Chapter 3 - Pitside Social

Pitside Social Club was deserted. Apart from a couple of guys playing snooker, Hugh and Kenny were the only customers.

“You coming to the committee meeting tonight?” Andy, the bar manager, asked Hugh.

“Yeah, I suppose so.”

“Another drink?” asked Kenny.

“One more and then we’ll go.”

“And there was nothing then?” said Kenny, asking about the suicide bid.

“Not a thing. My mind was a blank!”

“Maybe you just haven’t done enough,” said Andy as he poured the pints.

“You’re right Andy,” said Hugh. “I’ve no job, no prospects and not much of a past.”

“You ever thought of getting a job?” asked Andy. Andy asked this question to as many people as he could. Working in Pitside Social Club consisted of mixing with a group of people who for the most part had never worked a day in their lives. Despite this fact, most of them complained about their lot. What did they expect? Why did they think that the state owed them a better quality of unemployment? It was understandable two generations back when Pitside Colliery had closed. The village was abandoned without hope of any replacement employment. No new factories or office blocks were ever going to be built in the middle of a Lanarkshire moor that looked like a moonscape on a good day. But now, two generations later, what were people waiting for? The local council had put on a subsidised bus service to Hamilton in the hope that Pitside would become a commuter village. After a few years of running empty buses, they had put on a bus to Glasgow, deciding that there were more opportunities there and that, perhaps, people didn’t like having to travel via Hamilton. This, however, was no more of a success than the Hamilton service, and now two buses ran in and out of Pitside every day, only occasionally troubled by paying customers. So, Andy’s quest to ask everyone in Pitside if they had ever thought of getting a job continued. It made no difference and had become a kind of catchphrase that everyone took as a joke.

“Joking aside,” said Hugh, “I’ve got to start a ‘Back into Employment’ training course tomorrow. If I don’t go, my benefits get cut.’

“So, that’s why you tried to kill yourself,” said Kenny.

They all laughed.

“Right,” said Hugh, “What are we doing next?”

“Dunno,” said Kenny. “What do you think?”

“Not sure,” said Hugh.

Andy retreated to the store room to change a beer barrel. The sound of two Pitsiders trying to work out what to do with their time was more than he could bear. By the time he had finished and come back through to the bar they were still at it.

“Do you want to go and visit the headless virgin? We haven’t done that for ages,” said Hugh.

“You won’t be able to vandalise it,” said Andy. “It’s much better protected now.”

“Oh really,” said Hugh sceptically.

“Yeah,” said Andy. “But I’ll tell you what. Why don’t you take that as a challenge? You can tell me how you get on tonight at the committee meeting.”

“Let’s go Kenny,” said Hugh.