Diamonds in the Mud

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When that government fell, a junior minister called Portillo sought asylum in Britain. Today his son, Michael, sits in the Treasury making cuts that hit the elderly.

While I agree with most of the sentiments he expresses in “Diamonds in the Mud”, Reade is rarely subtle. His sledgehammer denunciations of sundry royals and Tory big-wigs can be overly didactic, and this book is far stronger when it tells of the genuine everyday heroism of the healthcare workers, campaigners, and activists whose lives he has chosen to spotlight. But, you could easily counter that if you’re trying to fight a rearguard action in a class war declared against you by the Tories, then subtlety is a luxury you can ill afford. Whether it's celebrating people, remembering a place long forgotten or opening the Echo archives to mark a special anniversary, Days Gone By will be an essential read. So, can he cross over? Could he follow Oasis and the Arctic Monkeys in making the leap from grassroots phenomenon to national prominence? It sometimes feel like he’s just one A-listed single or Jools Holland appearance away from such a leap. And would he blossom or wither in the face of such sustained attention? All of these are open questions. For now, Gerry Cinnamon remains a superstar on his own patch, an enigma everywhere else. They refused to give in to the incessant calls to “let it go” from people who failed to understand why they couldn't. Because they were consumed by the most invincible of emotions: Love.

Missing lyrics by Gerry Cinnamon?

For 27 years I'd dreamt of watching a parent who lost a child at Hillsborough stand up in Parliament and slaughter the political class for their gross dereliction of duty. Eventually, in 2012, the truth was established in an independent report, the Accidental Killing verdicts overturned and fresh ones of Unlawful Killing handed down by a jury. The announcement this week that the Glaswegian singer, whose real name is Gerry Crosbie, will play the main stage of the TRNSMT festival in his home town, just below headliner Stormzy, was greeted in some circles with rolled eyes. The charge is that Cinnamon is not an interesting artist, that there is something lowest-common-denominator and lumpenproletariat about him. This, though, is to miss the point. As festival director Geoff Ellis puts it, he and Stormzy are “both in their own way kind of people’s poets … They both come from the street and they both represent real people.” In his new book Diamonds In The Mud, Brian Reade asks why we're taught to revere monarchs, generals and aristocratic politicians while those who change the world from below rarely get a look-in. He does so by telling the inspirational stories of working-class heroes he's met through 40 years of journalism

Those songs are something. Diamonds In The Mud is a hymn to Glasgow – “from the swords in the schemes to the art school dreams of the toon” – as beautifully observed as a Liz Lochhead poem, a Billy Connolly routine. Keysies, named for a childhood game, is a delicate portrait of boyhood that somehow recalls Lynne Ramsay’s Ratcatcher. His use of local dialect – belter, dafty, bastart – may be specific to the streets of his home, but the emotions his songs convey are universal. Imagine the fear in the pit of your stomach and the pee and the crap in your ragged trousers as you heard young men scream like babies, saw their faces blown off and knew you would probably soon be falling on to this piece of scrubland, 1,300 miles from home, and left to bleed to death. The politicians of this country ought to be ashamed of themselves for what's happened in their name. We as a nation should be ashamed that our families had to fight for almost 30 years to get to the truth,” she told them. We were labelled communists who went to Spain to bring down democracy but I went there to fight on the side of the elected Popular Front government against a military coup. He was a formidable force who fought for the 96 years he was alive for the underdog. He didn't draw lessons from history, he delivered them.One story he told me in 1992 summed up how long he'd been fighting the good fight. And how, compared to him, so many politicians were pygmies. Signing up is free and it only takes a minute for you to get the best stories, sent straight to your inbox.

This doughty, then 69-year-old, said there was a "disease in this country" citing South Yorkshire Police's role in Hillsborough, the Battle of Orgreave and Rotherham sex abuse scandal, and argued "Hillsborough was bigger than the police. It was political. It went right to the top. So it's up to you politicians to unite and never let the likes of it happen again." And there she was. Margaret Aspinall, in 2016, a fortnight after jurors at fresh inquests had returned Unlawful Killing verdicts on the 96, in Portcullis House, raining guilt down on the assembled MPs, Lords, and party leaders. Diamonds in the Mud’ asks why the British have traditionally been taught to venerate kings and queens, generals and Eton-educated Prime Ministers, while, a few notable exceptions aside, those who changed history from below rarely got a look-in.You have to change things for the good of the ordinary people because if they can cover up 96 deaths what can they do to individuals?” Not that the middle-classes aren’t real, or that there’s an inauthenticity to middle-class experience, but there is something undeniably exciting about Cinnamon’s rootsy energy. Working-class life is too often portrayed, in the arts, by a wallowing in misery, whereas what he embodies – in his sound, in his songs, in his soul – is a kind of madcap joy. The audience is crucial to this. No one goes to see Gerry Cinnamon as an individual. You go to be part of a crowd, part of that bounce and roar. The noise that once greeted goals by Law and Dalglish and Best now finds an echo at Gerry Cinnamon shows. Diamonds in the Mud' asks why the British have traditionally been taught to venerate kings and queens, generals and Eton-educated Prime Ministers, while, a few notable exceptions aside, those who changed history from below rarely got a look-in.

And he described the moments before was hit: “It was like entering Hell. Everything was thrown at you. Machine-gun fire, shells, grenades, snipers' bullets. I was firing with my rifle, trying to take cover with the bullets whizzing over me and shells blasting on the ground, when all of a sudden my shoulder and right arm went numb. Blood was scuffing everywhere. I thought I was a goner.”When I see the way my country is run under them, I'm reminded of what Gandhi said when asked what he thought about civilisation in Britain. He once told me that if he became a binman he'd be the greatest binman who ever lived and he'd have his city the cleanest on earth.