Just Another Saturday was my big break. But my friend Billy got more than just another banjo
Vera star’s fledgling days with the Big Yin When Billy Connolly signed with his first manager in Glasgow in the 1970s, the deal was clinched with the purchase of an expensive Gibson banjo and guitar.
Jon Morrison knows it’s true because the Big Yin told him.
The Vera star, back on screen with Brenda Blethyn in the long-running crime drama, starred in acclaimed films Just Another Saturday and The Elephant’s Graveyard in 1975 and 1976, alongside a fledgling Sir Billy.
He said: “They were his first two acting roles and, although they were big for me, they weren’t my first.
“I had been on TV since I was 15 so I was the more experienced actor, but by 1974 he was doing his own gigs – a mixture of his songs and stand-up – and he had done his albums, like The Big Yin, so he was selling and he was definitely on his way.
“When he signed with his manager, Frank Lynch, I remember Billy saying he went to see him and said, ‘If you get me a Gibson Mastertone banjo and a Gibson J200 guitar, I’ll sign with you,’ and Frank went out and bought them straight away.
“At that time, about 1974, the banjo would have cost something like £ 2000 and the J200 another grand so it was a lot of money but Billy did actually lend me the J200 for a while when I was filming with him on The Elephant’s Graveyard.
“I never thought twice about it. I was quite a game wee geezer at that time and I was playing guitar anyway so I was like, ‘ Thanks very much Billy – geez that’. It was just a great treat for a 19, 20-year- old.”
The two dramas, made for the BBC’s acclaimed Play For Today strand, worked out for everyone.
Just Another Saturday tackled the Orange marches in Glasgow for the first time and, although controversial, drew critical acclaim and established the talents of Jon and Billy, as well as writer Peter McDougall and director John Mackenzie.
Mackenzie would go on to make crime classic The Long Good Friday, Jimmy Boyle’s A Sense of Freedom and Edinburgh drugs drama, Looking After Jo Jo.
All four would team up again for The Elephant’s Graveyard where Jon played a man who dodges around the countryside while his wife thinks he is at work and meets an older man, played by Billy, who is ddoing exactly the same. Jon said: “I was just 19 whwhen I made Just Another SatSaturday and that felt huge strstraight away, just from the script.
“Nobody else was tou touching the subject of ssectearianism. John Mackenzie Mac was a film director who had comec in just to do it.
“At the time time it wait was a big deal for me just to be in a Play For Today, that’s what you dreamed about, you wanted to be in something like that and I was the lucky guy who got to be in two of them. I worked for 10 years straight off the back of that.”
Jon, 63, who grew up in East Kilbride, had started acting when he was 10 with a co- operative society’s drama group, did his TV first job with Para Handy star Roddy McMillan aged 15 and went to Central School of Speech and Drama in London when he was 17.
His CV includes Monarch of the Glen, River City, High Times and Takin’ Over The Asylum, as well as shows like Dream Team, Servants and The Bill and films including Nil By Mouth and Sweet Sixteen.
Vera has been his longest and most secure job. He plays Detective Constable Kenny Lockhart, who has gone from whipping boy to trusted sidekick of Blethyn’s Inspector Vera Stanhope.
He wasn’t in the initial pilot but Scottish actress turned producer Elaine Collins, also the wife of Peter Capaldi, got him on board and he’s both proud and protective of the show.
He said: “It is the longest-running thing
Just Another h Saturday felt huge. Nobody else was touching sectarianism
I have done by miles and I guess it’s the first time I have been given an opportunity to relax into a role.
“It’s not that common. Every now and then they give you a wee bit more information about Kenny Lockhart so it’s a nice slow burn. He is a character who has obviously known Vera for a long time and he’s becoming a confidant as time goes on rather than a scapegoat because she is always taking the mickey out of him as well.”
He has formed a close bond with star of the show, Bafta and Golden Globe-winning and two-time Academy Award nominee Blethyn.
Although they have worked with the same people, including director Ken Loach, it’s the first time they have worked together.
He said: “I have undying loyalty to Brenda. She is just astonishing the way she works and what she has brought to the show. She pays great attention to detail and she knows the character so well. She is the one to go to.
“We are pals as well but we live in different parts of the country so it’s not like we pop round and see each other at weekends but we have an incredibly strong relationship, especial ly when we’re working. She is just so stunningly good at it. I love her to bits.”
Vera, which is on STV tonight at 8pm, dominates his schedule , with filming often clashing with other work he is offered. But Jon is more than content to stay on at Vera, which has already been commissioned for a ninth series.
He said: “So long as Bren is happy with it and happy to continue to do it then I’m sure ITV will be happy tot makingkigitit. It I does sell in lots and lots of countries. . As long as she keeps going, then yahoo.
“There is still uncertainty but in all honesty that is just life as an actor. There is a new series of Vera coming up, it has been recommissioned and hopefully I will be asked back again but you never know.
“I am lucky that people actually think of me for things. It’s just trying g to keep your face out there, while you u still have one. I am 63 now and I started ed on telly when I was 15 so I have been pretty etty fortunate.”
He’s also still a guitar player and plays now and again in a band with Chris Glen of the Sensational Alex Harvey Band called alled The Outfit.
The Big Yin would approve.