GOURLEY

Alan to his mum, dad and sister, but Gourley to everyone else. Aka Groolee or Goursbert or Mr G or Underling G or G or Cloppersniddy Simon or Cousin Gitt or Swami Bagwyn or Girlie or JA Globbits The Night Poet. Let’s just say he was known by many, and to many, and I think I may have had one too many, Moneypenny. Hi. I’m Wee Hugh. Aka Webber Duckbill or Huberty Puberty or Shug or Plumjaws or Jowels or Hugh The Driver or Webster The Happy Spider Wobblecheeks Fountainnose Hamsterjaws. Humorous wordplay was G’s forte. “Reggie Perrin” and Ronnie Barker were big influences there. He wrote the songs, the nicknames and the script throughout our teenage years and there’ll be more of that, and more fun from his later years, at the end. There were never any awkward silences when he was around. Awkward noises sometimes but never awkward silences. Peter Osgood was good, was one of his favourite gourleyisms, which brings us neatly to . . .

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FOOTBALL

He supported Dumbarton through thin and thin with his great pal Andy the Barman whom he simply summed up as “the funniest guy ever”. For a time Gourley played centre forward for Hillington, the whipping boys of the Paisley and District League. Hillington had a semi-mythical manager called Alan the Porter who was always good for a [sheepskin] coat and a quote. G did a superb impersonation of him. If A the P were still around today he would be adding his pithy comments. “Groolee deid? Aye. I could well believe it. He’s no been playin’ well recently. Aye.”

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THE BAND

Gourley wanted to be in a rock band from the age of thirteen. He fulfilled that ambition in his thirties. An early release (Perhaps, it was “Safety in Numbers” though I’m not too sure about that) by The Adverts on John Peel was the song that made him determined to become a “rock star” one day and, he dreamt, leave behind a musical legacy. G was a scream at times. He liked to say he was a “rock star”. Then he would add – a “local rock star”, Glasgow area, never a “world rock star”. Then he would add – Well, we did play Edinburgh once and we were well known in Tappietoories in Dunfermline, so let’s settle on “regional rock star” and leave it at that. Teehee. The band he was in for fifteen years was Liar’s Edge. Alongwith Damien the singer, he was a founder member. G was chief songwriter and rhythm guitarist then played lead when they went to a four-piece. He thought he, the bassist and the lead guitarists were good but emphasised that Damien and the drummer were “just superb”, the best in Scotland at the time. They gave it a good shot, had great fun, but eventually called it a day. They played high intensity rock. I saw them play the Cathouse once and it was really bouncing. He liked to say he nipped some beautiful women and sometimes they nipped him, played in a rock band, did everything he set out to do, became a “regional” rock star; and as a consequence signed a lot of tits. The estimated number of tits signed increased with every telling!

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WOMEN

His “raven-haired beauties” were all special to him. There was Margaret, Jenny, Cat, Lesley, Sharon, Rona, Sheila, Nikki (fair-haired beauty), Sonia and Heather (his Wee Hevski). He married Rona but it was short-lived because he realised he did not really want to settle down and have kids, but he never had a bad word to say about her. He cheated at golf (constantly) but he never cheated on any of his women. Sonia was the love of his life. She was better known as The Ringer aka The Ashton Ringer or The Woman Behind The Telly. Their first year together was a dream, their last year together a nightmare. At that point in time Gourley was off his trolley, not to mince words. After the split he spent a month in a brutal homeless shelter in Partick and a year in a wonderful Halfway House in Parkhead. He didn’t want his elderly mum to see him in such a state so chose the homeless route rather than going home to her and being a burden. On a bridge over the Clyde he contemplated suicide.

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In the ten years since that breakdown he has been generally upbeat but never quite the super-confident Gourley of old. He lived his later life online, rarely going out except to his local, the Bon Accord in Glasgow. His major problem has been agoraphobia which increased as the years went by. Agoraphobia cannot be cured in the virtual world as it requires going out that pesky contrivance, your front door. When he developed leg problems last year those around him pleaded with him to see a doctor but he would not. He was a great talker but a rather poor listener.

