TAGGART star Alex Norton spills the beans in his sensational autobiography on
his incredible life that saw him swap a tenement for Tinseltown.
In Day One of our exclusively serialisation of There’s Been A Life!, the
64-year-old Scots actor, left, reveals how the first night he met Billy
Connolly was memorable for other reasons.
And Chief Features Writer MATT BENDORIS discovers how Alex had an
affair with TV babe Isla St Clair.
IN 2003 Billy Connolly is appearing on film from his home in LA as his
contribution to my episode of This Is Your Life.
“Hello Alex,” he begins. “The first time I met you, you were chasin’ after a
load of lassies at a ridin’ school over the Pollok Estate!”
Until that moment, I had completely forgotten that my long acquaintance with
Billy Connolly began at a party in Dumbreck stables when I was just 17.
The night he and Tam Harvey — they were a folk duo called The Humblebums at
that point — turned up, having been invited by a big jodhpur-wearing Amazon
who, I seem to recall, was giving Billy riding lessons of a rather different
nature to the ones I got.
A long-forgotten image came to mind, of Billy playing his banjo in the old
tack room while Tam backed him up on guitar.
I realised the reason I had forgotten our first meeting was because something
of far greater significance happened to me that night.
As the moonlight shone through the dusty old dormer window of the hayloft,
a stablehand named Beryl initiated me into life’s great mystery.
It was a beautiful moment, only slightly sullied by Scruff, the wee stables
collie dog who had been woken up from his sleeping place in the corner and
decided to investigate the strange noises by padding silently across the
floor and sticking his cold wet nose up my jacksie.
This resulted in a yelp of surprise from me and a whoop of delight from Beryl.
So, Billy, with everything that happened to me on that memorable night, I’m
sure you’ll forgive me for not remembering our first meeting.
But I’ll always remember you, Beryl. And I’m bloody sure I’ll never forget
you, Scruff.
From the stables, let’s fast forward to 1975 when I was appearing in some
propagandist tosh at the Citizens Theatre.
After one show a musician Donny MacLeod, who was in a brilliant Gaelic band
called Na h-Òganaich (Young Blood), came back to see me.
I sensed that this was more than just a social visit, and I was right.
Donny told me that Na h Òganaich had been asked to take part in a tour of
America the following month, and would I be interested in joining them?
I had dreamed about travelling to America since I was a kid and jumped at the
chance.
Although when I burst through the door and told my then girlfriend Alison I
was off to America for three-and-a-half months, I was surprised to find she
didn’t seem to share my elation.
The tour Na h-Òganaich would be part of was called Scotland On Parade — a live
version of a then popular TV series called Songs of Scotland.
I spent weeks practising my guitar, mandolin, whistle and bodhran parts while
learning the Gaelic lyrics of the songs.
I was even more delighted when I learned that Isla St Clair would be adding a
touch of glamour to the proceedings.
Isla, from Grangemouth, Stirlingshire, would a few years later become the
darling of the nation as co-host with Larry Grayson in BBC’s The Generation
Game.
I had met Isla once or twice before — and at the photoshoot for the Scotland
On Parade programme I was wowed by her natural beauty.
She seemed genuinely pleased to see me again, and I caught myself murmuring:
“Get thee behind me, Satan — but not too far . . .”
Headed by Songs Of Scotland star Alastair MacDonald, the company, with its
complement of pipers, dancers, singers and musicians, piled into a chartered
Greyhound bus. We journeyed through most of America’s states as well as the
occasional foray into neighbouring Canada.
Morally and ethically questionable as it might be, there is an old theatrical
adage: Adultery doesn’t count on tour.
Realising I would be without what the French call ‘une copine’ for the next
three-and-a-half months, I thought it wouldn’t be a bad idea to make a bid
for Isla before someother silver-tongued lothario got in there first.
By the time the tour reached Cape Cod, Donny found himself short of a
room-mate — I had moved in with Isla.
