Connolly and Rafferty smoked dope with Bible pages

COMEDIAN Billy Connolly has revealed how he and late singer-songwriter Gerry Rafferty once used rolled-up pages of a Bible to smoke cannabis.

The duo, who performed together as folk group The Humblebums, were staying in a remote Highland cottage when they ran out of cigarette papers, prompting the ‘Big Yin’ to approach the houseowner to ask for a few pages from the Holy Book.

“He said, ‘Any pages in particular?’ So I said ‘Revelations would be handy’.”

Connolly remembered it as the last time he had held a Bible, adding: “My idea was to read a verse then smoke it. And I think I’m going to hell.”

The 70-year-old comedian also confessed that he never saw eye-to-eye with Rafferty, who died in January 2011, on the subject of religion.

Connolly revealed: “Gerry would ask me about heaven and I would never give in and say there was a heaven.

“I would never agree with him. He had very old-fashioned ideas of religion and fate.”

The funnyman added that he had reminded Rafferty of the incident when he visited him shortly before his death from liver failure, in order to ‘make him laugh.’

Speaking at the launch of a collection of his black and white drawings, Connolly admitted that he gets inspiration for his artwork while on his way to and from the local cigar shop.