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The Incredible Rise Of A Gorbals Gangster
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Book Synopsis The Incredible Rise of a Gorbals Gangster by : Colin MACFARLANE
Download or read book The Incredible Rise of a Gorbals Gangster written by Colin MACFARLANE and published by . This book was released on 2019-10-24 with total page 512 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Johnny McGrath, 21, was the leader of the notorious Glasgow razor gang The Gorbals Cumbie. He feared no-one, but was feared by many. This book follows his trials and tribulations as he led his gang into open warfare against other Glasgow gangs like the Tongs. Apart from fighting, he was not only recognised to be a bit of a street icon but a sex symbol with the young ladies. We follow his incredible rise from a wild street boy to a top notch gangster. This novel is based on a conglomeration of Gorbals characters, many of whom are no longer with us, but some are. The gang's battle cry was "Cumbie ya bass!" and struck terror into the hearts of many of those who heard it. This is a true life novel with violence, sex, Glaswegian humour, and madness on every page. It is probably the best novel about Glasgow gangs ever written.
Book Synopsis City of Gangs: Glasgow and the Rise of the British Gangster by : Andrew Davies
Download or read book City of Gangs: Glasgow and the Rise of the British Gangster written by Andrew Davies and published by Hachette UK. This book was released on 2013-08-15 with total page 469 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: **Includes fascinating stories about Billy Fullerton, leader of the Billy Boys, featured in the latest series of BBC's Peaky Blinders** 'A new type of criminal is in our midst - a dangerous, ruthless, well-armed man, who will stick at nothing, not even murder. He is introducing into this country the gangster methods of Chicago and New York... Trade depression has thrown into unemployment thousands of unskilled youths who have nothing to do but lounge about the street corners of our slums in gangs.' John Bull weekly newspaper, 1932. During the 1920s and 1930s, Glasgow gained an unenviable and enduring notoriety as Britain's gang city - the 'Scottish Chicago'. Now Andrew Davies, author of the acclaimed The Gangs of Manchester, brings to life the reign of terror exerted on Glasgow by gangs like the Billy Boys, the Kent Star, the Savoy Arcadians and the South Side Stickers. Out of the most dilapidated and overcrowded tenements in Britain, stepped young men and women dressed like Hollywood gangsters and their molls. On the city's streets, they took centre stage in dramas of their own making, fighting territorial battles laced with religious sectarianism and running protection rackets modelled on those of the American underworld. Drawing on fifteen years of original research, Andrew Davies provides compelling portraits of legendary figures such as 'Razor King' John Ross and Billy Fullerton, leader of the Billy Boys - described as the 'Al Capone' of the city's East End. He sheds new light on the way the city's police and judiciary dealt with the gangs and reveals the fascinating role played by the media in creating myths of the underworld. During what the Daily Express described as 'The War on the Gang', Glasgow's police were led by Chief Constable Percy Sillitoe (who later became head of M15), determined to maintain the image as a tough, gang-busting cop he had forged in Sheffield during the 1920s. This dramatic story, played out against the backdrop of the most volatile of Britain's cities, provides a new window onto the most turbulent period in modern British history and a timely reminder of how deprivation, unemployment and religious bigotry are a toxic cocktail in any era.
Book Synopsis Gorbals Diehards by : Colin MacFarlane
Download or read book Gorbals Diehards written by Colin MacFarlane and published by Random House. This book was released on 2011-03-25 with total page 200 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Enid Blyton wrote about the Famous Five - wholesome kids who were always up to some adventure or other - but during the 1960s Glasgow boy Colin MacFarlane had his own gang: the Incredible Gorbals Diehards. These were young boys trying to survive in one of the world's toughest areas, the infamous slums of Glasgow. During the gang's daily adventures, they came across a plethora of undesirable characters, including foul-mouthed drunks, thieves, razor-flicking gang members, con men, fly men and street brawlers. Through it all, MacFarlane and his band of brothers retained their sense of humour while roaming the filthy, stench-ridden Gorbals backstreets. In the third volume of his acclaimed memoirs, bestselling author Colin MacFarlane reveals what it was like to grow up on the streets of the Gorbals during this period. Be prepared to be shocked and entertained at the adventures of the gang that called themselves the Incredible Gorbals Diehards.
