Oh What A Time... - #45 Gangs (Part 1)

Episode Date: May 12, 2024

This week on the we’re discussing Gangs ie. proper mean ones so not the Scouts (Chris) or the Boys Brigade (Elis). We’ll be taking a look at some of the razor gangs of Glasgow, the infamous American mafia and going back in time to see what gangland was like in Medieval Britain. Have you ever landed on a rhubarb patch? Would you like to live on Cockney Island? And want to hear what Welsh sounds like in another accent? You know what to do, drop us an email at: [e-mail] If you're impatient and want both parts in one lovely go next time plus a whole lot more(!), why not treat yourself and become an Oh What A Time: FULL TIMER? In exchange for your £4.99 per month to support the show, you'll get: - two bonus episodes every month! - ad-free listening - episodes a week ahead of everyone else - And first dibs on any live show tickets Subscriptions are available via AnotherSlice, Apple and Spotify. For all the links head to: ohwhatatime.com You can also follow us on:  X (formerly Twitter) at @ohwhatatimepod And Instagram at @ohwhatatimepod Aaannnd if you like it, why not drop us a review in your podcast app of choice? Thank you to Dan Evans for the artwork (idrawforfood.co.uk). Chris, Elis and Tom x Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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but this gym has options like trainers, fitness pros, spotters to back me up. That's crypto on Kraken. Powerful crypto tools backed by 24-7 support and multi-layered security. Go to kraken.com and see what crypto can be. Not investment advice. Crypto trading involves risk of loss. See kraken.com slash legal slash ca dash pru dash disclaimer for info on Kraken's undertaking to register in Canada. Looking for a collaborator for your career? A strong ally to support your next level success? You will find it at York University School of Continuing Studies, where we offer career programs purpose-built for you. Visit continue.yorku.ca. Hello and welcome to Oh What A Time, the history podcast that tries to decide if the past smelt like a summer meadow. I'm Chris Scull.

I'm Ellis James. And I'm Tom Crane. And each week on this show, we'll be looking at a brand new historical subject. And today, we're going to be discussing gangs. That's right. The violent gangs of... Content warning. This could get scary.

Yeah. The violent gangs of Glasgow, the American Mafia, and medieval gangs. Quick question. Were either of you in a gang? Does Scouts count as a gang? It does, because I was in Boys Brigade. And if you put Boys Brigade versus the Scouts, it's only going to end in one way.

Are the Scouts Europe's biggest gang? Genuinely, numbers-wise. It's surely up there. If you count it as a gang, numbers-wise, it's got an army. It must be the world's biggest gang, you would think. Of course, yes. It's in America as well, isn't it? Yeah, what's all your gang?

But I wouldn't describe the Scouts as inducing terror on the local populace. If anything, we helped a lot of old ladies across the road because that's what certain badges required. You know you're old when scouts are offering to help. When does it? There's a whole lot of 40s, the new 30, actually. So 40s and middle age. Actually, 50 is basically where middle age begins.

If cubs are helping you cross the road for a badge, that speaks volumes. I think that's the main giveaway giveaway that it's not a violent gang if there's a badge on their arm showing the sort of stuff they've been up to. You never see that with the Yakuza, do you? No. A little badge on the arm with a picture of a crying widow. The Bloods and Crips don't offer a helping badge.

I've got a question, a very brief question. What is the tipping point between a close-knit friendship group which i definitely had as a childhood in the cul-de-sac i grew up in there was a group of six of us and we were very tight-knit at what point would have that would that have become a gang what's the what's the movement into gang i think it becomes a gang if you formalize it do you refer to yourselves as a thing like there was there was um there were there was some groups at school and they would take the initials of their names and get an acronym out of it.

That then is becoming... Well, with that in mind, Ellis, this podcast has formalised our friendship as a three. Would you say that we are now a gang? Yeah, oh my God. A podcasting gang. Roaming the streets, dropping witty three. Oh, God, we're in a gang now. Would you say that we are now a gang? Yeah, oh, my God. Podcasting gang. Roaming the streets, dropping witty banter left, right and centre. Yeah, I suppose there's also, semantically,

there's a difference between a club and a gang. Yeah. I also lived on a cul-de-sac, and we had a tight-knit group of mates. And one of us one day said, should we just dare each other to jump off Ellis's dad's garage roof? We were like, yeah, cool, let's do that. Let's call it the Dairies Club.

