Author of Poor Things Alasdair Gray’s artwork in Glasgow’s Ubiquitous Chip

National World - LocalTV

The Ubiquitous Chip was one of Alasdair Gray’s favourite spots in Glasgow, a place he was a regular. The staff have many anecdotes of his encounters, including how most of the restaurant’s artwork was by him in exchange for pints and food.

Transcript

00:00 The reason the chip has got so much of Alistair Gray's beautiful artwork in it is because he used to come in and he was a poor artist,

00:08 so he'd paint the building in exchange for pints.

00:11 So Alistair Gray was very much a regular customer here.

00:14 When I first started working here he was still coming in for food and drinks with his friends.

00:20 A lot of the murals that he painted just up our back stairs here,

00:24 they're actually pictures he's done of the owners and the staff that worked here or regular customers.

00:30 There's a great mural of the old head sommelier whose job I came and took over.

00:36 Not that I'm the head sommelier now, but he taught me on my first shift.

00:42 And some of the wonderful sayings from his books and stuff he's painted on the murals up there.

00:48 So all this big hype over his films.

00:51 I don't think people realise how much of the West End has got his artwork in it.

00:55 So we've got the oldest Alistair Gray artwork in here,

00:59 but also obviously he did the ceiling at Arran Moore, that's his artwork,

01:03 and the mural in Hillhead Underground.

01:05 So if you want the real original, very first works of Alistair Gray,

01:10 they're right here across on the other side of that pond.

01:13 They're the very old ones, the ones in the hall we've had to restore and put stuff over them.

01:19 But they were all damaged about 25 years ago and they were all restored again by him.

01:24 But he was a lovely guy. He used to come in past the front desk when he was older.

01:29 His hearing wasn't that great.

01:31 And he'd come in and he'd walk straight past the person on the front desk,

01:34 sit down at that table over there and not even look at a menu and he'd just go, "Soup!"

01:39 [Laughs]

01:41 "We've got to get me a soup." He didn't really care what soup he had, he just wanted some soup.

01:45 But yeah, he was a really nice guy.

01:50 But yeah, it was a privilege to have actually got to know him.

01:52 He used to doodle on the napkins while he was in here

01:56 and we'd all desperately try to get one of his doodled napkins,

01:59 knowing that his work was going to be really...

02:03 I mean, he was already famous as a writer and as an artist,

02:06 but you kind of knew he wasn't going to be around forever

02:09 and you're like, "If only I could get one of his doodles on a napkin."

02:12 But everybody was so after them, so I never got one.

02:16 I think the people of Scotland were probably more upset about Scotland being taken out of it

02:23 than maybe the people who knew him, because the guy who made the film, as far as I'm aware,

02:29 had spoken a lot to Alastair before and he seemed quite happy for him to use his work.

02:35 I don't know whether that is true, this is simply what I've read.

02:38 I think he would have just been happy that his work was big and out there

02:41 and everybody got to see it.

02:43 I think Scottish people like it or to stay Scottish, don't they?

02:47 But I don't know. I think he would have been happy that more people got to see his work.

02:52 Definitely.

02:54 What was he like then?

02:56 I only knew him in his much later years, in his late 70s.

03:00 As I say, we had his 80th birthday party here

03:03 and all the great and the good were invited,

03:06 poet laureates and people from the arts and everything.

03:09 We had a great big table set up down here.

03:12 It was supposed to start and Alastair still wasn't here.

03:16 We were sent off to try and find him and his buddies had taken him down the pub for a drink

03:21 so he was late for his own 80th birthday.

03:25 He was a lovely guy. He didn't talk a lot.

03:29 He would talk in the bars to his mates.

03:32 As far as I know, because I only knew him in the last few years of his life,

03:37 and just to serve him, behind the bar or in the restaurant.

03:43 He was actually a draw.

03:46 People would come to the chip to sit in the bar with Alastair and talk to him

03:50 because he was such an interesting guy.

03:53 A lot of these people here I actually know or I used to work with.

03:57 This is Rory. He's the son of Colin and Carol who were running it.

04:04 He's the little boy there but he grew up to work in the bar here.

04:08 This is Colin Clydesdale and Ronnie, his father.

04:11 Ronnie was the guy who opened the very first restaurant.

04:15 All these are regulars, people that used to drink in the bars and everything.

04:18 This guy here, Willie, he was the head sommelier for years and years.

04:25 This is my absolute favourite one.

04:28 Work as if you live in the early days of a better nation.

04:33 And there's all sorts of other kind of quotes and stuff from his books.

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