Book Synopsis The Real Gorbals Story by : Colin MacFarlane
Download or read book The Real Gorbals Story written by Colin MacFarlane and published by Random House. This book was released on 2011-07-22 with total page 181 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Colin MacFarlane was born in the Gorbals in the 1950s, 20 years after the publication of No Mean City, the classic novel about pre-war life in what was once Glasgow's most deprived district. He lived in the same street as its fictional 'razor king', Johnnie Stark, and subsequently realised that a lot of the old characters represented in the book were still around as late as the 1960s. Men still wore bunnets and played pitch and toss; women still treated the steamie as their social club. The razor gangs were running amok once again, and filth, violence, crime, rats, poverty and drunkenness abounded, just like they did in No Mean City. MacFarlane witnessed the last days of the old Gorbals as a major regeneration programme, begun in 1961, was implemented, and, as a street boy, he had a unique insight into a once great community in rapid decline. In this engrossing book, MacFarlane reveals what it was really like to live in the old Gorbals.
Book Synopsis Write Out of the Classroom by : Colin Macfarlane
Download or read book Write Out of the Classroom written by Colin Macfarlane and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-10-15 with total page 263 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Write Out of the Classroom is a ground-breaking, highly practical book which provides teachers and creative writing tutors with great ways of tapping into the huge inspirational and educational potential of the richly diverse world beyond the classroom walls. Effective learning occurs when the process feels exciting, inspiring and ‘real’, and there is nothing more stimulating and ‘real’ than the real world itself. Working with groups in interesting and evocative settings can generate exceptional participant involvement. Well-led ‘locational brainstorming’ in such places increases vocabulary and produces an astonishing freshness of observation, ideas, language, plot and metaphor. Teachers commonly notice a quantum leap in writing quality arising from these sessions. Based on the author’s extensive experience in developing and leading out-of-classroom ‘intelligent observation’ and writing workshops, this unique book steers educators through the subtleties of guiding thoughtful data collection sessions in varied environments; selecting appropriate and motivational places and forms of writing, and running sessions linked to specific creative and factual writing tasks. The book covers the following areas and techniques and how they relate to out-of-classroom work: planning outings and choosing locations; leading language and ideas brainstorm sessions; descriptive poetry inspired by outdoor settings; ‘reflective haikus’, cinquains, and minimalist poetry; creating stunning plots and storylines; collective story writing; fictitious diary forms; descriptive travel writing; understanding poetry’s mechanics and sound patterns; assisting students with editing. This detailed, practical book also contains examples of remarkable student creative writing produced through these techniques, as well as photocopiable pages which include original examples of specific writing forms to model from, explanatory diagrams, helpful checklists and handy teachers’ ‘crib sheets’. Write out of the Classroom is the perfect ‘insider's guide’ to teaching and inspiring creative writing. It is an essential tool for classroom teachers in both Primary and Secondary schools, creative writing tutors, literacy co-ordinators and PGCE students, as well as leaders in residential centres and forest schools.
Book Synopsis No Mean Glasgow by : Colin MacFarlane
Download or read book No Mean Glasgow written by Colin MacFarlane and published by Random House. This book was released on 2011-03-11 with total page 221 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In his last book, The Real Gorbals Story, Colin MacFarlane detailed how he witnessed a once great area, home to wonderful characters and grand old buildings, disappear before his eyes. By the time MacFarlane's tenement was knocked down in the early 1970s, he had left school and been rehoused in another part of the city. In an attempt to extricate himself from his Gorbals gang days, he took a job as an apprentice chef at one of Glasgow's top restaurants, where he soon discovered that his colleagues were just as insane as those he had mixed with on the city streets. Meanwhile, MacFarlane struggled to integrate into the more affluent area that his family had been moved to and soon found himself returning to his old haunts and back in trouble again. In No Mean Glasgow, MacFarlane charts his eventful, fun-packed passage from Gorbals street boy to grown man on the brink of a new beginning. He describes his adventures with a mixture of humour, sadness and delight. It is a book for those people living all over the world who remember the old Glasgow - a city teeming with warmth, passion, patter and characters who could brighten up even the darkest of days.
