I LL NO TELL YOU AGAIN

Also by Tony Roper

The Steamie

Rikki Fultons The Reverend I.M. Jolly:How I Found God and Why He Was Hiding from Me

Rikki Fultons The Reverend I.M. Jolly:One Deity at a Time, Sweet Jesus

I l l NO TELL YOU AGAINMY AUTOBIOGRAPHY

TONY ROPER

First published 2014by Black & White Publishing Ltd

29 Ocean Drive, Edinburgh EH6 6JL

ISBN: 978 1 84502 889 3

Copyright Tony Roper 2014

of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the

Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,

electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, withoutpermission in writing from the publisher.

of images in the picture section. Any errors are inadvertent and anyone who forany reason has not been contacted is invited to write to the publisher so that a

full acknowledgement can be made in subsequent editions of this work.

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Printed and bound by ScandBook AB, Sweden

and for the skill and professionalism of the NHS in extending my stay on the planet. This book is for them.

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FOREWORD BY BILLY CONNOLLY

Glasgow bookshop, I was hired as a van boy by Bilslands bakeries, standing around in Hydepark Street, outside the bakery, waiting for my driver, who was to deliver the baked goods to the good with my assistance. apparent ringleader, a van boy/driver called Roper, Tony Roper. I was awe-stricken by his mastery of the one-liners, which he was delivering with the accuracy of an Amazonian hunter with a blow-pipe. How I envied him. How I longed to be like him. How I hoped we would end up as friends. Well, we did, but it took another twenty-something years to accomplish that. I had an inkling that this young driver Roper, with the drainpipe jeans and brown shop coat hemmed to resemble the shortie raincoats that were all the rage at the time, and I were travelling on paths which were more or less bound to cross, in time. I have no explanation for this, but it has happened a few times in my life. I never once spoke to Tony during my three- or four-month sojourn at Bilslands bakeries: of me!

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unknown to him, I consider myself to be one of his biggest fans. did we know that we would both achieve fame in the town that we both loved so much, and that our chosen profession of comedy would throw us together on more than one occasion.class people or so I thought before reading this autobiography. entrepreneurial family from Anderston. Nor did I know that his given name isnt Tony! Ill let you discover his real name for your-self as you read the book.of a man who has told a story or two in his life. Impressively, he chooses not to dwell on the disappointments and tragedies that have come his way in fair number, nor does he brag about the huge success he has achieved as he has glided with such ease through the theatre district. No, he recounts the story of his remarkable life with a degree of fairness and warmth that I have come to associate with him. A man who left school, like me, with no proof he had in classical, modern and comedy productions; and has appeared and starred in some of the most successful radio and television comedies produced in Scotland and lauded throughout the UK. He has traversed the deserts and the snow-covered mountains of us, he appears to be willing to share. I have learned a great deal from his story, including his real Christian name, with which I fully

Billy Connolly

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PREFACE

This autobiography came about because Campbell and Alison from Black & White Publishing at last got me to agree after trying think there was much of interest to write about. Ive not had an house, not a mansion. So why bother? was my mantra to them. They persuaded me there were people out there who would want to read that sort of thing.

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Denis Roper, my father, was born on the 12th of October 1898 at 73 South Wellington Street, Glasgow, a healthy bouncing boy wrapped snug and warm in a baby blanket. Only sixteen years later he was him, drenching him and his fellow squaddies with another layer of trench somewhere in France during the First World War. heaped on top of each other: bodies of men he had been having a smoke with and sharing some badly needed banter with only a few moments ago but who were now never going to enjoy a moment like that again.secret and the troops did not need to know. All they needed to do had spread that they were in France.Britain, and they queued up in their hundreds of thousands to sort out the upstart Germans. The received wisdom was that the whole That lie was an evil that caused the deaths of millions, and Private Denis Roper, 72716 Machine Gun Corps, was hoping against hope he would not be one of them. It was, he knew, a forlorn hope, as the Machine Gun Corps had been tagged the Suicide Squad for a very good reason.