I knew I was the envy of all the guys on the tour, but behind my cocksure
facade I felt like a cheap gigolo.
The affair seemed to have happened so suddenly that I hadn’t paused to
consider the emotional impact of opening one door before closing the other.
Still, what was done was done, and it was going to be a long tour . . .
The more time I spent with Isla, the more I realised I wasn’t the only one
putting up a front, and sensed that, like me, the ready smile and jaunty
self-assurance masked a sensitive soul with a wounded heart.
I’m still not quite sure why our affair went so wrong so quickly. But in the
blink of an eye, it seemed I had gone from dreaming about the pair of us
teaming up and going on the road together to telling her angrily that she
was perfectly capable of carrying her own bloody suitcase up to our motel
room.
In normal life, if a relationship hits a bump in the road, you can usually
retire to lick your wounds in private. In the hothouse atmosphere of a
concert tour, however, privacy isn’t an option.
Feigning indifference to the odd sly smirk behind our backs, Isla and I
shifted seats to either end of the bus.
Poor Donny — who hadn’t been slow in nabbing a cute wee dancer for himself —
found his style severely cramped when his crestfallen room-mate moved back
in.
As lonely days turned to weeks and lonely weeks to months there were more than
a few times when I genuinely thought I was going to crack under the strain.
My affair with Isla had been a terrible mistake, and my attempts to make up
and at least be friends fell on deaf ears.I was almost physically illwith
homesickness and, as hypocritical as it may seem, I missed Alison terribly.
In fact, if I hadn’t felt such a strong sense of loyalty and commitment to
Donny I would have jumped ship in San Francisco, gone AWOL and to hell with
the consequences.
As the tour neared its end, I’m glad to say that Isla and I patched up our
differences and became friends once more, and for the first time in a long
while, I started to feel positive again.
When I walked out of passport control at Prestwick Airport, Alison was waiting
for me.
I couldn’t have been happier to see her, although a wee inner voice was
telling me there might be some serious bridge building to be done.
Understandably concerned about their only daughter’s vagabond lifestyle,
Alison’s parents had given her enough money to buy a two-bedroom flat up a
close in Portobello.
As a fully paid-up members of seventies counter-culture, Alison and I set
about turning our new home into party central.
It wasn’t uncommon, after a riotous booze and pot-fuelled party at our flat,
for guests to wake up the following morning in a tangle of limbs, only some
of which were their own.
We were pioneers of a sexual revolution that would sweep away the hypocrisy of
the stereotypical male–female relationship forever.
Do I regret the free and easy life I led in the seventies?
Do I blush when I look back?
In answer, here’s a quote that’s dear to my heart:
“On my deathbed, I think I shall probably regret the things I didn’t do,
rather than the things I did.”
l There’s Been A Life! By Alex Norton is published by Black & White
Publishing priced £15.99. Available online and in shops now.
How I found my true love
ALEX met his future wife Sally while working on a schools TV series for BBC
Scotland — but it wasn’t all plain sailing, as he explains:
There was a cast of three, one of whom was a strikingly attractive young
actress named Sally Kinghorn. After rehearsals one day, I hesitantly asked
her out for a drink and got a knockback in return.
But as the weeks went on, I thought I saw an occasional glimmer of interest in
the depths of her dark-brown eyes, but when the series ended we politely
said our goodbyes. The trouble was, I couldn’t quite seem to get her out of
my mind. I had a notion we might have made a good team. I was right and
we’ve been together ever since.
A few weeks after the first of Taggart had finished filming in 2001, I took my
Sally and our boys Jock, Rory and Jamie on a to hell-with-the-expense
holiday to Mexico’s beautiful Yucatan peninsula. There on the cool, coral
sand of a sun-dappled beach, Sally and I finally tied the knot.
RED is
Tomorrow: How I beat pal to role in Taggart.. and my wig:
Tomorrow: How I beat pal to role in Taggart.. and my wig