One of his friends once spotted Sir Billy Connolly at a London nightclub and described him as looking like “a welder who got away with it”.
But, as the Big Yin turns 80, there’s no denying he is one of the most famous Scots in the world, a colossus of comedy and instantly-recognisable figure wherever he travels.
He had to quit his stand-up routines several years ago after being diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease, but that hasn’t stopped him continuing to make headlines on either side of the Atlantic and demonstrating illness hasn’t extinguished the glint in his eye.
His life is a testament to his reputation as a likeable larrikin and many of his most cherished experiences happened in the north east, whether being drawn into the “wildness” of rock ‘n’ roll at a kids’ camp in Torry in the 1950s or mixing with the Highland Games brigade and earning the moniker The Laird of Candacraig.
So let’s take a trip down memory lane in celebration of a genuine Scottish icon.
Our parents couldn’t understand it
The youngster from Glasgow famously grew up in harsh circumstances, and rarely escaped the grinding poverty in which he lived. Yet he was in his element when he travelled to the Granite City and discovered a world he had never known before.
He recalled: “I’ve always been drawn to the wildness of rock ‘n’ roll. I learned about it when I was at a school camp in Aberdeen.
“We were in dormitories at a school in Torry and they took us to see Rock, Rock, Rock! – a black and white movie starring Chuck Berry. It was brilliant. Berry blew everybody away with his “duck walk” and I could hardly believe what I was seeing.
“We had a record player at the camp in Aberdeen and one of the teachers brought Chuck Berry’s single School Days along with him. We played it non-stop. He was a staggering musician – the best in the world in his time. You couldn’t keep your feet still.
“We were dancing in the aisles, yelling ‘See You Later, Alligator’. Meanwhile, our parents were still singing along to ‘I’m a pink toothbrush, you’re a blue toothbrush….”
He was less enamoured by his maiden experience with the North Sea, where he paddled out in frozen conditions in woollen swimwear which shrivelled the wetter and colder that he became. As he said later: “It wasn’t quite the Mediterranean”.
There’s a photograph of Meet the Big Yin in 1975, where he strummed the banjo in the company of three winners of a P&J competition – Diane Paterson, Graham Reid and Jean Irwin – and the thrill on his face reflected how he had responded to becoming a household name after an unforgettable appearance on Michael Parkinson’s chat show.
Yet, by that stage, Connolly had already worked with a young Gerry Rafferty in The Humblebums, as the pair methodically paid their dues while embarking on an often less-than-magical mystery tour of concert platforms to parade their talents.
From Stoney to Yellow Brick Road
As the 1960s and 1970s passed, he advanced from playing for £10 here, £12 there at myriad folk and trad clubs in the likes of Stonehaven, Kirkcaldy, Perth and Arbroath to opening for Elton John on his Bicentennial Tour of America in 1976.
Thereafter, he soared into the stratosphere as an international comedy star and dramatic actor who graduated into TV and films with Just Another Saturday, Down Among the Big Boys and Mrs Brown – and he even fitted in a role as a smooth-talking murderer in an episode of Columbo, where he fell foul of Peter Falk’s detective.
Connolly has journeyed a long way from the man who started out in the Glasgow shipyards, and whose expletive-laden diatribes sparked outrage in religious circles, even though he thrived the more that his nemesis Pastor Jack Glass hurled abuse and accused the stand-up star of committing blasphemy.
But, as his reputation brought him an international fan base, he realised he was fortunate in many aspects of his life, not least in earning enough money to be able to purchase Candacraig House in Aberdeenshire [though it was later sold in 2014].
He recalled the joy he derived from the Highlands and being a regular attendee at the Lonach Gathering in Strathdon, but also the pain of losing so many old comrades.
He related in his autobiography Windswept and Interesting: “Robin Williams came to Candacraig every summer with his family. He was a fellow savant, another aficionado of the blurting-out of whatever comes to mind.
“We used to cycle from Strathdon to Ballater together, across an enormous, high-lying treeless range of long hills like a bare moonscape. There were no jokes till we got there – just two guys freezing their bollocks off, battling through the heather hills.
“But when our guests and I showed up at the Lonach Gathering – the Highland Games in Strathdon – there would be a wall of photographers facing us across the grounds.
“We would be very torn about that. I suppose if you’re sitting there with a gaggle of luminaries, it would obviously attract interest.
“But I was also afraid that it might kind of spoil the event. It was such a precious celebration of Highland culture – all the wee Scottish dancers tramping through the mud to get to the stage for their competitions, the children running the races, the big beefy caber-tossers, the Tug o’ War and the marching pipe bands.
“It was a wonderfully low-tech affair. Robin took part in the hill race every year.”
Connolly has never been shy of meeting his fans and rubbing shoulders with the public. That has only increased his popularity, but it once nearly got him in trouble with the police in Aberdeen when he went shopping for a smoke at the same time as hundreds of Dons supporters were making their way to Pittodrie for a Saturday match.
He only wanted to pop into a cigar store, but suddenly his vehicle was completely surrounded by the Red Army, who wanted autographs, so he pulled the window down, and signed away, mostly on money. Five pound notes, tenners, twenties, the works.
He said: “Eventually, they all disappeared, I bought my cigar and went back to my car, and I took off. I was going up Union Street and I just got to the Queen Victoria Statue, and I heard the siren: I looked in the mirror and there was a police car behind me.
“And then, an officer said: ‘Will the driver of the red Range Rover pull into the first street on the left?’ So I drove into this wee street, and I stopped, and thought: ‘I know what I’ll do: I’ll leap out like a gazelle.’ Just to show them how sober I am. And that’s exactly what I did, but I met a policeman standing there.
“We went back to the squad car, and they sat me in the back. Eventually this woman’s voice came on the radio, saying: ‘Have you got the driver of the Range Rover.”
They subsequently engaged in a confused and polite interrogation, where eventually it transpired that Connolly hadn’t just signed banknotes for passionate Dons, but three of the city’s biggest drug-dealers – and it had all been captured on CCTV.
Cue embarrassment and red faces as the comedian was told he could go on his way. But not before the woman said: “I’d appreciate it if you didn’t mention this to anybody”.
“I told her [and a Gold TV series earlier this year]: ‘My lips are sealed’.”
It’s difficult to think of another Scot who has blazed such an idiosyncratic trail or illuminated the lives of so many millions of compatriots, expats, the wider world….anybody with a pulse and a funny bone.
As Connolly would say, his story has been tickety-boo, but what a legacy he has created.
Have a great birthday, Big Yin!
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