I was talking to a fellow dog-walker this morning in Butts and we were agreeing that the size of a dog was no indication of its spirit or attitude to life, in fact the shorter the legs the more stroppy they can be! I made the observation that this also applied to people and this thought triggered a memory of a good story which, though it is not directly Barlick based might interest you....
In my days of tramp driving all over Britain I had a regular load of ten tons of bagged ground barytes from the Arran Barytes Company in Glasgow for Cook's Explosives at Penrhyndeudraeth in North Wales where it was used as a filler to make gelignite, an interesting story in itself. It was dusty work loading the bags and so I used to back my wagon into the works and leave the lads to load it for me when 3/- changed hands. To pass the time away I had a bottle of Guinness and a smoke in a bar in Dalintober Street just outside the works run by a man from Doncaster who had been in Glasgow for so long he was known as 'Jock'.
I was having my quiet drink in there one day when two dockers came in for their lunchtime wet. One was a big man, the other was not much over five feet tall. It wasn't long before they got into a heated argument which culminated in the small man taking his cloth cap off, taking his teeth out, carefully placing them in the cap and jabbing the big bloke in the chest. “You! Outside!” All went quiet as they left and we were having a quiet conversation about life in general when the small man came back in, replaced his teeth and cap and drank both his drink and the big bloke's who never reappeared. It was quite obvious that though small, the man was fierce!
On another occasion in the same bar I went in one day and two men were fighting. After a while I said to Jock “Shouldn't we try to calm them down?” He said, “How long is it since you saw two hunchbacks having a fight?” I know that this isn't polite language today but remember this was fifty years ago and Jock was right, both men had deformed spines. I have never seen anything like that since and it is still fresh in my memory. Then, in the same bar, there was the woman who used to come in with a soap box on wheels and buy amazing quantities of spirits. Jock told me she was the runner for a poker game nearby which had been running since the war years..... I love Glasgow!
So always remember, just because someone is vertically challenged you should never assume they are a push-over. Some of the most aggressive and active people I have ever met have come into the category and like small dogs, should be treated with respect!
Cooke's Explosives in 1995
