Evening Telegraph (First Edition)
From Fintry Shams
Gangs, schemes, plays, poetry and punk music: Binman Gary Robertson’s Dundee story
GARY Robertson has packed an awful lot into his 54 years.
He has experienced life at the sharp end of urban gangs, won a national reality TV show, written five books, created six plays, achieved an award for his poetry, sung in a band and almost died pursuing his successful quest to bag all of Scotland’s Munros.
All of this was achieved while living in his native and beloved Dundee and, remarkably, all in his spare time. For the past 12 years Gary has been a bin collector in the city.
“It’s been a great journey and hopefully there will be more to come,” he says.
Born in Perth Royal Infirmary in 1967, the son of John and Margaret, he can somehow recall the setup at Ryehill Lane in Dundee’s West End, where he spent his first two years.
“We had an old outside toilet,” he says. “I can still see inside the living room and I have still got great memories of being a wee toddler, which is crazy.”
The recollections become even more vivid regarding his time at the since-demolished Whitfield Court.
“The scheme was still getting built when we moved in,” Gary says. “Most of the land was berry fields and I remember picking raspberries with mum and dad and they would make gin from it.
“They didn’t have any money but we were given a brand new home which was a luxury when you think that many people in the city were living in squalor in tenements.”
The 12-floor building had certain problems though.
“While mum and dad were at work I would always be out playing.
“Quite often I would come back and the lifts were broken. You would have to walk up to the ninth floor in the pitch dark. I was only a wee bairn at the time.”
By 1974 a bigger home was sought due to the expanding family. Gary now had a younger sister, Stephanie, who was four.
The Robertsons moved to a house in Fintry Road, where Gary spent the rest of his childhood.
“It was an absolute midden,” he says. “There were so many problems in Fintry with gangs in the 1960s and 1970s.
“Fintry Primary School was great and I was lucky to get into the football team. Football was the be-all and end-all.”
Gary says that gang culture “resurfaced again” in the late 1970s, just as he was entering his teenage years.
“We had the Fintry Shams, Hilltown Huns, Kirkton Huns, Lochee Fleet and the Beechie Mob, who were based in Beechwood, off King’s Cross Road. You would not walk in certain areas and you would avoid shops for fear of people targeting you en masse.”
Gary says he was “loosely” a member of the Young Fintry Shams. He recalls flashpoints involving gangs from up to five schemes at the Caird Park carnival.
“Each scheme wore different colours,” he says. “People would throw bricks at each other at night and then see each other at school the following day. It was daft.”
In 1979 Gary began at Linlathen High and initially played for the school football team before turning his attention to boxing and then karate.
Entering working age with the aim of digging holes for a living, Gary did a Youth Training Scheme course in joinery.
He recalls “hating it” so got a job as a petrol pump attendant at Bunclare Dispensers on the Gourdie Industrial Estate.
“I earned £45 a week, which was a huge amount,” meaning he could afford holidays with his pals to the likes of Spain and Greece.
“A lot of my mates were into glue sniffing and mushrooms,” Gary recalls.
“I was glad I never followed them because I was too much into my fitness.”
At the age of 18 he got a job at NCR Financial Services, also on the Gourdie estate, working on ATM cash machines.
“Life was good. I enjoyed watching Dundee United in the late 1980s and in 1991 I got married to Sue,” he says.
The couple are still together and have two children – son Cailean, 27, and daughter Eilidh, 24.
At NCR an “important thing happened”. Gary noticed an advert for the company’s hillwalking and mountaineering club and promptly bought a pair of boots and joined up.
“This was one of the best things I have done in my life,” says Gary, who is still in the group 30 years on. “I am with a bunch of likeminded guys who enjoy a good drink and getting out into the mountains.”
His passion for climbing Munros almost led to disaster when he attempted Ben More and