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Gourley could talk. He could talk for Scotland . . . England, Germany and Brazil. He spent huge chunks of his last ten years counselling others online who were suffering from depression. He said it was something he had to do. He called it Music Therapy. He would share music with those he counselled as a starting point. His knowledge of the punk era was encyclopedic. Roads to hell are often paved with good intentions. He did WANT to do good but did he DO good? Yes. A mutual friend who knew a boy on crystal meths he counselled years ago says there is living proof that he did. His friends got Music Therapy Lite when they visited his flat in Anderston. Everybody chose a song in turn long into the night and we all played Groolee’s Music Game.

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MUSIC

He loved high energy punky rock. He said he could watch The Ramones 1978 New Year gig every day for the rest of his life and never tire of it. I hasten to add he did not do that, nor do I recommend any of our younger readers do that, unless, of course, your daddy likes men.

When I was in a flat with him in Charing Cross he was starting to compose the instrumental stuff that came to fruition after he left the band twenty years later. The early inspiration for his finger-picking style was Mike Oldfield and when he finally recorded it Nick Drake was also a big influence. The stuff he was working on the year before last (Hall of Spiders/Nee Naw Songs) was less Oldfieldy and hardly Drakey at all. Slightly simpler but unmistakably him. Melodic and calming. But I’m not here to talk about G’s serious stuff, I’m here to tell you about the stuff you won’t find on the website, his silly side. We loved singing silly songs by The Two Ronnies. I had the Corbett parts, he the Barker, and I’m not talking about the songs! Here’s one:

Oh Raquel Welch I love your left

Doodah, doodah

I sit and think of Raquel’s left doodah all the day

Is it bigger than the right?

It’s very hard to say

But that’s the one that’ll get my vote on National Doodah Day

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HAPPY MEMORIES & BRIGHT IDEAS

Gourley was full of bright ideas. Around him, funny stuff happened. Here’s a selection.

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JUNIOR GOLFERS

We played golf at West Kilbride with Taf. Aka Cuth Lamppost or Troublesome Cuthbert or The Lamboblaster or Backwards Fat Buddha or Billy Bunker or Haliburton Whore. Take your pick. I’m calling him Taf today. So Taf has this great idea for a gag to play on the old farts in the clubhouse. G loved being the centre (forward) of attention so naturally he had to do the punchline. The old farts would gather at the big windows of the bar to watch proceedings on the 18th green. I putted out. Gourley took my ball out the hole and threw it to me. I caught it. Then Taf putted out. I took his ball out the hole and threw it to him and he caught it. Then Gourley putted out. Taf pretended to take Gourley’s ball out the hole but instead he had a lightweight plastic golfball concealed in his hand and chucked that as far up in the air as he could. Gourley, who was good in the air, headed the ball downwards and ran off like he’d scored a goal. We mobbed him with congratulations. We were highly amused. No idea what the old farts made of it.

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TEENAGERS IN ARRAN

So there we were up Glen Rosa. Away from parental control for the first time in our lives. Larking about round a campfire singing “I’m in love with Margaret Thatcher” by the Notsensibles, a song taught to us by G. But where was Gourley? I looked in his tent. Guess what he was doing. That’s right. He was reading a novel about a Swedish parapsychologist called Dr Füchs-Kramer. He was so bloody predictable.