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they lay on top of their mortally wounded comrades. There was no hope for these men. The best scenario was for their hopeless existence to end and to be free from the world of pain that was now theirs.anything again. to England with the Norman Conquest. At that time the name was Du Ropiere, which meant someone who made or mended ropes. Gradually the name was altered until it became Roper, and by that time you did not have to be in any way associated with ropes. Some of the Ropers rose to positions of authority in the kingdom, a notable example being William Roper, who was son-in-law to Sir Thomas More.I in the 1600s with the order to colonise and set out plantations for wealthy British landlords. James wanted taming the rebellious Ulster, so the colonists were required to be English speakers and Deniss branch of the family wound up in Donegal, where they set-tled and married locally. the Catholics in who was head of the church and their practices werent that far removed from each other. Whatever the cause, the Roper family prospered through the years; indeed, to this day there are still many of them adding to the commerce and rich culture of Donegal.mass evacuation of the Irish to ports all over the globe, but mostly to the United States of America and Britain. Deniss father, Michael Roper, made the decision to leave. Gathering the small family of

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Mary, his wife, and his young son Mick around him, he explained, Theres a fellow I know can get us on a boat to Scotland. What do you say, Mary? Are you up for it?go there? Mary protested. going, Michael explained, although he felt it was unnecessary. sell.he goes to Scotland? Mary reasoned.wasted trip for him.carried on without pausing for breath.man that they would rather go to America.Joseph, would you listen to yourself?to myself, and its a good job I am, because Im the only one making word. head to signal agreement. Right you are then. The boat leaves on and the four other families not to mention to Mary that the boat was only going to Scotland. It cost him a jar of hard whiskey, but the skipper put them up the front in a secluded spot out of the

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wind and Mary was none the wiser. In fact, when the boat eventu-ally pulled into harbour at a secluded spot in Clydebank, which was as near Glasgow as the skipper would go, once everyone had disembarked and the boat was empty, Mary eyeballed Michael and remarked, with a prominent smirk adorning her mouth, See, I told anyway.

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for work and found employment in the thriving building trade. The city was expanding, tradesmen and labourers were in demand, and Irishmen could swing a pick with the best of them. Michael, another two mouths to feed to the family, he wondered what he could do to augment his income.never have the huge amount of money needed to buy a farm, so he dismissed that as an option. Every day and night he wracked his brain, and even when he and Mary went out for a stroll in the city with the three children, Michael, Packy and John, he never stopped and it was becoming a real worry. miss that? he had nodded in acquiescence about.space that you just took for granted, the smells, the sounds of ani-

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-ould supply of milk, right enough. Dyou remember them? meanderings.had an apple, so it is. Im told Glasgow used to be famous for its danced around hypnotically. Sure, it used to be called the Dear chimney up at the Garngad spews out all sorts of muck and any-body that lives up there are the walking dead, at least thats what I -irretrievably onto the soleplate. Are you listening to me?the wind shifts you can smell it even down here. caused a gurgling sound to boil up inside the barrel of the pipe while the smoke travelled deliciously down his throat and set-tled in his lungs. The men in there are killing themselves with the smoke theyre inhaling, he said.thing to be inhaling thick black smoke, she intoned pointedly in Michaels direction.his corner. the iron would soon be ready for use. I dont know that thats any answer, can you?

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up at the, the, whats it called? forge the answer in a form that Mary would understand, but it was really because he could not think of an answer. question?his head. Let me put it as simply as I can. Now we agree that Im smoking tobacco, right? for it.you with me so far? chemicals, and chemicals are man-made and therefore not a gift from God. So I am, by smoking this ould pipe, not only carrying to the wonder of God and all his bounty. Does that answer your question? kitchen. the same time laying the pipe on the warming section of the black range. I like your idea though, Mary, we might be able to make a bit of spare money with that.

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not to be missed.for him to expand on what her idea was. He didnt. What was it particularly that you liked about it? doting father to the hilt. Michaels machinations, but the years they had lived together had sharpened her and now she was more than a match for him.you liked the best?softly in his arms.still think he takes after you the most you know. Ahh! Ahh! Hes ever been a more beautiful baby boy in the whole world than this wee lad here.you were saying you missed fresh fruit? Well, theres a big house Ive been doin repairs to and they have an orchard with apples, pears, lemons and rasps and blackberries and theyre just lying on the ground, a whole lot of them, so Im going to ask the owner if he needs a gardener, and if so, could he and I come to an arrangement where Ill do his gardening if I can have the fruit that they have left over. I also think I know where I can get the hire of a big barrow that will hold a decent amount of the fruit. Maybe at the weekend, Sundays after Mass, I can load it up and sell it to whoever is pass-ing by. What do you think?

