Paul Fitzpatrick: May 2024

The word ‘GANG’ can mean two very different things as confirmed by the Cambridge dictionary.

‘A group of young people, especially men, who spend time together, often fighting with other groups and behaving badly’

Or

‘A group of friends’

When we were 14-15, there were eight of us who hung out who thought we were in a gang, although in retrospect it was more ‘Kool and the Gang’ than ‘Gangs of New York’.

Our posse was called the Wessy-Rats… not my choice of name for a couple of reasons.

Firstly, we all hailed from Stonedyke, an affordable Bearsden overspill constructed in the early 60s, bordering Knightswood and Drumchapel, so none of us actually lived in Westerton (Wessy), Scotland’s first and only true garden suburb.

Stonedyke was a marvellous place to grow up in the 60s & 70s.
It was predominantly made up of young working-class families investing in their first home which is why it was called ‘Spam Valley’ by some, a term that had to be explained by one of my mates from Drumchapel, but more about Jim later….

“Basically you lot in Stonedyke are mortgaged up to the hilt so you can only afford spam for your tea”

Secondly, who wanted to be called a rat??
Established gangs in Glasgow had ominous names like The Cumbie or The Fleet, furry little rodents weren’t going to strike fear into the hearts of marauding foes!

Maybe we should have gone the whole hog and called ourselves the Spam-Valley Swine’s?

So why the Wessy-Rats then?

It just so happened that neighbouring Westerton was where we hung out. It had a football pitch, a train station and that’s where the local youth club was based.
It also housed a group of older lads, the original Wessy-Rats, who were formidable and who we looked up to.
I don’t think there was ever any formal invitation, but we adopted their banner anyway and became the self anointed Wessy-Rats Young Team.

I’d happily share details on the dark underbelly of gang life but I took an oath of Omerta so I’ll get back to you once I’m under witness protection and I’ve sold my story to Martin Scorsese.

In truth there’s very little to tell, our little gang was more numbers game than numbers racket, if four lads trespassed on our hallowed turf and there was eight of us we’d chase them, and vice versa, no one knew if we could really handle ourselves but we could all do the 100 metres in an impressive time.

This was at complete odds with the older, original Wessy-Rats who ran from no one, no matter the odds, and who had nicknames like ‘Stone’ and ‘Hachie’ (short for hatchet)

The most ‘gangster’ thing we ever did was spray-paint our names… in Westerton!
The original Wessy-Rats weren’t impressed and asked us if we were the culprits, which we of course denied, but ultimately our lack of imagination in apportioning nicknames gave us away.

Smithy was Billy Smith
Geo was Geoff Hall
Nugget was Alan Nugent
Fitzy was me… and so on, I think you get the picture.

The end result being that we were ordered to clean up our own graffiti…. those Wessy-Rats were fierce, but kinda house-proud at the same time.

The moral of the story?
Don’t defecate on your own doorstep, particularly when it’s Scotland’s first and only true garden suburb.

Looking back, our clan definitely fell into the latter definition of ‘gang’ – just a group of friends hanging out with nothing better to do, too old to play Subbuteo and too young to gain admission to anything interesting.

Like punk-rock, our gang-flirtation was very much style over content, we had a suedehead uniform of sorts (Levis Sta-prest, Weejun penny loafer shoes, Crombie coats, Arthur Black shirts or Fred Perry polo-shirts) and went through a Clockwork Orange phase of carrying umbrellas, even when it was dry, which to be fair is a rarity in the inclement West of Scotland.

Eight gormless teenagers cutting about in gentlemen’s overcoats, sporting umbrellas on a rare sunny day must have been quite the sight in 1972, thank goodness there were no camera phones to incriminate.

The gang as it was, dissolved as soon as we reached school-leaving age, which in all our cases was 16… suddenly we had more options, disposable income and new friendships made through work and college.

Memories of Stonedyke were sparked recently when I met up with Billy and Alan, a couple of old pals who I hadn’t seen for years. The three of us grew up within a stone’s throw of each other, all starting school on the same day, but over time we’d lost touch.

It was magic to catch up and reminisce about life growing up on our estate, and I soon realised it’s the only way to do it…. Google Stonedyke, and all you’ll find is a sea of semi-detached houses being advertised on Rightmove plus a news article about the local post office being robbed by a bloke who stuffed £50k into a JD Sports carrier bag before riding off on a mountain bike towards Drumchapel, never to be seen again.

The day after my Stonedyke catch-up I met up with an old mate who grew up in Drumchapel, an antagonist from the Wessy-Rats days who was a mortal enemy, until the penny dropped.

Our lightbulb moment came after his wee gang and ours kept bumping into each other – on holiday, in the same bars, clubs, clothes shops & record shops in Glasgow, as well as at football (playing & spectating) …. before realising the only thing dividing us was a postcode.

When we meet up, Jim and I have a good laugh about how we used to growl at each other. We’ve been good mates now since we were sixteen, although he was another that I’d lost touch with until fairly recently….  at least social media has some benefits.

So, there you have it, thug-life 70s style in the suburbs…. lots of posturing, lots of running, lots of laughing but not very much thuggery!

For more adventures about the original and fiersome Wessy Rats please read Alan Fairley’s excellent
It’s A Rat Trap ….