Tall Tales and Wee Stories by Billy Connolly

Author:Billy Connolly [Connolly, Billy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781529361353
Publisher: John Murray Press
Published: 2019-10-16T13:00:00+00:00

4.

Accidents & Adventures

‘Never trust a man who, when left alone in a room with a tea cosy, doesn’t try it on.’

THE WORST GIG

I’ve had some shit nights in my life. Did I ever tell you about the dead guy? A dead guy in the audience can really fuck the night up.

I had this friend called Les Smith, who was a splendid guitarist and singer. He had parents who were brilliant as well – they had a little country band and they sometimes played together, but mostly at that time he was just a solo guy.

Well, his mother had phoned and asked me to do a charity gig with them – which they were going to do together – and would I come and play my autoharp? She liked the way I played it.

An autoharp is like a zither. You play it high, up on your shoulder, and play Appalachian hillbilly music. As a matter of fact, there may be some of you who’ve said, ‘I wish I’d learned an instrument back then, I’d be good by now.’ This is the one for you. It’s the only instrument you can play as soon as you’ve got it home from the shop. As long as it’s in tune.

It’s got thirty-six strings and twelve bars, each bar’s a chord, some have got different numbers of bars – fifteen, twelve … well, you know what numbers are, so I won’t go through them all – so you can accompany yourself that night.

Now, I can play jigs and reels and tunes. And that takes a wee bit longer.

So, I agreed to do the gig.

She said it was at a hospice. I didn’t even know what a hospice was – I thought she had a speech impediment. But we all turned up at a hospital in Glasgow, and they directed us to the hospice. We were in a big room with nothing in it, just us. And floorboards, highly polished. It looked like a ballroom.

I said to Les, ‘Where are the people gonnae sit? There’s no chairs or anything. Do they lie on the floor or somethin’?’ He said, ‘I dunno.’ But we didn’t have to wait long to find out.

There was a door over in the corner and a bed got pushed in. Well, that happened twenty-four times.

There were two semi-circles of beds. Then the wheelchairs came in. The big exotic ones that looked like the Forth Bridge, for guys in traction. Twenty-four of them.

Then the self-propelled wheelchairs, driven by moaning-faced whinge-bags: ‘Ah didnae wanna come here, Ah wanted tae watch Coronation Street!’ ‘Who are they anyway – The Smiths? Ah never fuckin’ heard of them!’ ‘Aw, look at the big hairy one with the harp! That’s a nancy boy if ever Ah saw one! Away, ya big fuckin’ jessie!’

How does a puncture sound, you cheeky prick! Don’t let the hair fool you – I’m not a hippy, I like violence. Shut the fuck up!

We got ready. I said to Les, ‘I don’t think there’ll be much applause in here tonight – most of the hands are under the covers.

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