Reg McKay - McGraw. The Incredible Untold Story of Tam The Licensee McGraw

To the victims

The man with hunted eyes walked out into the sunlight and grimaced with fear. Before him were people calling for his attention. Men and women who wanted his life. His blood. He hunched his shoulders and took off.

His long-legged, staggering stride couldnt leave them behind. They called for him loud, asking questions, shoving cameras into his face. In his wake young men and women surrounded him, pushing the chasers away, smiling and staring. Still the chase went on through the streets of Edinburgh.

It was an odd place for the fugitive to be. Edinburgh, and in that place, that building, that court. Japanese tourists on the way to the Castle stopped and stared trying to work out who the man was. Some took photographs just in case.

He looked lost, afraid. Beside him a female friend led him by the sleeve, her calm stride keeping up with his wobbly rush with ease.

He made a sad sight. That body wracked and thin, a starved man among the muscled and fat. The shoulders hunched and stooped. A heavy weight resting on his shoulders. The hair, too big for his long, faint face. The suit too large for such a pained and wasted man. And those eyes. Those hunted eyes.

In there people would poison or stab him. Out here they would shoot him and kill him.

They reached a road crossing and the lights were against them. Our man looked flustered, lost as the traffic flowed thick and fast past him. He went to step out, his thick glasses and watery pupils letting him down. Or was it his need to escape?

A young woman held him back by the slightest grip on his sleeve. Whirled him round and pulled him back. He was helpless in this adult world. Reduced to being at the whim of anyone, just anyone.

Across the road more citizens stopped to watch. Who was that man, they wondered? The one in the over-large grey suit, whose shirt collar was three sizes too big, his cheekbones sunken and his eyes terrified? The one who looked like a prisoner of Dachau and walked liked a puppet who danced?

A terminal cancer patient in the last throes of his life? An escapee from a long-term mental hospital terrified by all that he saw? An old country boy taken to Edinburgh for the first time? For the last time?

The lights changed and while his followers growled at all around them he pranced across the road like Groucho Marx on speed.

His biggest mate reached out and smashed a camera. A young woman turned screaming and swearing at some men chasing in a car.

Soon they found their motors, piled in and drove off at speed. As the cars whizzed past, cameras zoomed and followed. Some people threw them the finger, others shouted and threatened. The man with the hunted eyes? He kept his head down like a fugitive on the hoof. Someone escaping some madness.

Who was he?

The most hated gangster in Glasgow. He was The Licensee.

Whits your name? The boy asking the question was around his height, good looking and gemme, as Glaswegians say. Cheeky, insolent, up for anything.

Eh, Ahm Tam, he replied nervously.

John, his young enquirer added. John Adams but you can call me Snaz.

Snaz? The other boy shrugged and smiled.

Its my gang name. And this is Drew. The larger but younger boy beside him nodded his head and grinned. Drew Drummond. Drew Drummond sounded like some kind of pop star like Buddy Holly. Like hed made it up. And Snaz just sounded too savvy for words. A gang name? That sounded the bees knees. Did he need one?

Tam McGraw, he continued though he had just made the McGraw bit up. His family were called McGrow and the youngster didnt like it. McGraw sounded a lot tougher. It was 1961 and boys wanted to seem tough back then. It was the time of Cowboy and Indian films, boxers as heroes, street gangs and men who had fought in the war telling their tales on street corners.

He was nine years old and it was his first day at Pendeen School. He shouldnt really be there. His family came from Calton but after his untimely entry to the world as the family set off for a summer break at Lennoxtown, there were just too many McGrows for their tiny tenement flat.

No problem. Tam got on well with his grandparents and a casual arrangement to stay with them now and then in their home in Barlanark soon became a long-term plan.

It was good having two places to go. He could hang around the old streets of the Calton of a weekend and get up to all sorts of badness. By the next day he was out of there and not coming back for many days. Maybe even a couple of weeks. Hard to catch a baddy when he leaves town fast.

McGraw knew a lot of kids around Barlanark, it being the rule of the day that children played outside at kick-the-can, leavo, peever or one of the hundred street games that everyone knew. Then again there was always football. But this was his first day at Pendeen School and like all young kids he was a bit anxious. Maybe he should get a gang name? First hed have to find a gang.

The three boys eyes flitted around the organised chaos of the playground packed with bodies in various shades of grey and navy and rested on a kid nearby. He was with his mates and they watched too as he carefully prised open a brand new packet of Spangles. The smell of sugary fruit floated towards them and all three silently lusted for a sweet. Just one sweet. The boy wasnt even handing them round his mates and they could see why.

The arse of his brown trousers was worn through showing pants that used to be white but were now some version of charcoal grey. The knees of the trousers had been torn where he had fallen several times too many and old, dark bloodstains marked one leg where some wound had leaked. His jumper was a handknitted affair and made for someone much bigger than him and a pink-wearing girl at that. Even that was unfurling at the hem that hung over his thighs and the v-neck had been ripped. The ensemble was topped off with a flea-ridden crewcut to the bone and heavy leather tackety boots upturned at the toes. The kids family was dirt poor, in other words. Anyone could see that. The Spangles were either a big treat or blagged from some nearby shop more likely. Why would he share them?

Theyre mine. An older and much bigger boy was standing close up to the lad pointing at the newly opened Spangles in his mitt. Gies them.

Aye, so Ah will, replied the lad perhaps more keen on eating the fruit flavoured gems than he was brave.

Think so? The older boy rammed his knee into the boys thigh, setting him grimacing and moaning. Now holding the sweets the boys attacker turned to the other lads nearby. Any of youse got a problem? Looking at the boy writhing from his dead leg their answer was plain silence.

You okay? Snaz asked the kid after a short while.

Naw Ahm no. Tears ran down his dirt streaked red cheeks as he rubbed at the injured thigh. That bastard needs seeing to. Suddenly he was on his feet and off after his bully.

FIGHT, the roar went up as one as happened in every school playground around the country almost every day. Young boys in shorts abandoned their games and rushed from every corner of the playground. Girls in their school skirts and others in whatever their parents could afford skipped excitedly and hung around at the edge of the crowd. In the centre of the melee the two boys stood trading punch for punch. The janitor was usually on watch, Pendeen not being the quietest of schools, but this was lunchtime and hed slipped back to his house near the school for a quick sandwich. If he wasnt keeping an eye on the playground from his window this fight could run a wee while.