The Itinerant Poets were a loose alliance, a ‘gang’, of poets, mainly young, who came into being by accident, luck, synchronicity, whatever you want to call it, in the late 1980s, based around the Paisley Library Writers’ Group originally established by the writer James Kelman and run in 1986 by the Glasgow poet Tom Leonard. I was a member of this group from 1986 until 1992. 

In 1986 I was looking for something new to do. I’d been a drummer in a post-punk band in the late 70s which had got me into writing lyrics, and had also written lyrics in the early 1980s that a friend of mine put to music. One day my mum glanced at one of the lyrics called ‘The Waiter’ and said that it looked more like a poem. I knew absolutely nothing about poetry, except what I’d already forgotten concerning things like ‘The Thought Fox’ and ‘The Whitsun Weddings’ I’d been taught in school. I then entered the Paisley Mayfest Writers competition after seeing a poster in my local library. I got my poem ‘The Waiter’ submitted in just the nick of time on May 26 1986 and sat back waiting for nothing to happen. The Waiter. Life imitating art. On the second of June I received a letter from someone called Tom Leonard from Paisley Library telling me someone called Tom Buchan liked my poem and I had won 3^rd equal prize and a cheque for £10 was on its way. I was asked to come and read it at the Paisley Writers Weekend in the Bull Inn in the company of other people I hadn’t heard of such as Jim Kelman, Alasdair Gray and RD Laing, but I was too scared. Live reading? No way. I then wrote to Tom Leonard c/o Paisley Library and he told me to come along to one of the writers’ groups he ran. I recklessly did this, and met Tom and a young bloke called Ronald McNeil. This was the big moment. Would I just say ‘ah, forget it’ and not bother, or would I come back. Happily, I chose the latter. 

I became a regular at the group. It wasn’t a workshop-style scenario, thank goodness; we just brought what we’d written along. Tom would make photocopies for everyone and hand them out and we’d read the work and say what we thought. There was nice older woman called Christine McCammond and a bloke called Phil who never brought anything in for us to read. And then, suddenly, a young guy called Jim Ferguson came along one night in the Autumn of 1986. He’d been going to Tom’s afternoon session, but Tom had suggested he might like the evening one a lot more. This was a crucial life-changing moment. Myself, Ronald and Jim hit it off right away. The tempo of things started to increase as we quickly sparked ideas off each other, encouraged each other to try new things, churn out the poems. Tom’s suggestions about who we might enjoy reading as well was a revelation. I learnt about Mayakovsky, Edwin Morgan, e.e. cummings, Charles Bukowski and William Carlos Williams, and, of course, the poems of Tom Leonard himself, his use of Glasgow dialect. I learnt that you didn’t have to follow the world of strict formula metre and rhyming schemes. There was a thing called Free Verse! My god. As long as it had rhythm and flow and atmosphere and mystery then that was okay. Make your own rules. 

Tom was the first poet who showed us a well-placed swear word could also be extremely effective. If it’s the right word then use it; don’t be put off by the tut-tutting of the Scottish Poetry establishment, ‘The Polis’. I didn’t really know what he meant by that, but I soon would. Don’t be afraid to be an outsider, don’t just write about nice things that others called ‘poetic’. Write about ordinary lives, ordinary places, ordinary humanity. Tom’s guidance and interest made it all possible. I read as much as I could and the work of Edwin Morgan especially, and WC Williams, was my template as I sought to establish my own voice. Tom then told us about a competition called the Motherwell Bookfest Competition which we all entered. I found out later that I’d won it, and went to the prize-giving in my suit and tie and did my first ever public reading on 22^nd November 1986. Scary, exciting, important. 

In November 1986 a young man called Bobby Christie from Penilee in Glasgow joined the group. Penilee was near to Paisley. This, although we didn’t realise it yet, was the final piece in the Itinerant Poets jigsaw. Ronald, me, Jim and Bobby. It now felt somehow right. We all had our different styles and voices and outlooks on life, but we all shared the same energy. The writers’ group was vital in that it gave us confidence and courage to get out there and do things. We weren’t alone, we could push each other to write, submit to magazines and anthologies and competitions. There were no readings at the moment, it didn’t really enter our heads. It was a big step to actually think about getting up and doing it.