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IRISH HOLIDAYS

We were in this old wreck of a car hired from an Arthur Daley lot in Belfast called Carriageway Cars. It was the height of The Troubles, Irish euphemism for Civil War. We’d been to see Neil Young in Dublin. Luckily he was in! Teehee. In the back Jamie was stoned out his nut. Hugh The Driver was driving and Gourley The Pisshead was navigating. Three in the morning. A dead still, black night. Big queue at the border to get back into Northern Ireland. A silent and tense atmosphere. Being a total nincompoop, I accidentally peeped the horn. Jamie screams at me: What the fuck did you do that for? As I was demonstrating to Jamie how easy it was to brush against the horn cos it was in the middle of the steering wheel, I peeped it again. Woops. Jamie is hooting with laughter. The soldiers with rifles were now in no doubt which car in the line was taking the proverbial. Five minutes on with Jamie trying to hold a serious face we finally got to the checkpoint. I wound the window down. A soldierboy with a rifle asks me: What’s your name? I tell him my name. Then he asks me where I got the car from. I say Carriageway Cars. Then the soldierboy suddenly springs a question on Gourley. Name? says the soldier. In a panic but quick-as-a-flash Gourley spurts out Carriageway Cars. No, your name, I mean, says the soldier. Jamie in the back is hooting with laughter again as the soldier waves us through. A little known fact is that Alan Gourley’s real name was Carriageway Cars.

We needlessly interrupt this eulogy to report that an incendiary device has gone off in the Ardoyne area of the city. Anyone whose ever had an incendiary in their ardoyne area will know how painful that can be. Would all keyholders please return to their premises. Yes, keyholders, a bomb’s gone off, so do the Irish thing and run towards that bomb right now. We now return you to your normal eulogising.

Next day, we were driving around the winding lanes of bandit country sightseeing, as one does if one is a scottish tourist in a war zone. I was following the car in front, which is my preferred driving style. The car in front went straight ahead so we went straight ahead. The road actually took a sharp turn to the left so we were following a farmer and his wife up the lane to their farmhouse. There was no place to turn so we had to keep going.The car in front slowed down considerably as they saw the car with three young men behind them and shat their pants. At a snail’s pace we went behind them up that hill to the farmhouse. They stayed frozen in their car as G got out and explained the situation as best he could. Yes, in short, our couple of trips to Northern Ireland probably prolongued the conflict by a good ten years of bad Fridays.

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WE WERE LOST IN FRANCE IN LEB

This is a hazy memory. We were in the bar of the Hotel Bristol in Reims and G was doing what he always did, asking where the nearest rock bar was. He found an off-duty gendarme who said he’d take us to one. Forty minutes’ trudge later we were in a lively rock bar having a good time. Everyone sang La Marseillaise and saluted like Benny Hill at closing time. But it wasn’t closing time. Our copper friend pulled out his warrant card and made the owner serve another round of drinks. Then the copper skinned up a massive J. Crazy and hazy.

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EMMA CHAFFIT (née Chaffin)

The moral of this tale could be – they shouldn’t be allowed in the country till they learn how to say Emma Chaffit properly. Gourley was visiting me one weekend in London. I had a toy parrot called Jiggy Jiggy that said something if you pressed a button. We were getting stoned and lapping up the All-England badminton on Grandstand and loving the commentary. Barry Davies was going mental over a plucky young English rose who was making a name for herself. Her name was Emma Chaffin. She was just like Sally Thomsett out of Man About The House. Any man or boy alive in the seventies will understand why Barry was getting so worked-up. “Marvellous retrieve from the delightful Emma Chaffin there. What a breath of fresh air she’s brought to The Championships.” Later that weekend we were watching a late night football phone-in magazine show when G had one of his bright ideas. We’d completely forgotten that her surname was Chaffin by that point and were calling her Emma Chaffit. Danny Kelly asked viewers to phone in with stories about pets with sporting interests. I was tasked with phoning the show. I told the girl the story Gourley had concocted, that I had a pet parrot called Jiggy Jiggy who couldn’t stop saying the name of the English badminton starlet Emma Chaffit if I mentioned the word Badminton. G had been pacing about getting into character and when I said the word Badminton he got near the phone and in his best Pretty Polly voice said “Chaffit, Chaffit, Emma Chaffit”. The girl laughed and said they’d call back in about half an hour if they decided to go for Jiggy Jiggy. G got out his dictaphone and decided we needed to record JJ’s part in preparation for the return call. I held the dictaphone, my flatmate Eltz provided sound effects by rustling paper in an ashtray to mimic a parrot pacing around a cage whilst G repeated his impression of a parrot “Chaffit, Chaffit, Emma Chaffit”. They didn’t call back! A decade or so later G was in his local pakistani shop in Charing Cross. The boy doing the reductions kept saying to his dad the shopkeeper “How much off it?” G just HAD to intervene. He started coaching the boy on the correct English pronunciation. “It’s not How much off it? It’s Emma Chaffit. Emma Chaffit. Say after me: Emma Chaffit.” Everybody thought he was off his chaff. In truth, he was on his chaff. Very funny. Truly, tangentially inspirational that day.

