Off the record

It wasn’t easy to find work in the 1980s, so I took what I could get. This was mainly bar work: menial, tedious, poorly paid, and sometimes dangerous in Glasgow. But the experience gave me a very valuable return. I learnt how to defuse fights and to deal with aggression and the intoxicated. Best of all, I became an amateur counsellor, imprisoned behind the bar. People poured down drinks and out poured their life stories and confessions. I learnt not to say much, to listen, never to be shocked, …