Download or read book Our Story written by Reginald Kray and published by Pan Macmillan. This book was released on 2015-08-27 with total page 268 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: London's most notorious gangsters, in their own words . . . The Sunday Times Top Ten Bestseller. The Kray twins were Britain's most notorious gangsters. Ruling London's underworld for more than a decade, as gang lords they were among the most powerful and feared men in the city. Photographed by David Bailey and even interviewed for television, they became celebrities in their own right and are infamous to this day. Ronnie and Reg's reign of terror ended on 8 March 1969 when they were sentenced to life with the recommendation that they serve at least thirty years. Ronnie ended his days in Broadmoor – his raging insanity only controlled by massive doses of drugs. Reg served almost three decades in some of Britain's toughest jails before being released on compassionate grounds in August 2000. He died of cancer eight months later. Compiled from a series of interviews with Fred Dinenage from behind prison walls, Our Story is the classic account that explodes the myths surrounding the Kray twins. In it, the twins set the record straight. In their own words they tell the full story of their brutal career of crime and their years behind bars. With an introduction from Fred Dinenage, this compelling, disturbing and highly readable book is the definitive story of two legendary criminals.
Book Synopsis Gangsters, Killers and Me by : Gerard Gallacher
Download or read book Gangsters, Killers and Me written by Gerard Gallacher and published by Black & White Publishing. This book was released on 2011-11-08 with total page 430 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Gerard Gallacher served as a police officer in Glasgow from the 1980s and three decades onwards. It was the time when drugs seized hold of the city and a new set of ruthless criminals were threatening to take control. There was still the usual violence of the city to deal with, including domestic violence, gang warfare and robbery, but it was the huge increase in drug use that defined the times and led to many of the most notorious incidents in the city's criminal past. And Gerard Gallacher was in the thick of the action. As a detective, Gallacher knew and dealt with all the major criminals of the times; including Arthur Thompson and his son Arthur Jnr, Tam McGraw, Paul Ferris, Joe Hanlon and Bobby Glover. He gave evidence at Ferris' murder trial, he discovered that Arthur Thomson was a Security Services asset and was the first detective on the scene when Hanlon and Glover were murdered. He delivered the police warning to infamous criminal Frank McPhie to tell him that his life was in danger, a warning that went unheeded.Gallacher was also involved in countless other high profile investigations, including the notorious drugs feud between former friends Tony McGovern and James Stevenson which ended in assassination. This is a compelling account of a police career at the sharp end of the action by a detective who wouldn't toe the line. And as well as giving his forthright views on the less than exemplary conduct of some senior officers, Gallacher now reveals what really happened behind the scenes in some of the country's most high profile cases.
Download or read book Van Wars written by Teddy Rennoc and published by . This book was released on 2019-03-09 with total page 254 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The real story of the Glasgow Ice Cream Van Wars, Tam McGraw was on a mission. He wanted to destroy Marchetti. However, first, Tam had to test the waters. So he started with Carntyne one of Marchetti's most lucrative routes. McGraw went for the jugular right from the start. He knew Marchetti would not give in easily, They would defend their territory, but they were about to suffer brutality and destruction that they could never have imagined in their wildest nightmares. McGraw planned to be the Ice Cream King of Scotland, and Carntyne is where he would lay the foundations of his throne. Nothing or no one would stand in his way.Written in a broad Glaswegian dialect with a lot of swearing, the author writes as he speaks. This book might not be suitable for those who prefer perfect grammar and proper English.
