I have never hidden that I come from humble stock. I grew up in the tenements of post-war Glasgow. In fact, I used to specify exactly where, onstage: it was on a kitchen floor, on the linoleum, three floors up. The early years of my life were spent in grinding poverty but it wasnt nothing. It was something something very important. There is this viewpoint that if you have come from the working class you have come from nothing, whereas the middle and upper classes are something, and I dont hold with that opinion. I think the working class is something. It is everything. They are the builders of society, and without them the whole house falls down.

I am very proud to be working class, and especially a working-class Glaswegian who has worked in the shipyards. It is something, and dont you forget it. I come from something. I come from the working class. And, most of all, I come from Scotland.

Its weird how I always get so closely linked with Scotland. I am probably more famous for being a Glaswegian than for anything I have actually done. Yet I dont mind this focus in fact, I enjoy it and I understand it. I have always sounded very Scottish. Nobody is ever going to mistake where I come from. And when I started out, my humour was totally bound up in Scotland and Scottishness. How could it not be? It was what I knew. It was all that I knew.

I love Scotland, with a fierce passion that has never dimmed. I love talking about Scotland and, most of all, I love being there. I have lived in America for many years now, but I have never stopped feeling Scottish. Nearly twenty years ago, in a book that she wrote about me, my wife, Pamela, said, Billy is constantly drawn back to Scotland. Its as though hed fade into depression without a regular fix. Well, its as true now as it was then. I need to feed from Scotland from the land, and from the fierce craic of the people.

Its a strange thing to be proud of where you come from. It doesnt really make any sense. After all, its not something that you have earned or worked for its a simple accident of birth. But being Scottish is a very lovely thing. Scotland is a unique and wonderful place. Its national motto says a lot about it: Nemo me impune lacessit. You will not strike me with impunity. A decent translation might be: By all means punch me in the nose but prepare yourself for a kick in the arse. J. P. Donleavy explained it well: Ill thank you not to fuck about with me. Its also notable that the national animal of Scotland is a unicorn. Occasionally, people say to me, But thats a mythical animal! To which I answer, Oh, yeah? Youll be telling me the Loch Ness Monster is mythical next! And that is Scotland in a nutshell.

Glasgow made me, but I love all of Scotland. Theres a beauty and an intensity there it is hard to find anywhere else in the world. The west coast of Scotland, and the Highlands and islands, are probably still my favourite places on the planet. My long-time manager, Steve Brown, who sadly died in 2017, was a farmer for years and he used to tell me how he got great spiritual strength from the soil. He used to sink his arms into it, right up to the elbows, and draw comfort from it. I guess thats how I feel about Scotland. Its a very lovable place.

I would love Scotland just as much even if I didnt come from there. Luckily, Im steeped in the country and in its culture, which I have absorbed over so many decades. I mean, Im seventy-five years old now.