That's not a gang, I would say. And we didn't get very far because we were only ever daring ourselves to do the same thing, jump off the garage roof into the rhubarb. It's the rhubarb. Must have destroyed the rhubarb My mother up the wall, yeah

The rhubarb murderers would have been a much better title name Is rhubarb a soft landing? Out of interest, genuinely If you were stuck on a burning building And there was a lettuce patch below you A potato patch and a rhubarb patch Should I be jumping towards the rhubarb? Now that is an interesting question, yeah

And is it so bouncy it would bounce me back onto the top of the building? Because that is a risk I'm not willing to take. I want a middle ground. I'll go lettuce in that case. So how soft is rhubarb to land? It was soft enough that I would jump off my mum and dad's garage roof and no one ever took me off.

So presumably all of the adults in the area would be like, fine, he's doing it to rhubarb he's not going to break his shoulder it's good it's fine it's cool what's interesting

about that L is you're definitely not brave enough to do that now no god no there's no way you would now jump off your parents

roof into a patch of rhubarb absolutely but at the age of 8 you were willing to do that what's happened it's gone the wrong way

your bravery's gone I don't like heights now and that happened in my mid 30s where suddenly I thought this is this is madness top of the garage yeah so today gangs i'm looking forward to this one i'm excited about this yes i love prison movies i love i love gangster movies it's very much my vibe

it's the thing i'm into before we crack into that should we do a little bit correspondence before we get into correspondence we did ask last week if you want to make a little sting to take us into correspondence do whatever you like we might use it in fact we probably will use one of the selections and thank you to everyone who sent one in already we'll play them next week if you haven't done it yet

have a little go make a correspondence it's the closest I'll ever get to feeling like an A&R man I've got a lot of musicians' careers in my hands. We've been sent a load of demos, and now I'm going to chomp on a big cigar, put my feet on the

desk, and go, that's going to be a hit. Get rid of it. I hate that. That's last year's news. You know that new sound you're looking for? Well, listen to this. I found the riff. That's last year found the riff That's last year's news That's last year's sound What's the sort of legal right for that

If one of the jingles does become a huge hit Are we allowed any cut of that We have sole ownership We have sole ownership I could really do with that I could really do with a listener Coming up with a jingle so good that the three of us become millionaires.

I could really, really do with that. And also, it would help the listeners generally because we could then dedicate our entire lives to this job. Yes, that's true. Imagine the quality of the show if we were just thinking about this show. By dedicate our entire lives to the job, do you mean listening to different stings and picking which ones are the best mainly that mainly that okay let's crack into the email so i'm going to start with an email here which simply because this made

me laugh and i thought it was quite sweet from a chap called andy wildman great name uh he said verily forsooth a wonder bar which is old german show interestingly funniest and funnily interesting interestingly if listen if, I implore you. Now, the reason I like this email is because it's simply written underneath, I wanted to write a review, but I couldn't work out how, so I just wrote you an email instead, which is quite sweet. We suggest Andy Wildman is about 98. Yeah.

It did remind me of something we used to do at the beginning of this show which is we asked listeners to write in with reviews was to leave their reviews more to the point in latin and we try and translate that and we completely forgot that and there's quite a few that we haven't gotten through okay so i've to kick things off i've just picked out one of those reviews and then i've got a new challenge for our listeners i want to see how we get along with this okay this is a review it says valde ridiculum et amare unum diem machinum any idea what that is that's in latin uh ridiculous must be ridiculous yes that's the one and machine yeah unum diem machinum you can work that out come on unum diem time machine yeah one day time machine there you are very funny and love the One Day Time Machine.

Oh, that's great. That's good. It's good stuff. Lovely little five star tagged onto that. And it's given me an idea. Imagine getting a one star review in Latin. What a pretty kick in the teeth that would be. Oh my God.

Chiseled into a wall somewhere in Rome as well. It's going to be there for centuries. Here's a new challenge for listeners. I thought it'd be fun. Leave us a review, but this time, should we try ancient Greek? Should we do that? Let's get some reviews in ancient Greek, write them down, stick a five star and write something in ancient Greek underneath.