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The idea proved to be a winner and Michael worked long hours he had been hiring and added an even larger barrow, and Mary took to selling the fruit like a bee takes to pollen. She and the three boys would join Michael on Sunday at the Anderston Cross rail-way station, which was a good spot, as people arrived there all day for a day out in the city. As the passengers came out they would be greeted by Mary and the boys shouting out to them and any passers-by: Apples and pears. Buy three, get another one free.seven years of age and had learned to juggle three apples. He would watch Mick take his bow and then step forward and juggle it a couple of inches into the air and catch it. He then took a very deep bow and got a huge round of applause, after which the gath-ering crowd seldom failed to buy some fruit.one as promised and then say in a whisper, Ah! Go on and have another one, but dont tell the ould fella. refusing to be served by him and would wait in a queue at Marys barrow. Eventually he had to ask. It had been a beautiful summers into a sack, which left it more than half full. Michael had enlisted the

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help of a friend he met in the building trade called Gerry McCusker to help him push the barrows back to a rented lock-up in nearby St Vincent Street. While Michael was waiting for him to turn up, he lit up the pipe, inhaled a welcome lungful and sidled over to Mary, drift over to the much larger amount of unsold fruit in his sack. agog at the amount youve sold. Whats your secret?gaze. And I think I get the credit for being with the boys; sure, they probably sell more than you and I put thegither. She knew he wasnt convinced so started to busy herself sweeping up the detri-tus of fruit that as usual had gathered around the pavement. And was it not your idea to get the boys to do the wee juggling thing? bigger than mine, by a long shot.-ning short? Michael queried.you sold heaps more apples, I had to bring a whole armful over to you. Do you not remember? remember that. When did you do that? There was a note of suspi-cion creeping into his voice. And why dont I remember it? over and I said to you, Theres more apples, but you were too cos I could see you were busy, and I had to keep an eye on wee John because he was trying to sneak away, and Packy and Mick were acting up the whole time too, theyve had my heart roasted with their shenanigans all day. Im very sorry that I dont know the answer to why you dont remember, what I mistakenly thought

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Hail Marys, make a good act of contrition and hope youll forgive me. She turned away and sighed heavily. apologise, as that always seemed to calm Mary down.-great way to get him out of the bad books so he larded it on. Im the happiest man in Glasgow to have you for a wife and the three best boys in the world for sons.care; she loved to hear him court her and try to win her round, it made her feel like a young girl all over again. She also knew it was a good time to introduce her latest bit of news. She drew his arms around her waist so that she snuggled against his chest. Would you not be even happier with four? She felt his arms twitch girl? Would you be disappointed if it was a girl? Would you throw me out? Well? Say something, anything.shop with the name ROPERS above it. With two barrows and a shop, Michael and Mary were making themselves a life worth living in dear old Glasgow town.

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Marys dream came to fruition. The next child was a girl, then a boy, then another girl, another girl, and another two boys, making a total of six boys and three girls.hard as you could and to make every hour count. Denis was the last one to be born in South Wellington Street. More space was needed, so the family upped sticks and moved to a larger three-bedroom of Michael and the wily Mary and eventually took up positions as chargehands in separate public houses, and it wasnt too long before they had both saved enough money to branch out on their own.which was called the Spur Hotel. It has now changed owners but is still there and thriving to this day.called Mick, as he felt the name did not have enough gravitas, so one evening in late summer he called for a family meeting. When everyone was seated he got on to his feet and addressed them. It was not unlike the Hercule Poirot summation at the end of an Agatha Christie novel.bit more apt was provided. Mick was centre stage, so at the behest of his mother he began.

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meeting. He paused, waiting for some agreement from the gather-ing, they did not oblige. As you know, he continued, I have been very lucky and managed to buy myself a hotel. He surveyed the group for their reaction and this time they did acknowledge him. nodding to the assembly. straight faces.was not that of encouraging the family to continue mocking her -ing, what the hell he was going to say. Go on son. eldest daughter.fourth-eldest son.to be helpful.Mick, will you just come out with whatever it is youre trying to say. Sure, were all your family; whatever you have in mind, well mothers urgings.take control.

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Right? He surveyed the family. They all nodded and responded to am the boss. A benevolent boss. But, at the end of the day, I need, I suppose the word I want is, respect. No one interrupted, so he carried on. I feel the best way to achieve that is to create a certain of puzzlement.to call you? boss, said another. surely. They were convulsed with laughter and everyone tried to right? call him that; being family, we could probably get away with just Eminence. Would that be allowed, Mick? Oh! Sorry, Eminence. More hilarity exploded from them.

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sensed an explosion about to happen, and she didnt feel she could stop it, as Mick was a big, powerful lump of a man.-never called him by his name before. All the family called him Da, and their mother was Ma. maybe a few cut lips and a burst nose here and there would help?danger in his eyes.only broken by Mary quietly surmising, The only problem that I can see is that I already call your da Michael, and if I call you Michael too then theres going to be confusion, dyou see? I dont think I could call your da by any other name, so my solution is that you let me and your da call you Mick but to everyone else youll be Michael. Would that be a solution? name Michael, I like the sound of it on my tongue. Would it be all like the sound of that: try it. He nodded to the brothers and sisters: that it was an appropriate name and from then on in till the day he Eminence.