Say "Hello" to the Bad Guys.

Back in the 1980s there was a gang of down-and-outs in Glasgow which carried out a number of vicious but rather unprofitable robberies, against individuals rather than big organisations. The main purpose of these crimes was to get money for booze. Cops tasked with tracking the group down came up with a name that illustrates the dark humour shared by so many policemen : the "Hole-in-the-head gang".

At the moment a new gang war seems to have flared up. Proceedings apparently kicked off in January when Kevin ("the Gerbil") Carroll was, as the Sopranos might say, "whacked" in a supermarket car park in Robroyston. Within the last 10 days two twin brothers, "associates" of Carroll, have been badly injured in separate attacks. Both were assaulted by gangsters with chisels, hammers and power drills. I wonder if the detectives investigating these incidents were looking for an outfit called "the Carpenters".

Gangsters have always been part of the Glasgow crime scene. I can remember a couple of would-be hard cases turning up at the gates of my school looking for one of my fellow pupils. Apparently he had transgressed some unwritten law and pissed these guys off. The taller of the two was the one who did the mouthing off while his wee pal carried a holdall which he would occasionally hold open to give us a glimpse of a collection of knives, cleavers, hammers and other pieces of hardware. I hadn't realised that gangsters needed caddies.

I can just imagine their conversation if they had caught the guy they were looking for:

"I say , Shuggie, this chap is more portly than I foresaw. Which implement would you suggest I use ?"

"That would depend on whether one wished to rip, slash or plunge him, sir."

"I would think that a good ripping would be in order and display my irritation quite sufficiently".

"In that case may I suggest the straight razor rather than the sharpened screwdriver ?"

The caddy would definitely have been the subservient type. Every real gangster always has a toady to accompany him. This is the type of little turd who didn't have the guts to steal your sweeties but gets his mates to do it for him. They aren't confined to straightforward gangsterism. Igor in the Frankenstein films is a good example. In politics Michael Forsyth, the Scottish Tory MP, always struck me as a prime example too.

When it comes to the gangster in crime novels I must admit that there are few examples that give me any great pleasure. I love the Godfather films and I've always felt that they improve greatly on the book . The exceptions are a series of crime novels written by Loren D. Estleman and set in Detroit starting with "Whiskey River".

Sadly, real-life gangsters are far removed from the Hollywood glamour that descends in a line from "Little Caesar" and Rocky Sullivan through to the Corleones and Tony Montana. Most don't have any class....... however, in among the "Tongs" and the "Drummy" my favourite Glaswegian gang name originates from a particular street in Bridgeton: the "Baltic Fleet". I don't know if the nod to the Soviet Navy is intentional, but I like to think so.