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uploaded 20/03/2005
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I was seven years old and lived in the tenements of Townhead, Glasgow. We lived at the corner of Glebe Street and Kennedy Street, next to Maggie Gillespie's wee sweetie shop and across from Kennedy Street School.
The tenements had been around for a while. They were sooty black and could have been used as a location for many a scary Hollywood movie.
My granny lived cattycornered across the backcourt. I spent a lot of time at my granny and granda's. It was a fun hoose.
My Granda, James Mc Ghee would play Jimmy Shands on his accordion and my Uncle John would keep time with a pair of drumsticks and an old wooden box. My Uncle Willie McGhee was the comedian of the family.
His patter was great and I loved to sit and listen.
Sooner or later it would be time to go hame. That appropriately would be the time my Uncle Willie would tell his tales of "Tam Taur The Townhead Ghost."
Tam was a creature that sometimes lived in the Salt Waste and at others would make his home at the bottom of the Monkland Canal, which was just up the street. At other times Tam would catch a wee nap in a convenient midden.
Tam was a horrible creature, covered in plukes, had big yellow teeth and was covered with a coat of coal tar. He had an insatiable appetite for wee snottery nosed boys.
I used to be petrified. The thought of walking down the winding stairs and through the backcourt gave me chills. I would make my way past the outside toilet on the half landing expecting Tam to come flying out of the cludgie and grab my wee white bum at any second.
The gaslights on the winding stairwell only made matters worse. The yellow flickering light seemed to heighten the tension on the way back to the safety of my ain hoose. If I could make it down the stairs, I was half way home. I still had the backcourt to contend with.
The only light in the backcourt was from the brizbissed tenement windows above. The middens looked like brick mausoleums.
A perfect hiding place for the dreaded Tam Taur.
When I was halfway across the back, my granny's window would slide up.
There would be My Uncle Willie hollering...
"Tam Taur's gonnie get you."
If I was older I'm sure I could have won many a gold medal for sprinting.
My wee sand shoes would travel at the speed of light. I would just follow along. I could still hear my uncle's words of encouragement behind me.
Across the back, past the middens, up another flight of shadowy winding stairs then past another lavvie and I was at my house in Glebe Street.
My ma would have heard my cries for help whilst on my terrible journey.
"MAAAAMMMY OPEN THE DOOOOR!!!!!"
She would always be there to make everything all right.
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