Or medieval English. That's supposed to be quite hard to translate that. I don't know if Google offers a medieval English translation button. Well, let's try either or. Give it a go. Leave us a review. We'll three and try and translate it and see kind of how you know oh fey we are with the language of the past right on some proper correspondents now so this is from una o'donoghue great man and the title ellis and

you'll you'll like this title is welsh speakers abroad hello okay in your recent number 38 corpses part one episode that is so beautifully written that's efficient uh you know exactly what you're talking about ellis rather skillfully spoke welsh with a mank and scouse accent which i must say i found rather impressive thank you i impress you impress what you do it's your thing however this triggered a deep memory I have of watching a documentary probably in the dead of night

unable to sleep about a community of Welsh speakers in Patagonia, Argentina yes are you aware of this? yes very aware my sister's been there in fact oh really

a swift Google search and a trusty Wikipedia summary confirmed I did not dream this apparently and I stand to be corrected something you lads are accustomed to. All right, all right, to be fair. The Welsh first arrived in 1865

to protect their native Welsh culture and language, and there are still 5,000 fluent speakers there today. It seemed a long way to go, but the Welsh apparently discovered America, maybe a wee sail across the Atlantic and a trek through the arid Patagonian desert to save a language which perceivers like work. Now, here's the request, Al, at the bottom. You can probably see where this is going. Ellis, any chance you could give speaking in Welsh with an Argentinian accent a go? What's interesting, I know quite a lot about

the Welsh speakers in Patagonia. I find it absolutely fascinating. A guy called Michael D. Jones, who I suppose was an early cultural nationalist, thought the Welsh language was under threat, so we need to start again. So we need to go somewhere where we can govern ourselves through the medium of Welsh. And this is in the 19th century? Yeah, yeah.

In 1865 is when they left. But I think there were people still going until just before the First World War, I think. This is all off the top of my head, so obviously I will accept corrections so he went in and they were governing themselves very egalitarian

Bentham's ears just pricked up. Yeah, lots of funny stuff because there were more tailors than farmers on the first boat so they got there, they all looked great but they very quickly ran out of food Beautiful So they got there. They all looked great, but... Very, very stark. Quickly ran out of food.

Beautiful for a fortnight. Yeah, yeah. They looked good, man. They looked really, really great. I've seen footage of Welsh speakers in Patagonia who've never been to Wales in the 60s, and they sound like North Walians. But now I've met some, and I've seen footage of others, and now they sound like North Walesians. But now I've met some and I've seen footage of others and now they sound like they speak in Welsh but in Spanish,

with Spanish accents. So it's been quite interesting. That's so interesting. So is this a community that will be its first language Welsh out in Patagonia or is this, they will speak Spanish or whatever? They're certainly fluent. And I would imagine a bit like in Wales they're bilingual

it's just they're bilingual in Welsh and Spanish as opposed to Welsh and English that's really interesting so for instance if maybe if it wasn't in first language and you were looking for the word

you'd end up looking for the word in Spanish rather than in English if I was talking to them for instance I speak no Spanish at all so it's an interesting

yeah they're an interesting group. They were told... It's also quite a nice place to set up a new community. Let's go to South America for the warmth. They were told that the land and the sort of the weather, they

were told that the climate was going to be very similar to Wales. So they were like, great. Actually it was arid desert. So they're... But obviously you can't find that stuff out in 1865 by Googling it. So they just got there and arrived and they were like, oh God, it's dry. Turning up in galoshes.

Yeah, there's a lot of them, from what I remember, in terms of the egalitarianism of it, there is a theory that it's the first place in the world where women were given the vote, but that is disputed. Okay. And, you know, it was a woman who came up with sort of the drainage system because obviously they were right in the middle. You know, they'd run out of food by that point.

So they had to start farming really, really quickly. It was really difficult in the first few years. Wow. The thing i find incredible is this guy michael uh michael d jones who organized it all he was like right we need to start again so they looked at america they looked at pennsylvania because there were a lot of welsh people in pennsylvania already uh the other place he looked at was israel right a lot of Welsh speakers had turned up in Israel and said well we're here now as well so yeah

but they settled on they settled on Patagonia in the end I imagine that's amazing like to have something so associated to your culture like in a completely

different place it makes me wish there was a Cockney Island maybe oh yeah Cockney Island Cockney Island in the southern Hemisphere.