The next significant development was in February 1987. I got a sudden call from Jim to say there was a 24 hour poetry reading charity event going on at the Renfrew Unemployed Workers’ Centre and he’d somehow been asked if we’d like to do a slot. We’d be supporting the legendary writer Sorley MacLean. There was no time to think about it, there was no time to say No. We went along, did our bit. Not too bad at all, with nerves held in check. Another learning curve. We got to read with Sorley, who was escorted into the drab little room on the arm of a lovely young woman. He was a good guy who asked us both the two questions. Would you like a sausage roll? and Do you like doing it standing up or sitting down? We both said standing up.  

Jim had an idea for a long poem he’d written called ‘No Sunrise’. He wanted to do a video to go along with it and knew this bloke called Russell Kennedy who had the necessary equipment and know-how. There was an evening of location work in Paisley in the pouring rain, followed by a day’s indoor filming in the Paisley camera society building on Oakshaw hill. Later, it was cut and spliced and put together with bits of music and a mini-masterpiece was born; still one of Jim Ferguson’s best pieces of work. It’s quite something to see him doing it live even now in full flight. 

Next in line, of course, was a publication. There were a few magazines around like Chapman, Edinburgh Review, Cencrastus and Verse, but we weren’t having much luck getting into them. None of us had enough good poems for an individual collection at this stage so we decided on a four-man anthology. Absolutely no one was doing poetry pamphlets for unknown new poets in Scotland at this point. We didn’t realise it at the time but it was quite a trailblazing thing to do in the safe, Scottish poetry scene. We were revolting and we didn’t know it. The four of us always went across to the Wee Howff pub, or The Bull Inn, after the Monday evening writers’ group ended at 9 p.m. It was in the little snug at the back of The Bull Inn that plans for world domination were hatched in the form of a small poetry booklet which we decided was going to be called Tower of Babble. I think it was Jim who came up with the name, and it was also Jim who came up with the idea of calling our little publisher Itinerant Publications. Appropriate: travellers moving from place to place, unsettled, restless.  

We still didn’t call ourselves The Itinerant Poets at this point. That came along later, probably early ’88, when we started doing frequent readings and had to call ourselves something, a group name like a band, as our individual poet names meant absolutely zero at this point. Safety in obscurity. I came up with a weird logo for the back of the booklet which, I think, was a photo of an old politician called Lord Halifax with bits of his face tippexed out leaving only his eyes and his chin. The time from conception to publication was only 3 months. February to April 1987. We got the poems together and worked out an order. It was split into four sections – Ambulance Music by Graham Fulton, Reality Road by Bobby Christie, Seven Artists by Ronald McNeil, Assorted Rantings by Jim Ferguson. We got the money for it gathered. I did the laborious physical cut and paste typesetting. I found an old photo of a street organ grinder and, probably, his daughter or grand-daughter with her arms outstretched, smiling and probably singing. It didn’t have anything to do with the poems but somehow seemed to fit. There are no names on the front, just TOWER OF BABBLE in scratchy lettering. Our four names are on the back. There’s a quiet, tentative confidence about it. Here we are. We used Ronald’s home address in Gourock as a contact name as it sounded more poetic than Paisley. We found a small printing place out in Milngavie to the north of Glasgow called Heatherbank Press. They would also do the covers of many of the future Itinerant Publications. It was done, and it looked fine. We each got a stash of the books to try and sell. Shops would take them, sale or return. I don’t remember any launch for it, but we started doing gigs more regularly. Readings in Paisley, Linwood (introduced as ‘Tower and Babble’), other exotic locations. We read from the pamphlet at the Paisley Writers’ Festival in Paisley Town Hall in May, where I also heard Tom Pickard for the first time. He instantly became, and remains, my first poetry hero. The four of us went through to the Edinburgh Festival and did an open air event on the anti-nuclear stage in Princes Street Gardens and the medical aid for Palestine bus. Nothing changes. Immediately after Tower was published, Jim quickly self-produced a simple but strangely beautiful pamphlet of his epic ‘No Sunrise’ poem. Itinerant Publications was definitely ready to change the world, or our own worlds, or something like that. 