Book Synopsis The Glasgow Curse by : William Lobban
Download or read book The Glasgow Curse written by William Lobban and published by Birlinn. This book was released on 2013-10-03 with total page 349 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This chilling and disturbing memoir tells the story of one of Glasgow's most notorious criminals. In his own words, William Lobban tells how he was born in Exeter Prison to a violent, schizophrenic mother. His upbringing in the East End of Glasgow was just as bleak, and he ended up in care, destined for a life of violence and insecurity. Aged only 15 he masterminded a daring break-in to a Glasgow pub, and many years of armed robberies, dealing class A drugs and gang fights followed. When he wasn't causing mayhem on the streets, Lobban was serving terms in various young offenders' institutions and prisons, where he was involved in some of the most serious prison riots of recent years. In the course of his criminal career Lobban became closely associated with the infamous Paul Ferris, who was later to incriminate him as the murderer of fellow gangster Arthur Thompson Jr. Police also believed that Lobban was the man behind the brutal double killing of Bobby Glover and Joe 'Bananas' Hanlon, but none of these charges was made to stick. Finally released from prison in 1998, Lobban decided to walk away from a life of crime, but at first it proved impossible for him to break the way of life that had moulded him, and only in recent years has he found a measure of peace and stability. In this searing expose of the Glasgow underworld he reveals the true facts behind those crimes which he really committed, and those of which he is falsely accused.
Download or read book A Sense of Freedom written by Jimmy Boyle and published by Random House. This book was released on 2016-04-07 with total page 362 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Foreword by Irvine Welsh 'My life sentence had actually started the day I left my mother's womb...' Jimmy Boyle grew up in Glasgow’s Gorbals. All around him the world was drinking, fighting and thieving. To survive, he too had to fight and steal... Kids’ gangs led to trouble with the police. Approved schools led to Borstal, and Jimmy was on his way to a career in crime. By his twenties he was a hardened villain, sleeping with prostitutes, running shebeens and money-lending rackets. Then they nailed him for murder. The sentence was life – the brutal, degrading eternity of a broken spirit in the prisons of Peterhead and Inverness. Thankfully, Jimmy was able to turn his life around inside the prison walls and eventually released on parole. A Sense of Freedom is a searing indictment of a society that uses prison bars and brutality to destroy a man's humanity and at the same time an outstanding testament to one man's ability to survive, to find a new life, a new creativity, and a new alternative.
Download or read book Murder Capital written by Reg McKay and published by Black & White Publishing. This book was released on 2006 with total page 244 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A warm welcome or a blade in the guts - it's the contradiction that makes Glasgow unique. Tourists and natives alike love Glasgow's people, the social scene, the music. Millions of visitors come to the city every year and most feel safe. Yet you're twice as likely to be murdered in Glasgow as you are in London and more likely to die violently there than in Belfast, Paris or Berlin. In Murder Capital, Reg McKay, who loves the city and knows about crime from the inside, offers up forty modern murder cases. This collection of tales, all bloody, all violent and all true, graphically explores how the city has earned its unenviable title of Murder Capital of Europe. Faces with names like 'The Birdman', 'The Iceman' and 'The Equaliser' populate Glasgow's gangland - some do the killing, others are on the receiving end. In 'Kissing Cousins', two men play football with a decapitated head. 'Two Up' features the tough, lesbian prostitute who took on too much. There are deadly honey traps, a politician whose daughter is doped and slain, bodies disposed of in council incinerators, deaths that have been treated as suicides in the full knowledge that they are in fact murder victims, neighbours whose trivial squabbles erupt into death, kids in the playground who target disabled women, drunken and drug-fuelled fights that end in murder - the sordid depravity seems to know no bounds. Some of the names of those involved will be familiar but many will come as a surprise. Murder Capital highlights some of the most sickening murders to be committed anywhere in the world and presents new information pertaining to them. Murder is a very real part of everyday urban life and, if we fail to understand who kills and why, we fail to understand life. Nowhere is this more true than in Glasgow - Murder Capital of Europe.