Oi! Yeah. Come aboard! That sounds like a sort of ITV dating show, Cockney Island. My little sister went travelling in South America. She took us a practical from work. And after four or five months,

she was really homesick. And she went to the Welsh-speaking bit of Patagonia and she heard somebody speaking Welsh in the street and she went to the Welsh-speaking bit of Patagonia and she heard somebody speaking Welsh in the street and she burst into tears. And this woman invited her into the house and gave her a cup of tea and some Welsh cakes and she said it was nuts.

Well, we should obviously try and provide Una with what she was hoping to hear, which is your attempt at Welsh in Argentinian accents. I'm trying to think of like Xabi Alonso and all this stuff. Rafa Benita, these are facts. Oh yeah, these are facts.

Xara Camraig, Ratuindodo, Patagonia, San Churros, my Aken, Spenegne, Aken Camraig, Yuhin, my Anodion. It's, I'm getting there. It's genuinely lovely. Thank you. It's really nice. It's, it's, it's, I'm getting there. It's genuinely lovely. It's really nice. It sounds better in a Spanish accent, doesn't it?

It sounds like really, have we just improved the Welsh? We don't think we've got the Welsh, the Welsh language. It sounds romantic or something. Incidentally, before we crack onto the history, what a,

what a football side you could have if you combined Welsh and Argentinian players from the past. Well, there was, there was this, Geeks, Bale,

Mascherana, Maradona, there was... There was this... There was this... Myth! Myth for years that Gabriel Batistuta could speak Welsh. Because Scorio, which is a Welsh language TV show, a football show,

Wales were playing Argentina in a friendly and they asked Gabriel Batistuta to say Shumai, Ennufu, Gabriel Batistuta Chingulio Scorio, which is hello, my name's Gabriel Batistuta, you're watching Scorio I think a lot of people saw this and thought he must be from Patagonia

Oh my god, his pronunciation is perfect Batistuta's a Welsh speaker and actually they'd just given it to him with a phonetic sort of pronunciation guide. But I used to tell people, I was like, when we weren't

qualified for things, I was like, well, we basically hang because Gabriel Batastuta's a Welsh speaker, actually. Imagine how good we'd, if he actually got to play for his own country.

Yeah, exactly, yeah. Forced to play for Argentina. How good the Welsh side would be. It would be great. God, it'd be a good combined team, yeah. Forced to play for Argentina. It would be great. God, it would be a good combined team, actually. It would be an incredible side. Have a think about that after the show and we'll read it out next week. All right, so we've actually changed

the subscription package. It is now far more exciting and some would say easier to understand. You will get episodes a week early, ad-free in one complete part, plus two bonus episodes every month and there's plenty more coming out now and in fact there is already an archive of old subscriber episodes that you can go access now hours and hours of the stuff if you

want to sign up and become an oh what a time full timer and also get your name at the end of the show which you will be hearing later in this show all you got've got to do is go to owattatime.com and sign up, buy for a month, buy us a pint, and you can become an Owattatime full-time and get all those goodies. Absolutely. It would be a crime not to. And talking of crime, let's discuss gangs for an hour.

Up for that? Very nice. But before that, if you want to live on Cockney Island, if you plan to create your own Cockney Island island if there are any exotic islands over the world that we should know about here's how you get off the show all right you horrible lot here's how you can stay in touch with the show You can email us at hello at owhattime.com. And you can follow us on Instagram and Twitter at owhattimepod. Now clear off. What does possible sound like for your business?

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From football to basketball and hockey to baseball whatever the moment it's never ordinary at bet 365 must be 19 or older ontario only please play responsibly if you or someone you know has concerns about gambling visit connects ontario.ca so later in this episode i'm going to be talking to you about the growth of the Italian mafia in America. And actually how it weirdly led to the death of John Dillinger. Do you know John Dillinger? Have you heard of him? The head of the Dillinger gang, the famous bank robbers in the American West. It's a very strange story how the growth of the Italian mafia led to this sort of famous gangster's death who had nothing to do with that Maffrey himself.

I will be talking about the Pine Mash Boys, who were the biggest gang on Cockney Island. It's a new bit of research just in that Daryl's done for us. They use a potato gun, don't they? They've got to buy the Pine Mash Boys. Yeah, yeah. Big fight with the Jelly Deal lads. No, I'm talking about medieval gangs.

