Lulu [antikvár]

Mrs Me Clean and the Offal Dresser In the Glasgow of my childhood I woke to a symphony of glass, metal and steam, 'Shhhhh-chk-chk! Shhhhhhh-chk-chk!' It was the sound of milk bottles being dropped into crates and loaded on to lorries. The depot was less than 100 yards along Soho Street, and from the third-floor window of our tenement I could just see over the iron gates to where the lorries stood. My father, Eddie Lawrie, woke to the same sound at 5.30 a.m. He slipped away from my mother's side, tiptoed across the room and made himself a cup of tea. As the kettle boiled, he pulled on clothes that were stiff with dried blood. In the wintertime he wore either two jumpers or three. First came a shirt, then two cardigans, and finally a thick sweater my mother had knitted him. Layers were the best way to fight the cold. He always wore good shoes, polished to a brilliant sheen (even the arches). When these became too stained by sawdust and blood he threw them away and wore his next newest 'old' pair. A man