"Yes, absolutely, without a doubt", Those were the first words my mother and father heard from the amazed midwife as I entered the world. She confirmed what my mother already knew, that she could tell I must be well over 15lbs from the way the trainee nurse had to balance me on a table or risk crushed vertebrates. I was toying with the idea of naming my story the same, but in the end, the pies and the birds have always played a more prominent part in my life, absolutely, without a doubt.
I was born in Dundee, not a place you would go for a holiday, unless you had no imagination, but a place my ancestors decided was just the job for us. My childhood was one that past as all childhoods in Dundee do, an endless succession of days wishing you could get to hell out of it. I started on the pies from an early age due in part to my mother's lack of culinary skills and the fact that my uncle worked in a bakery and got a great deal on the pies with damaged crusts. The fact that it was him who damaged the pies to get a reduction, was never discovered and I ate my way through approximately three thousand a year. It was also at this time that I decided to play football and it wasn't long before I was attracting the attention of a succession of teams, all with the same advice, lose the pies and you might have a future in the game. It wasn't an easy choice, but when the mighty Glasgow Rangers came in for me, I had no choice. It would be Bridies from then on in, or so I thought.
I made my debut at 16 and scored a goal against Celtic, who at that time due to a conspiracy and failure of Scottish refs to do their job properly, had been winning the league every year and making all true bluenoses absolutely pig sick. I couldn't even look at a pie for months, well not unless it was cooked and covered in HP. For a long time this disastrous situation continued and indeed did so, absolutely without abating for pure ages. In the year of 1971 we lost the Cup final to Celtic, but due to the fact that, once again the referees of this country, although, to be fair, gave it their all, they could not halt Celtic winning yet another league, so we, by default, went into the Cup Winners Cup, the greatest Cup ever, and far harder to win than anything Celtic ever won, that's for sure! Absolutley!
Absolutely fearlessly in the true Rangers tradition and without a doubt we went into that competition and it was touch and go, nip and tuck without a doubt from the start to the calamitous battle of Barcelona, which ironically, started me back on the pies. One aimed at the ref, clattered me on the mush and proceeded to slide down my head mouth ward. I can still taste that gravy now, it was like being submerged in a vat of heaven and I tried not to header the ball for ages until every last bit of that pie was guided into my gub. Oh and we won the cup as well.
Being a winner of the greatest ever Cup competition, even harder than anything that Celtic have ever done, meant that the birds were all over me as if I was a Jacknifed Trill lorry. I was nearly doing as many birds as pies, so much so that Big Jock( where's the dunes?) Wallace threatened to send me to Gullane on more than one occasion and as you will know if you have ever been there, there is not a Chippy or pie shop for as far as the eye can see. And when it comes to the pies I'm more observant than the Hubble telescope.
I had to make a decision and that decision was I could not let the pies go, so slowly at first, then with the speed of light, I became the size of a house, too big for my boots and decided I would try my luck in London, where the birds literally fell out of trees onto your lap, and the pies and mash were served in dishes the same size as a tin bath. So, heaven here we come and let the belt out another notch waiter please?
It was a great time for me, pie and bird wise, football wise not so good, as I only made one start for Chelsea, but what a start. I have never regretted the move, those pies were so good I can still taste them. The birds were not bad either, although I'd be lying if I said the pies didn't edge it. It would be home to Glasgow and Rangers, and more pies and a few birds, it was a homecoming that all of Scotland was talking about, well in my house at least, absolutely without a doubt. It would not be easy, shorts were getting smaller as my waist expanded faster than the universe, but I was DJ and I would see it through. Rangers made me captain on my return and for every member of my family, friends, acquaintances and suppliers of savoury pastries, it was a time to bask in the glory of a journey that had as many pitfalls as piestalls, as many birds as attacked those weans in that Hitchcock film. Yes, absolutely, without a doubt and yes, your right, it may only be my opinion, but I believe it to this day. I was the captain and I would milk it and as everyone knows a pie washed down with milk is not a bad combination.
Tomorrow: The late Seventies, My Perm and the Pies