And I'm going to tell you right now about Glasgow gangs. Have you heard of the Glasgow Smile? This is something I used to worry about an awful lot. Yes, I used to worry about this when I was at school. Fairly unlikely it was going to happen to me,

but I did probably think about it three times a week. Yeah, and doing this subject has made me realise I did probably think about it three times a week yeah and like doing this subject has made me realise I used to think about this all the time specifically I don't know if anyone remembers the Craze film do you remember the Craze film? With the Kemps with the Kemp brothers and there's a scene in it

where someone gets the knife in the lips oh this is going to be a gruesome section the Glasgow Smile a signature look of one of pop culture's most iconic villains uh the joker of course yes in real life oh and i can't believe this this did actually used to happen victims were chased down by members of glasgow's razor gangs pinned to the ground their face slashed by a razor blade scars that never quite healed. Street gangs in Britain have been a feature of urban life since the 19th century, when groups such as, do you remember any of these?

Peaky Blinders, now very famous in Birmingham. I hadn't heard of these. The Scuttlers in Manchester. No, not aware of those, no. The High Rip. Oh, you have. I've heard of the, is it a gang of Irish... An Irish gang in London called the Hooligans? That's too generic a name, isn't it?

I think that Hooligan was a surname. Oh, it was a Hooligan. It was like a brand name, like Hoover. But then eventually took over. The High Rip gang in Liverpool. The Cock Road gang in Kingswood near Bristol. And they effectively worked like any other organised crime syndicate. Tom's going to tell you about the Mafia in a later part.

But yeah, these gangs in Britain, essentially the same. Glasgow had Razor Gangs. Now they included some interesting titles here. The St Mungies Warriors. Okay. St Mungies and Warriors. They're not cosy bedfellows I think in the same term, are they?

The Bridgeton Billy Boys. The Kent Star. Billy Boys is too quirky a name in my opinion. Yeah, too. Billy Boys is like if you go to Butlins and it's like the fun club for ages

10 to 14 yeah absolutely except with razors uh the kent start the savoy arcadians the beehive boys the savoy arcadians sound quite upmarket yeah i might like the sound of those the savoy arcadians yes not just any gang no i mean the savoy arcadians uh the norman conks good bit of fun. The Calton Santoy. The Southside Stickers. And they were all notorious, in part, in Glasgow because of the religious sectarianism which engulfed the city in the late 19th century. I've just Googled hooligans, right?

So it comes from a cartoon. Oh. It was a cartoon that used to grace the cover of the English comic literary journal Nuggets. And the hooligans were a family of Irish immigrants living in London, but not quite fitting in. So they were drawn by a cartoonist called T.S. Baker, captioned with thick Irish accents. And the hooligan family typically displays odd and buffoonish behaviour that's juxtaposed against the properness of English culture. And it's probably, their name is probably likely a take

on the Irish surname Houlihan. Ah, interesting. So basically it was a racist or xenophobic stereotypical cartoon in a magazine, and that's where the word comes from. Well, well, well, that's really interesting. Fantastic piece of etymology.

Of course, Chris, the Southside stickers would give you a shiny. Yeah, I mean, that would come. What do you think shiny means a shiny is another name for a black it's a shiner

oh right it is a shiny that's what you say at school I'll give you a shiny I never said it obviously I'm not my vibe

do you know what shiny means in London it is a shiny I'm going to Google this now. A shiny is all sex performed on a mat. Is it? Okay, this is a different sort of gang right there.

What kind of gang have you joined, Tom? Oh, you are right. It's a shiner. Okay, shiner. Tom is a black guy. Tom is falling apart. Imagine Tom's first day on the gang

and he's making mistakes like that. That was on the outskirts of brilliant. When you're in a gang you want day one to go well. Yeah.

Don't you? You don't? Yeah. Not inadvertently offering rival gang members sexual favours. Thinking it's a black eye. Yeah, exactly.

Why do they keep saying yes? Oh, my God. Anyway, keep going. Back to the history. Keep going. Yeah, so all these gangs in Glasgow, you've got religious sectarianism engulfed the city in the late 19th century

and then sparked kind of intercommunal violence and then throw into that interwar unemployment and you've got this really toxic mixture happening in the city. The gangs in Glasgow modelled their activities, especially between the two world wars, on American gangsterism. They basically copied what they saw across the pond. That's interesting. There has always been that fascination with American gangs. You can still see that here, definitely. It's kind of today there's still that fascination, isn't there?