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BODGER’S NODGE

He had another bright idea for a toddlers’ TV show with six animalized friends who live in a village in deepest, darkest Devonshire called Bodger’s Nodge. Later on you can read his lyrics for the theme tune. He was also developing his ultimate Ronnie Barker sketch. It was called The Lee Kee Kok Sketch.

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GOOSECAPS

Then he had yet another bright idea. A football-themed gameshow. It started off as an idea for a pub quiz hence the reference to his local in the theme tune later on. He envisioned Chic Young and Ally McCoist hosting it. Two teams in an FA Cup knockout competition had to answer five rounds of questions. The questions were straightforward and the lowest score after five rounds advanced. If a team scored over a hundred they automatically went bust. e.g.

ALLY:

Round 1 for the Home Team. The first cap we’d like you to goose is from the football crazy pre-Kaiser’s War era. Ben Warren. How many England caps did Ben Warren amass?

CAPTAIN OF HOME TEAM:

44 please.

CHIC:

Your goose of 44 is, in a very real sense, half right! The correct goosecap is 22 so you carry 22 geese into Round 2. Next cap to goose, for the Away Team, Alastair, please.

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DO YOU BELIEVE IN THE EXISTENCE OF F-K?

Gourley was careful with his money, exceedingly! First out the taxi, last in the pub. He argued with all and sundry about politics and religion but our main area of disagreement was goats. I’m a huge fan of Anglo-Nubians and he’s a fervent supporter of British Togenbergs. Gourley didn’t want to go to heaven cos he heard they were charging to get in these days, but if there is a heaven he won’t be one of those underlings who wants to have a natter with God, he’ll be on a different cloud catching up with Dr Füchs-Kramer.

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FINAL THOUGHTS

I can picture him in the passenger seat with a map for tomorrow morning in his head. We are now in Gourley’s lounge aka The Prebendary’s Scriptorium. The curtains are drawn, a grotty candle is lit. Nobody knows or cares if it is night or day. Time for Groolee’s Music Game. Musician-in-black G kicks off with You Are Not My Diagnosis by The Wildhearts. Bob goes for Boy Named Sue by “The” musician-in-black. Tall Mark goes for Lola by The Kinks for unspecified therapeutic reasons. Musician-in-black Danny chooses Daniel Barenboim Prague 1962. I’m going to plump for the poor man’s Sidney Devine. I Don’t Need To Know That Right Now by Johnny Paycheck. Your turn to choose a song in memory of Gourley. Pick a good one or he’ll give you grief. I can hear him. He’s giving me tons of grief already.

So it’s goodnight from me . . .

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NOW A FEW HISTORIC GOURLEY SILLY SONGS, RHYMES & GAGS

[If you go down in the woods today . . .]

When you come to Physics you come to work

Or else you go out that door

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THE JIMMY CRESCENDO

Jimmy jimmy jimmy jimmy jimmy Jimmy Simpson

Jimmy jimmy jimmy jimmy jim jim jim [go up a note, repeat & louden]

HI HO HI HO

Hi hod hi hod, my chums are Jay and Bod

And they sent me out for a chinkie

Hi hod hi hod hi hod

Hi hum hi hum, I’ve got a German mum . . .

