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Made In Scotland

My Grand Adventures in a Wee Country

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Made In Scotland

By: Billy Connolly
Narrated by: Gordon Kennedy
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Random House presents the audiobook edition of Made in Scotland by Billy Connolly, read by Gordon Kennedy.

All roads lead home.

‘After my knighthood was announced,
a woman from the BBC came to
Glasgow to interview me. We sat
down in a lovely hotel in a nice part
of town, and she hit me with her first
question: “This must mean a lot to
you, with you coming from nothing?”
I looked at her, and I laughed.

“I did’nae come from nothing,”
I told her. “I come from something.”

I grew up in the tenements of
post-war Glasgow. I am very proud
to be working class, and especially
a working-class Glaswegian who
has worked in the shipyards. I come
from the working class. And, most
of all, I come from Scotland.

Scotland is a unique and wonderful
place. Its national motto says
a lot about it: Nemo me impune
lacessit. A decent translation might
be: ‘By all means punch me
in the nose but prepare yourself
for a kick in the arse.’

I did’nae come from nothing:
I come from Scotland. And this
book is about why I will always be
happy and proud that I do.’

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I thought it would have been Billy reading the book and was originally disappointed to find out he wasn't, after the 1st chapter I soon settled into Gordon Kelly's narration and enjoyed it. The book itself was a nice upbeat look back at Billy's life that made me laugh on numerous occasions.

Enjoyable book

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Not entirely sure of narrator's delivery, I would've liked to hear a West of Scotland accent, however can't fault anything else though!

the Big Yin!

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‘I didnae come from nothing!’ retorted Billy Connolly when an interviewer praised him for having made so much of himself when he had ‘come from nothing’. ‘I came from something, I came from Scotland!’. In Made in Scotland Billy is as gloriously funny, outrageously outspoken, insightful and generous as ever as he reviews his past life, and his present life with Parkinson’s disease -‘We’re fallin’ to ****** bits’ as he says to one of his old friends. Always there’s clear-sighted, pitiless comedy (savage but never cruel) tempered with his generous humanity, heartfelt empathy and his modesty which makes him genuinely amazed by his fame and the affection that people feel for him.

His Parkinson’s often makes him unsteady and shaky these days, just like the structure of this book which makes it so natural and human. Billy rambles back and forth down his life’s by-ways and highways from his bleak Glasgow tenement childhood from which his mother fled, his harsh tawse-ruled primary school (where one teacher called his tawse Pythagoras and when a bold lad chopped it up, he called his replacement Pythagoras 2), and his years as a welder in the tough, health-and-safety-free Clyde shipyard which shaped him. Part of Billy’s generosity of spirit is his understanding of those men’s harsh lives and the catastrophic destruction wrought by the closure of the yards.

Billy wears his serious side lightly, whether it’s on aging and illness; his love of reading (the library of his childhood showed him that there was ‘something better, something other'); or his interest in the ‘men’s sheds’ movement in Scotland which provide a place for unemployed shipbuilders to feel useful once more.

Presumably Billy was not able to read Made in Scotland himself, but Gordon Kennedy does a cracking good job.

I didnae come from nothing!

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Just wish it had been Billy reading it - would have made a world of difference.

Not Billy!

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A great listen and a few laughs by someone who has given so much. thanks Billy for sharing.

Grand

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