Book Synopsis A Glasgow Gang Observed by : James Patrick
Download or read book A Glasgow Gang Observed written by James Patrick and published by Severn House Paperbacks. This book was released on 2013-04 with total page 236 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the 1960's a 26-year-old schoolmaster at a Scottish reformatory (List D) School, under the alias of James Patrick, went undercover with the help of one of his pupils to study the often violent behaviour of the teenagers in a gang in Glasgow. This book became one of the first published observations of a Glasgow gang. This new 3rd edition features a new preface from the author.
Book Synopsis No Mean City by : Alexander McArthur
Download or read book No Mean City written by Alexander McArthur and published by Random House. This book was released on 1984 with total page 323 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: No book is more associated with the city of Glasgow than No Mean City. First published in 1935, it is the story of Johnnie Stark, son of a violent father and a downtrodden mother, the 'Razor King' of Glasgow's pre-war slum underworld, the Gorbals. The savage, near-truth descriptions, the raw character portrayals, bring to life a story that is fascinating, authentic and convincing.
Book Synopsis Hero of the Underworld by : Jimmy Boyle
Download or read book Hero of the Underworld written by Jimmy Boyle and published by . This book was released on 1999 with total page 228 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: After ten hard years inside, Hero is out. Released into a mystifying and dangerous world of small time crooks, bad jobs and sleazy accommodation, he slowly starts to fight back. Hero leads a gang of ex-mental health patients-Lockjaw, Bonecrusher and Sligo-in a stand against the might of the underworld. His outlandish plans to thwart his persecutors escalate from stealing a prize bull, to grand theft, and on to the most dangerous heist in town. By the end, Hero will either be free at last, or six feet under. Hero of the Underworld is a darkly humorous, uplifting tale of redemption. Jimmy Boyle was born in 1944 and raised in the Gorbals, a notorious project of Glasgow. He embarked on a life of crime, eventually being sentenced at the age of twenty-three for a murder he did not commit. In prison, he took up art and since his release in 1982 has become a sculptor of world repute. The Hard Man, a musical based on Jimmy Boyle's life will open on Broadway in spring 2001.
Download or read book Life in the Gorbals written by Kate Donne and published by . This book was released on 2018-10-19 with total page 208 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Bobby Muldoon Trilogy is the story of young Bobby 'Chicken Legs' Muldoon. Set in The Gorbals, Glasgow in the late sixties it follows Bobby as he meets one life crisis after another. However, Bobby is a Gorbals boy through and through and, despite his lack of confidence, he overcomes every obstacle in his path with determination and a sharp, witty sense of humour. The trilogy has been described as a heartwarming and hysterical journey for the reader.Kate Donne lives in Dollar, Clackmannanshire with her Welsh husband, Steve. She graduated from the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland with a BA Degree in Dramatic Studies and has spent many years working in the arts. She now runs her own personal development consultancy.
Book Synopsis A New Kind of Bleak: Journeys Through Urban Britain by : Owen Hatherley
Download or read book A New Kind of Bleak: Journeys Through Urban Britain written by Owen Hatherley and published by Verso Books. This book was released on 2012-07-31 with total page 435 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An anatomy of failed-state Britain, by the author of A Guide to the New Ruins of Great Britain. In A Guide to the New Ruins of Great Britain, Owen Hatherley skewered New Labour’s architectural legacy in all its witless swagger. Now, in the year of the Diamond Jubilee and the London Olympics, he sets out to describe what the Coalition’s altogether different approach to economic mismanagement and civic irresponsibility is doing to the places where the British live. In a journey that begins and ends in the capital, Hatherley takes us from Plymouth and Brighton to Belfast and Aberdeen, by way of the eerie urbanism of the Welsh valleys and the much-mocked splendour of modernist Coventry. Everywhere outside the unreal Southeast, the building has stopped in towns and cities, which languish as they wait for the next bout of self-defeating austerity. Hatherley writes with unrivalled aggression about the disarray of modern Britain, and yet this remains a book about possibilities remembered, about unlikely successes in the midst of seemingly inexorable failure. For as well as trash, ancient and modern, Hatherley finds signs of the hopeful country Britain once was and hints of what it might become.