We got a great review of Tower of Babble in The List magazine “reaffirms the vitality of the small publication ... freshness and insight ... the seed of inspired poetry”, and a fine review in Radical Scotland, so we weren’t just floundering in a vacuum. Things became a bit smoother and faster after this. More readings followed towards the end of 1987 and into 1988. We read twice at the Transmission Gallery in Glasgow on 21^st June and October 18^th 1987, one of which featured a screening of Jim’s epic No Sunrise video. We had the one and only photograph of the four original Itinerant Poets taken at the June gig, but there was still no use of the Itinerant Poets name on any of the publicity! We then did a reading at the Paisley Arts Centre in January ’88, and the name was definitely used then. The first time. Other readings followed at the Arts Centre, the Town Hall, the Buroo, Tron Theatre bar, Glasgow Arts Centre, the Collective Gallery in Edinburgh, regular slots at Hielan Jessie pub in Glasgow’s east end. Myself and Jim went down to Newcastle in February 1988 to do a memorable reading at The Morden Tower (billed as ‘Tower of Babble’) at the invitation of The Echo Room editor Brendan Cleary.

Another important development for us at this time was the beginning of a new publication called West Coast Magazine, run by three guys called Joe Murray, Gordon Giles and Kenny MacKenzie. They had told Tom Leonard that they were looking for new work from young west of Scotland writers and he mentioned us. They contacted us and we each sent in poems and a wonderful relationship began. I remember a launch for one of the early editions in Hatchards book shop in Glasgow on 7^th April 1988. Some of the then current and future Itinerant Poets, including Margaret Fulton Cook, Brian Whittingham, Ronnie Smith and myself played an editorial role in later editions. 

I took part in a New Glasgow Poets event at Glasgow Mayfest 1988 in the Third Eye Centre, and also recorded a poetry session for STV’s Inverse late-night poetry programme which was eventually screened in 1989. We also got our first individual poet pamphlets under way in this year. Bobby produced Growing in the Rain, Ronald produced an illustrated sequence of sonnets called Down on the Farm, and we asked writers’ group member Christine McCammond if she wanted to put a collection together. The result was Vinegar and Brown Paper. Heatherbank Press continued to print covers. I did typesetting, and we got the insides printed wherever we could, sometimes utilising photocopiers in community centre facilities, sometimes using Clydeside Press, a newly established printer based in Glasgow. Other people had joined the group as well in 1988. They were Brian Whittingham, Steve Crone, Margaret Fulton Cook, Alan Watt and Carey Robertson. More readings took place in the Scottish Poetry Library Courtyard Sessions at the Edinburgh Festival in August. Sadly, Ronald McNeil had left the group recently. He had never been particularly comfortable with the live experience, but we would still see him occasionally at events up until 1990. 

In 1989 the next group of pamphlets came out. Strong Drink by Jim Ferguson, The Eighth Dwarf by me, and Spell Bound by Margaret Fulton Cook. These would prove to be the last ones from Itinerant Publications. Brian chose to produce his own pamphlets under the publishing name Crazy Day Press, but was happy to perform live under the Itinerant Poets banner. A demented reading took place on Sunday 26^th March in The Anchor Bar in Paisley in front of an understandably apathetic/hostile crowd who didn’t appreciate their lunchtime bevvy being disrupted. The novelist James Kelman was there and said afterwards it was the bravest reading he’d ever seen. Either that or the stupidest. At this gig we first met a young guy called Ronnie Smith, who would be the last reader to come in under the Itinerant Poets name. He wrote stories and was full of ideas and energy which would bear fruit over the next year or so. A series of readings at the famous Scotia Bar in Glasgow also began later in 1989. These would become a regular and exciting part of the story of our busy troupe. Great nights, never forgotten. Meanwhile, the Paisley Writers’ Group still continued. The pub of choice afterwards was now The Anchor Bar. The group was still, at this moment, the centre of what we were. It was in our DNA. Tom Leonard, however, announced he was leaving his job. We had a great send off for him in The Bull Inn in April 1989, but I think we all knew that something had changed. He had always been a great mentor and encourager, and was always staggeringly honest in his criticism of our work, which was what we needed. It was going to leave a huge gap. Another writer called Agnes Ownes took over the job.  