It's the style as well, isn't it? And I know Peaky Blinders, you know, it's just the look. Like, it's an American look, isn't it, when you think of the British gangster? Like, the image of the craze is they're wearing suits. Yeah, yeah. It's a combination of kind of business and violence. Yeah, yes. That's exactly right.

There's a novel that was published in 1935 that is about the Glasgow gang scene called No Mean City. Yeah, that'll come up later on. Thanks for ruining the research. I'm excited for that bit now the gangs the kind of things they're up to protection racketeering trade and illicit goods intimidation housebreaking and just generic widespread street violence the classics so the

billy boys founded in 1924 they werered on the Bridgeton area of the city's east end. They were rivals of the Catholic Norman Conks gang who were led by Billy Fullerton. Fullerton was at one time a member of the British Fascists, founded in 1923. An anti-socialist king and country outfit

and later joined the British Union of Fascists, led by Oswald Moseley. So Billy Fullerton founded Glasgow's British Union of Fascist branch and was according to legend an avowed enemy of Irish Catholics who he blamed for breaking his legs and putting an end to his footballing career. The Billy Boys the name itself is derived not from the leader Billy Fullerton but it was the nickname given to Williamiam of orange and no surprise that they mirrored much of the paramilitary behavior of ulster loyalism with

support for rangers football club thrown in for good measure the gang song billy boys with its lyrics hello hello we are the billy boys was frequently sung on the terraces at ibrox and a youth wing known as the dairy boys or the young Young Bridgeton Derry was also organised, as was a Fife and Drum band. So you can start to see where this sectarianist violence is emerging through the gangs. So that's how Billy Boys, on one side, and on the Catholic side, the Norman Conks, do you know what Norman Conks refers to? At first I thought it was a man called Norman Conk. Norman Conkers, is man called Norman Conk. Norman Conquerors. Norman Conquerors.

They developed out of the Victorian penny gangs so called because gang members would pay a penny a head into a collection to meet court fines and they were based in Norman Street in Glasgow's East End. How interesting. Both had hundreds of members and

in the case of the Conks had female members and then you have associates and numerous hangers-on. The rivalry between the Billy Boys and the Conks erupted in the 1920s. Newspapers speak of the Conks attacking people in the street with hatchets, iron bars, bottles, bayonets and and of course, most famously, with razors. In 1926, a journalist writing for the Daily Herald reported on gangs of young men armed with razors, parading the city streets, seeking whom they may devour, not among law-abiding citizens, but among other groups of young men constitute like themselves. The gangs are highly organised. They have recognised leaders. They have developed their own social life. Wow.

How have the conks not chucked in the conker, though, as one of the additional weapons they're using? It feels that that's surely got to be your calling card. If you've got a list of weapons, you've got knives, guns, all these sort of things, and you're called the conker, though, as one of the additional weapons they're using. It feels that that's surely got to be your calling card. If you've got a list of weapons, you've got knives, guns, all these sort of things, and you're called the conks, surely the conker has to be one of them. You have to leave those conkers in vinegar

for an awfully long time for them to be hard enough to be involved in gang warfare. Hollow out those conkers, inject them with concretes. A decade-aged conker. Hang on. You could like a big stick with string attached to vinegarized conkers hollowed out filled with concrete and razor blades plugged into the conkers and he's like let me suggest something chris the kato nine conkers okay which is obviously it's a large stick With nine conkers on it

That spinning towards your face Is going to cause fear Surely Oh god It's the cat o' nine conkers Although That's a very time specific Weapon isn't it

Yeah It's a basic You can only really use The cat o' nine conkers In September Very dangerous for a month. One month of autumnal fear. So I'm just imagining Tom's first day in a gang.

He's just made the fatal mistake of offering to give sexual favours to the opposition gang as opposed to a black guy. The gang has moved on from that, and his next move is to suggest the conker as a weapon. Yeah. So he says, right, I've got a really great idea for a weapon. He explains it to them. They point out that it's me, and he says, yes, and now we wait.

I'd be dead by lunchtime. I'd be offered to the other gang around lunchtime for money. We can have him. Five quid, you can have him. They'd refuse, and then I'd be dead. Oh, gang around Munchstein for money. You can have him, five quid, you can have him. They'd refuse and then I'd be dead. Oh dear. But what a morning. Yeah, what a morning.