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VERY ANNOYED & VERY UPSET

Tim went off to a beach party

He never even bothered to come home for tea

I’m very annoyed, I’m very upset

Tim went out and got very wet

I’m very annoyed, I’m very upset

Tim’s a little bastard

I’m very annoyed, I’m very upset

He always comes home plastered

Now Tim I’ve told you many times before

If it’s later than twelve you’ll be out that door

I’m very annoyed, be in no doubt

Tim, you’re a disobedient lout!

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THE TWELVE DAYS OF TIMBO

On the seventh day of Christmas Timbo said to me

There’s grass in the greenhouse

Drug squad called this morning

I’m off to Europe

I found some mushrooms

Won’t dig the garden

Toby’s on the cupboard

And I’m off to a beach party

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FRANCIS PYM

I know a chap called Francis Pym

He doesn’t look a bit like Tim

Cos he’s only got one ball

Not like Tim at all

Tim has two and Tobes has four

Walter Banjo many more

Cloppersniddy Simon knows the score

I wonder how many have you got?

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ARRAN SONG ABOUT VIV

Now here’s the story of Robin Brown

He had six pints and then fell down

And then no more pints did he sup

Because the previous six came up

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ARRAN SONG ABOUT ITCHY

Oh the Douglas Bar is the place for a jar

But Itchy didny go that far

He ordered a half pint of lemonade

And oh what a tit of himself he made

Oh what a tit, oh what a tit

Oh what a tit of himself he made

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THE NIB NOB

Nibbity nobbity

Gimbitty goppity

Bolingbroke boppity

Wingleweed grump

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THE DUMBARTON SONG

Come on, Ye Sons

Let’s see that ball in the back of the net

Let’s have a brilliant goal

O come on Ye Sons

Let’s see Dumbarton Rock start to roll

Boghead has ye greatest pie and with brown sauce it goes

Still can’t believe those bastards threw that last game at Montrose

With Steve McAhill in defence and Houston in midfield

Totten has the talent so don’t slouch, let’s show some steel

O come on ye sons etc

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GROUPIES’ BLUES

She’s a big fat woman and she’s going to nail your tail to the table

She’s a big fat woman, size of a killer whale

Scanties off, lubrication

Tonight’s no night for masturbation

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MY DARLING CLEMENTINE [sung in his Tommy Lemon voice]

Kind of idea, kind of idea, kind of idea, sort of thing

Kind of idea, kind of idea, kind of idea, sort of thing

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SEVENTEEN DOG [part of the Dog Opera]

If you wanna do the dog

It’s like falling off a slippy log

If you’ve got a dog to do

I suggest you do one too

Three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine

Ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen

Sixteen

Seventeen Dog

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JD & RABBIT [cartoon creations of his]

Jobbernolly Dog

Parapa parp parp [Tuba]

And Rabbit

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BODGER’S NODGE THEME [ideally sung by Billy Bragg]

Nidger and Nadger and Nodger

Bruno and Cadger and Codger

The Nidger Nadger Nodger Squad have come to say “how do”

Bruno and Cadger and Codger are there too

Now Nidger and Nadger and Nodger

Are tickety-boo

Bruno’s with Cadger and Codger

Hey, you can come too

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GOOSECAPS THEME

Jobbernolly goosecaps, twenty-two

Jobbernolly goosecaps, forty-four

Jobbernolly goosecaps, we want more

Down at the Bon Accord

[Hokey-cokey:]

Oh jobbernolly goosecaps

Slow jobbernolly goosecaps

Go jobbernolly goosecaps

Down at the Bon Accord

Woof woof

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RONNIE B:

And in a late item of news we’ve just heard that fights broke out at the Fairyland Olympics Drinking Contest when the giants accused the dwarves of drinking them under the table.

. . . and it’s goodnight from him.

Goodnight.

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Hugh