In 1990 I had my first full-length collection Humouring the Iron Bar Man published by Polygon. Soon Bobby would have his first book Transit Visa: North West Africa published by Taranis, an offshoot of West Coast Magazine, and Jim would have his first full-length book The Art of Catching a Bus published by AK Press. It was all changing, moving on. We did a significant tour of venues for the Glasgow Mayfest, known as the ‘Merr Than Enuff Stuff Tour’, playing such places as Clydebank, the Gorbals and Maryhill. Ronnie Smith had been a major organising light of this tour which was very successful. The summit of this series of events, and one of the Itinerant Poets biggest nights, was undoubtedly when we did a reading for remand prisoners in Barlinnie Prison in Glasgow on May 15 in the company of legendary Trade Union hero Jimmy Reid, which was being recorded for a future TV programme about the ‘Year of Culture’. It was surreal going through the prison security and taking our place in the vast hall. Myself, Jim, Bobby, Carey, Brian, Margaret and Christine all read, and it went down pretty well with the young men, despite some bemused looking faces. Even this brief exposure to poncy poetry brought it home that it could really say something relevant to them about their own lives, their own predicaments. Next Stop Culture was broadcast on national TV on 2^nd September. We did a major reading in Paisley Town Hall on Saturday 3^rd November 1990 during the Paisley International Book Fair. This was arguably the high point of our time as the Itinerant Poets. Three years previously we wouldn’t have believed this was possible. 

We did one more tour of local venues during the Paisley Festival in May 1991. Glamorous destinations included Linwood, Barrhead, Erskine library and Johnstone library. This was the last use of the name Itinerant Poets. An idea for a future publication was tentatively put forward at the writers’ group. It would be by The Itinerant Writers this time, and a name picked for the book was The Hissing Repression of Old Gas Fires. Not much enthusiasm. It fizzled away. People were now starting to find their way out of the group, especially since we’d started getting books published by bigger publishers. We didn’t need the band security anymore. Bobby first, then Jim. Myself and Margaret (we were now a couple) hung on a bit longer till 1992, but that was basically it. During this last phase other good new writers had come along, people who would also make a name for themselves and become well-published writers including Raymond Soltysek and Suhayl Saadi. Phil even brought some work in for us to read at last, just in time for the end. It was done. The group would continue until the Council pulled the plug later on, but without the last of the Itinerant Poets. 

Not completely the end though. Over the years The Paisley Writers Group gained quite a reputation for the number of published writers it produced, and we always did readings together through the decades, but not with the use of the word Itinerant. There have been reunion events; anniversaries of the publication of Tower of Babble. The little booklet itself is a rare publication and much sought after. I remember seeing it once in a second hand bookshop, but I didn’t buy it. I wish I had. Tom Leonard died in 2018. I got to meet and shake the hand of Tom Pickard, my hero, at the funeral near Clydebank. Brian Whittingham, who went on to have many books and pamphlets published by Taranis, Mariscat, Luath and Red Squirrel Press, and become the Renfrewshire Makar, died in 2022. Ronnie went on to become a teacher in Romania. I don’t really know what happened to Carey or Christine. I recall seeing Carey at a Public Image Ltd. concert in the Barrowland Ballroom years later, and Christine at the funeral of Jeff Torrington in 2008. Russell Kennedy, who made Jim’s No Sunrise video, is also dead. Margaret and I broke up and she had a book called Good Girls Don’t Cry published by Chapman in 1996 and a booklet Burning Orange published by me in 2015. Bobby said he saw Ronald McNeil a while ago at some music event. He’s doing fine, I think. It would have been nice to see The Heads of Ayr finished. I see Bobby from time to time in the Scotia Bar or The Clutha. He’s produced lots of good pamphlets, and a second book called Punky Nights and Hazy Mornings was published in 2018.  

I’m meeting Jim next week in 2024 for a pint in The Bull Inn. He’s had loads of superb, dynamic books and pamphlets published over the years by many wise, progressive publishers. Thank goodness for them. I’ve had 28 books published by loads of different names. There are friendships here that will last forever. Maybe we’ll dream something up, maybe we won’t. Something new, something newer. It doesn’t matter. We’ve already done it.  

Complete Itinerant Publications

Tower of Babble (by Ronald McNeil, Jim Ferguson,

   Bobby Christie and Graham Fulton), 1987

No Sunrise by Jim Ferguson, 1987  (done again by Echo Room Press, 1988)

Down on the Farm by Ronald McNeil, 1988

Growing in the Rain by Bobby Christie, 1988

Vinegar and Brown Paper by Christine McCammond, 1988

Strong Drink by Jim Ferguson, 1989

The Eighth Dwarf  by Graham Fulton, 1989

Spell Bound  by Margaret Fulton Cook, 1989