For it's a grand old team to work for

Billy McElhaney with screen wife Sally Howitt in River City

Their plans to play football have been scuppered because the "big dome" sports hall is being refurbished. Faced with hanging around bored or spending some time with some "fit-looking birds", there's no prizes for guessing which one they choose.

Billy didn't know it at the time, but opting for the latter and joining the college drama club was about to change his life.

"I went for a laugh," he says with a broad grin. "Someone said, 'why not join the drama group because there's some fit-looking birds there' and that was it. I'd never done drama in my life before, but I went and I enjoyed it and the guy that ran it seemed to think I had an aptitude for it."

Having kicked off his acting career by chance, Billy is now better known to fans of Glasgow-based soap drama River City as lovable rogue Jimmy Mullen.

He's about to find himself at the centre of the series' most sensitive and dramatic Christmas episodes in its history. Viewers will see Billy's character Jimmy and screen wife Scarlett, played by Sally Howitt, wrestle with the emotional trauma of her ovarian cancer, made all the more poignant and dramatic as it clashes head on with the Christmas festivities.

But, stresses Billy, with the gripping scenes and roller-coaster story line comes a deep responsibility. For tackling life-threatening cancer amid the fast-paced, non-stop drama of a running soap requires balance, care and, above all, sensitivity.

"I know it's a terrible clich, but it's about keeping it real," he says. "It's all about getting the right balance between the story and the drama and what is real.

"I think there's a lot of people out there who perhaps don't want to face up to cancer, they hope it's going to go away, but it's such a massive thing and you can't just avoid it."

Followers of the BBC Scotland soap have already seen Scarlett wrestle in secret with her concerns over her health. Now, as the countdown to Christmas begins, her worst fears are confirmed and the news she has ovarian cancer begins to seep out.

Jimmy, however, is among the last to know. "It's all about to happen," he says with a knowing grin. "A proper Christmas cracker. Scarlett has been trying to conceal the fact that she's got the big C. Unselfishly, she doesn't want to spoil anyone's Christmas, but Jimmy finds out.

"The fact is this is an issue that affects so many people. Hopefully we'll highlight the different ways that people deal with this awful situation and how it impacts on their lives.

"Most of all, we hope it makes people think. If there's such a thing as a 'cure' for cancer, it's early detection. When people ignore it, it's often because they are scared and that in itself becomes part of the problem.

"It's a proper 'Merry Christmas, you've got cancer' moment, but it's powerful and I think it's been very well done."

Today Billy is part of the Shieldinch furniture, on board for the past five years with a multi-faceted character who's not all he may initially seem.

"I arrived playing a hitman gangster-type whose sidekick wanted him to keep an eye on Scarlett because he thought she'd shopped his son to the police," he explains. "Jimmy starts to fall for Scarlett and as the relationship develops they become a kind of 'Jack and Vera McDuff', who love each other but also have their moments.

"He's a likeable rogue, the voice of common sense, but with the potential to turn at any moment."

Likewise, there's more to Billy, too, than simply a chap who got into acting by chance. For if real life hadn't stepped in, he could well have ended up pulling on a Hibs strip and playing for his beloved Easter Road side.

His father, Bob, was a miner at Monktonhall Colliery for more than 30 years and a passionate football supporter who passed his love of the game down to generations of young players. He was also fiercely determined that his son would not be following him down the mines.

"We lived in Niddrie Mill, opposite the Jack Kane Centre," recalls Billy, now 53. "My dad ran Niddrie Mill school football team and Jimmy McManus, who became chief scout for Hibs, asked if he wanted to run another team for 12 and 13-year-olds. That was how Edina Hibs came about.

"It was a labour of love for my dad," he adds. "He knew his stuff and he'd be out there in all weather."

Bob had already given Billy his first introduction to football at a Hibs match when he was just five. Not surprising then, that Billy inherited a passion for the game that eventually translated on to the pitch.

"I played for the Edinburgh Primary Schools side that won the Scottish Cup against a Glasgow side at Tynecastle," smiles Billy. "For me, as a Hibs fan, to hold the Scottish Cup at Tynecastle was brilliant."

He went on to train with Hibs and with the Edinburgh Secondary Schools side, but the break-up of his parents' marriage sounded the beginning of the end for his football hopes.

"It was a shame it fell apart," he says. "But these things happen. I was 13 at the time and my mum decided to move with me and my sister, Lorna, down south to be nearer her sister in Staffordshire.

"I played a little bit, Wolves were interested for a while, but then my dad wasn't there to push me along, girls happened, and that was it.

"Dad was full on and demanding which made you a relatively good player, but I ended up rebelling. Now I'm at every Hibs game, West Stand, about six rows up from the dugout.

"Some of the River City cameramen freelance filming the football and they recognise me. My fear is they'll catch me one day shouting something that shouldn't be broadcast!"

After that first taste of drama at Stevenson College, Billy went on to study it properly at Queen Margaret College before stints appearing in various episodes of Taggart and nearly three years among the London theatre cast of Gagarin Way.

Now he's focusing on Shieldinch and the countdown to his and Scarlett's big River City cancer drama.

"River City has been brilliant for me," says Billy, who commutes to the Dumbarton set from his home in Liberton. "It's pressurised. You've got to have your wits about you to work at the rate we do - we do 52 episodes in just 28 weeks - but it's a welcoming environment, and to work with the likes of Johnny Beattie, Una McLean and Eileen McCallum is amazing.

"I'm lucky, the public seem to like Jimmy and Scarlett. I do get stopped a lot in Edinburgh and I've been surprised by how many people watch it and are overwhelmingly supportive.

"It's great to be involved in and hopefully I will be for a long time to come."

River City is on BBC Scotland, Tuesdays, 8pm.

Pride of clyde

SCOTTISH soap River City was first broadcast by BBC Scotland in September 2002 to mixed reviews from viewers and critics.

Set in the fictional Clydeside community of Shieldinch, the action focuses on the lives and dramas affecting locals against a backdrop of pub The Tall Ship, the doctor's surgery, community centre, cafe and various businesses.

Veteran Edinburgh-based actresses Eileen McCallum and Una McLean play central characters Liz Buchanan and Molly O'Hara.

Stalwart Johnny Beattie, now aged 84, has a leading role as wordly-wise Malcolm Hamilton.

Actor Nick Rhys joined the cast last month, one of four new characters to arrive in Shieldinch. He plays a Scottish soldier home from duty in Afghanistan to stay with his brothers, Michael and Gabriel Brodie, and Michael's Muslim wife, Maryam Hamidi.

The soap has grown in popularity in recent years and now attracts an average 500,000 viewers every week. It has two Facebook fans' groups.

In 2007, it was nominated for best regional soap in the British Soap Awards.

River City is filmed on a purpose-built set in Dumbarton - complete with its own fabricated subway station and boatyard - on the site of former whisky warehouses.

The soap was created by Fauldhouse native Stephen Greenhorn.