Tom Peterkin: In Dundee, truth can indeed be stranger than fiction

Published on 25/01/2013 00:00

HOW refreshing to hear Dundee accents and see the Broughty Ferry seafront showcased in a new comedy on the telly the other night.

The first episode of Bob Servant Independent on BBC 4 shone some limelight on a city and a suburb that are too often overlooked by the mainstream.

Brian Cox returned to his roots to play Bob Servant, a former “cheeseburger magnate” who takes an unnatural pride in the extension on his house and who is standing in the Broughty Ferry by-election.

A bombastic character, Servant makes an unusual politician – more at home with the dog-fouling nuisance in Dawson Park than with the size of the deficit. Cox’s performance got rave reviews in the Holyrood canteen yesterday from Shona Robison, the SNP minister and MSP for Dundee East.

As a local, Robison presumably recognised some of Servant’s traits. In fact, almost all who have had the pleasure of living in Dundee will be familiar with political eccentricity. Given his preoccupation with his extension, Servant would have approved of a gregarious Dundee publican who represented the “Conservatory Party”.

The late Mike Halford, who ran such establishments as the Tally Ho Bar and Deacon Brodies, stood in the Perth by-election of 1995 on a ticket calling for tax-breaks for new conservatories.

That policy did not, however, grab as much publicity as the tabloid revelation that Halford’s “manhood” had to be “sewn back on” after a “Bobbitt-style attack”. By the time he stood for parliament, “Scotland’s Mr Bobbitt” made an excellent recovery from this terrifying ordeal.

The article caused great amusement to him and his Deacon Brodies regulars. Among them was the late Labour councillor JL Stewart, who was enjoying his freedom after being jailed for five years in a celebrated corruption case. Dundee’s reputation was damaged by the scandal, which erupted in the mid-1970s and led to JL being convicted of taking bribes to promote building contracts in the city.

But by the time JL was popping in to Deacon Brodies for a pint, the flames of controversy had dimmed. The charisma and the sharp mind, which had made this character such an outstanding political prospect before things went wrong, had not. His rendition of “Holy Willie’s Prayer” at the pub’s Burns Supper was a tour de force. Drinkers were grateful to him for sharing his encyclopaedic knowledge of the national bard and the poems of Robert Service..

A short stagger away in Mennies bar, often there would be Peter Walsh, a local chess champion who opened the bowling for the Dundee HSFP 2nd XI. As a Liberal candidate, Walsh had the good manners to hold his poke of chips in his left hand so that he could greet voters with his right.

As viewers settle back to watch the rest of the Bob Servant Independent series, it is worth reflecting that, in Dundee at least, truth can be stranger than fiction.