Clydesider Memories – 10 Years On

In many ways it’s hard to believe it has been 10 years since I jumped on the train down to Dumbarton to interview the author of Trainspotting, Irvine Welsh, for the feature article for the very first edition of Clydesider.  

Armed with a belly full of nerves, a dictaphone, my camera and just hoping, nae praying, I would not make a pigs ear of it, after all this was not only my first interview for Clydesider, it was my first interview ever! You could say it was a baptism of fire. 

The controversial Edinburgh writer was giving a talk in Dumbarton Library promoting his latest novel, all the big guns from Scotland’s national press were there in force when yours truly arrived from the unheard of Clydesider and boldly walked straight up and introduced myself to Mr Welsh. 

I’m sure a few of my ‘fellow hacks’ jaws dropped when I asked the creator of Renton and co  if it was okay if I could get a photo of him outside standing on the library stairs, explaining that our article was not about the new book he was punting, it would be about his views on how we can encourage ordinary members of our community to express themselves creatively just as he had done so successfully. 

Thankfully Irvine was up for it. He grabbed his mug of tea and walked outside with me, and there I took the magazine’s iconic first cover photo. 

About an hour later I interviewed Irvine upstairs in the library by which time I was wondering why I had been so nervous earlier, it turned out to be less a case of a formal question and answer interview and more a conversation between two working class Scottish lads, and of course, no such conversation would be complete without discussing the ups, and mostly downs, of Scottish football.