So anyway, 1935, there's a pitch battle between the Norman Conks and a rival outfit. This time the Steam Boys at an ice cream shop where two members of the latter gang had taken refuge. When the lads couldn't be found, the Norman conks smashed practically everything that was breakable. The gangs were eventually broken up by the city's determined and forthright chief constable, Sir Percy Sillitoe. Good, that's a good chief constable. I feel sorry for the owner of that ice cream shop, though. Yeah. All they want to do is sell some ice cream.

And then there's gang warfare next to the sort of, where they keep the flakes. There must be a blaze. Of all the places to seek refuge, it's the one thing that seems so innocent in amongst these street gangs of the violent Glasgow of the 20s. Where do you think they were keeping... Were they hiding in a freezer?

What were they doing? Shivering? Where are you hiding in the ice cream shop? Next to the clip box. Next to the clip box? You know, they sometimes have that massive plastic sign of a smiling ice cream outside you sort of hiding behind that where are you hiding taking the lift lid off and hiding in the cone

what's he smashing an ice cream shop to bits does it that feels that sort of thing you'd see on like a kid's game show or something not like yeah presented by your go-to thing to trash as a as a hardened gang gang member amazing okay i'll tell you what i find very briefly quite interesting about this paying a fine to all these sort of things to ensure that your fellow gang members avoid punishment in the courts all this sort of stuff there's some sort slightly weird well almost left-leaning slightly socialist principles in the midst of this the the uh the common good of the group and all this sort of stuff, despite the horror of it all, mixed in it has this weird...

It's a strange mix, isn't it? Do you know what I mean? Looking out for the other members and making sure... But then there's also an argument that's simply about maintenance of the power of your gang and that continuing to make money for you. I think people naturally are more communal and egalitarian than is believed. So Percy Sillitoe, he was rewarded for his work in Glasgow from 1931 to 1943.

And then in Sheffield, where he was a police constable before that, from 1926 to 1931, he became head of MI5 in 1946. Big year to become head of MI5 as well. So Sillitoe sorted out most of the violence in 1946. Big year to become head of MI5 as well. So, Sillitoe sorted out most of the violence in Glasgow. He involved the use of reasonable force. He got new officers down from the Highlands where, and this is me adding this,

they are notoriously hard, and from rural areas of Scotland and modernised policing methods. He brought in wireless communication, fingerprinting, photography. He expanded the city's mounted division. The officers came to be known as Silito's Cossacks. In short, he matched the violence of the street gangs

with a tough gang of his own. It must be such an intimidating remit to be given if you're a policeman. You've got to sort out this city's gang problem the hardest people in the city yeah gangs of new york that opening scene where you get all the gangs summit like the police officers are just as scary a gang as everyone else yeah um yeah terrifying the razor gangs were brought to life in no mean city a 1935 documentary novel by journalist kingsley long an unemployed glasgow baker and gorbals resident alexander macarthur the book was tagged a story

of the glasgow slums and provided a fictionalized account of characters like billy fullerton it was long regarded as a definitive portrait of the gangs precisely because it drew on macarthur's own experience and no mean city served as a nickname for glasgow for portrait of the gangs precisely because it drew on MacArthur's own experience, and No Mean City served as a nickname for Glasgow for much of the 20th century. In perhaps its most famous guise, it was employed by songwriter Mike Moran and singer Maggie Bell in their theme tune

to the television series... Taggart. Taggart, which launched in 1983. I loved Taggart. And it is so weird just how much Taggart looked like Alex Ferguson. So weird. And the Taggart impression that absolutely ripped it through my score was somebody murdered my golly-wolly.

That's been a murder. There you go. Finally, a Taggart impression on the show. So that's the end of part one. Part two will be with you tomorrow. If you want to use a little bit of podcast lingo, episode two will be dropping into your feeds tomorrow. Yeah, just say that casually around the

office people are like oh my god they're so young we should promote that person I think they're an active member of Gen Z that person do you hear the lingo they're using that's incredible if you couple that with a sideways facing baseball cap

as well then people will think you are the youngest guy around so episode 2 will be dropping into your feeds tomorrow Couple that with a sideways-facing baseball cap as well. People will think you are the youngest guy around. You're basically a baby. So episode two will be dropping into your feeds tomorrow. If you'd like them all at the same time, ad-free, you can become an Oh What A Time subscriber, become an Oh What A Time full-timer. And that's at ohwhatatime.com for all your options.

See you tomorrow. Thank you.