British Library Glasgow Lyrics

Interviewer: So what about, what were your dreams, when you, I mean, you obviously, you said you left school, ehm, without qualifications; what did, what did you want to do? [inaudible]

Cormack: Dreams? Eh, I always wanted to be famous, you know, I've always wanted, eh, to be on the stage, eh, I, I loved acting and I, I really, I really loved, eh, being around people and among people. Eh, not, eh, eh, not, not in any way sort of trying to force myself upon people, but I always found myself at home with people. And, eh, I, I always wanted to be famous some, in a comic way or, ehm, in, in, in, in just a way where I could be me and that, that, that was OK, you know. Ambitions? Uh, I've never really had any great ambitions; I've always just found, ehm, a certain semblance of order in an unstructured lifestyle that, that keeps me, sort of, going, you know.

Interviewer: So what, I mean, you obviously said you wanted to become famous; I know you became a redc, uh, you worked at Butlins1.

Cormack: Yes, you can say 'redcoat'2.

Interviewer: I was going to say 'redcoat',

Cormack: Yes, you can, you can say 'redcoat', it's quite OK.

Interviewer: but I wanted you to say 'redcoat'.

Cormack: No, I'll let you say 'redcoat'; you can say 'redcoat'.

Interviewer: What, what, what, I mean, why did you decide to, to do that?

Cormack: Well, I'd been in Germany and I left when I was twenty-one in nineteen-eighty-six. I went to Germany for two weeks and stayed for two years: I got, uh, I got a job in NAAFI3, in, with the NAAFI as a silver service waiter. I had a great two years in Germany, but as things transpired things fell apart and I came back to Glasgow. It w, it, it was, eh, quite strange, because I, uh, I can understand completely how my father must've felt, you know, seeing me as a bit of a waster and, you know, I mean, I dressed like a tramp and I didn't shave and, you know, I didn't really, sort of, conform. I wasn't in any way interested in, in what they were all out to do: this great ethic to go and make lots of money; just, "Oh, I'm sorry, no, I'll, I'll do something else," you know. I mean and I, I'm not trying to, uh, uh, be, be bad to my dad in any way at all, you know. He, he couldn't look at me, you know, he was sick, sick of me and I can totally understand why he was sick to the back teeth of me, you know. And, eh, I went for jobs in the Caledonian Club4 in London; I went down for the interview and got the job as, eh, a live-in waiter and, uh, it really didn't appeal to me, but, you know, my dad had said to me, "Go down!" you know, and I thought, "Oh well, I think he's trying to get me out of the house." So he came along and, eh, and he, he put down the Evening Times5 and he says, "They're looking for redcoats, why don't you go for that?" I thought, "Good one, dad, cheers!" uh, and I went for that and, uh, being a redcoat was the best, well, what, a couple of the best years in my life, really. After I was a redcoat for two years I, I went on to full Equity6 and I became camp compÃ¨re, uh, if you like, and, uh, I, I loved it. And that, that was me; I was then famous; that was one of my ambitions, you know, working with Billy-Jo Spears and, and Lulu and Marmalade and George Hamilton and Stella Parton, you know, and all these people and, you know, even Andy Cameron7, you know, I mean Andy Cameron just is a, a shining light for Scot, I think he's a great man, you know, uh, he's, he's a good man and goes up there and he does it and I always, I always liked Andy Cameron, you know. Although it was likesae, he'd go up, you know, and I was Cormack O'Hara the compÃ¨re, camp compÃ¨re and gay and Andy would go up there, you know, and Andy being, sort of, the Hun and me being the Tim8 - it was good, do you know, and I think maybe that, sort of, brought things together a wee bit for me, you know, through the sort of, the, eh, the comedy aspect of what we have here.

Interviewer: What were the peop, what were the, kind of, I mean, was it all Scottish people that would go to it - it was Butlins in Ayr?

Cormack: Yeah, Butlins in Ayr, eh, lots of Northern Irish people. Ehm, and we, what was happening there was a lot of English people coming up for some kind of Scottish experience. Eh, the, the, the audiences were great. I mean, they were, the, the, the, definitely the, the best audience, because, you know, uh, if, if you're having a good time, they're having a good time, cause they're on holiday, you know. So if you're not having a good time there's no point in you being there. And these people've paid a lot of money. OK, I thought a lot of them were ripped off, absolutely terrible, you know, the, the rip-off, you know. And it was, they were, they were moving away from that deep-rooted, what was holiday camp, if you like, working class holiday. They were trying to move it up a notch, you know. Therefore what they tried to do was take the Scottishness out of it and make it more like Blackpool. But they were getting English people coming up from down south for the Scottish experience and they weren't getting it. And, eh, I, I've found that, ehm, you could take the mickey out the Irish; you could take the mickey out the Welsh; you could take the mickey out the Scots; but if you tried it on the English, cause the place was full of English managers, now not that I have anything against the English, but I'd get warning letters saying, "Please do not slag the English". And I, I'd think to myself, "But I'm not, I'm not having a go; I'm not having a pop." I do it to the Irish, I do it to myself, I do it to the Welsh and if you're Australian, ho ho ho, you know, nae luck!