Shaggers, lovers and trying to make sense of everything else:

A night with Irvine Welsh

Imagine one of the most revered names in British literature asking you to raise a hand to show as to whether you thought you fell into the category of a shagger or a lover. For many - far more than who would care to admit, it’s an interesting question. In most cases, there is the harsh truth and then the fantasy we like to imagine for ourselves – whichever way round that the truth and the fantasy may be.

Irvine Welsh has been a hero of mine for a long time. His Leithian spiel of brotherhood, filth, degeneracy and the bleakest, most candid breed of comedy managed to awaken something of the pen-pusher in my damned 16-year-old self. His own words, in the circumstances of many, have never rung truer – working class men are simple in that they choose to fight their boredom, primarily, with drugs, alcohol and women – it’s entirely natural that their taste in art might reflect this.

Upon seeing an advertisement for a night Irvine was hosting with the Manchester literature festival, I knew that sharing the same room as a man that had had such an impact on the latter part of my youth was not something I wanted to miss. Despite this I still managed to miss the first 5 minutes or so - punctuality for those who know me has never been something I’ve excelled in. Thankfully from what I could gage that introductory period seemed to have avoided any actual substance, rudimentary small talk about who the bald Scottish man in the left armchair was, for anybody that didn’t already know. As I walked in, clambering between seats in the upper circle, the room succumbed to a swallowing silence as that said bald Scottish man opened his mouth for the first time of the evening. I couldn’t be entirely specific in what followed – without being cheesy, I was slightly entranced, and as from what I could gather, so were most of the room. For the next hour or so he talked about art, culture and politics with a lyricism I’ve only seen those who have strangled every last drop out of life possess. The common denominator between all of those folk, from my experience, is that it all means so much to them – living. Only so much as the right glimpse of their eyes in the light, and more importantly what those eyes have borne witness to, leaves you with no doubt that their souls have transgressed the void – wherever it may be, and have somehow managed to float back to mortality. Some of you may think that what I’m referring to is the exploration of certain chemical affinities, but the wisdom of these folk, who have traversed so much of what we like to pronounce wakefulness, goes so far beyond.

Irvine Welsh to many is a rockstar; an icon of what it means to be punk - think Trainspotting, think Porno, and the countless other raffish bestsellers he has to his name. Yet here with a room full of attentive admirers on a rainy Sunday in Manchester he bore no frets about exposing the sensitive aspects of his character. He talked about romance, the fragility of our perceived masculinities, and to be quite simplistic, just getting on with it all. He spoke with the hindsight of a man that had not forgotten that things were not always all sunshine and rainbows, his characters if you like, their trials and tribulations, being his best evidence of that. What I liked about it was that there was no smugness to his personal elevation out of any of it, it was almost as if he bared a distinct remorse, a mourning for the souls he had left behind. That it is of course the burning dilemma for so many of us striving for better – we can’t drag everyone along with us.

As for Irvine, one could guess that he too carries the ghosts of his past with him - family, lovers, foes and brothers in arms.

Towards the close he made sure to ascertain his views on the state of British society, and how in our technological age we’ve never been so dull, or to be frank, lacking of humanness. Whether or not they were addled with heroin, or up to their neck in tax scams and dole misuse, one thing his characters certainly always possessed was that they were grounded in reality. He made clear that these were dangerous times for the artist – whereby everything that you will ever produce must be able to be commodified or digitized in some way. If you can’t write a book that the masses of twitter scrollers and reality television watchers can digest then what is the point in writing one at all. Gone are the days of mods, punks, rockers and individuality – now we have algorithm farmers and matcha drinkers. He drew this discourse to a close on the worrying sentiment that he believed that a book like Trainspotting would no longer be published in our modern age – oh how far we have stooped into mediocracy.

The question of whether you were a shagger or a lover came as a light-hearted change of tone – a catharsis of sorts. The most amusing part of this conversation was when the question was returned to its asker. Irvine’s thesis was that many of us are simply born one or the other and it is not within our destinies to deviate – however from time to time, we might, but inevitably we find our way back to our true course. My thoughts were that he probably took the diplomatic approach of sitting on the fence, rather than assigning himself with either title.

The saying of “don’t meet your heroes” has on a few occasions for me been sourly truthful – run ins with pompous actors, DJs and whatnot. I deliberated over whether I wanted to tempt ruining the perception of Irvine for myself when they announced that after the talk they would be hosting book signings. I won’t go into too much detail about what I asked him, as this would all get far too soppy. One thing I will say however is that thankfully he turned out to be just as delightful a character as I’d imagined – giving a 19-year-old scruff trying to dress smart the time of day.

A friend and I stopped by a nearby bar afterward almost as a way of dissipating the thrill we had experienced in our encounter with him. By chance, a bunch of his home friends who had also attended the show happened to be drinking in that very same bar. Upon chatting and mostly boozing, it became very apparent that this man I had looked up to for so long, was absolutely adored by all those dear to him.

He's not changed since he was a ween our Irvine, not one bit. He’s always had a devlish streak in em, hence the smack and all that carry on, but he’s a goodin, nd he’d go to hell nd back for any of his pals.

There was talk of boys trips to New York for press conferences that ended in good old Leithian chaos, and lifesaving loans that have gone unspoken for. All in all, it was clear to me my faith in the man that for better or worse has changed my life, has not been misplaced. Our ‘great’ country could probably do with a few more Irvine Welsh’s. God forgive me if I ever make something of myself, only to then turn out to be a bellend.

Written by Luke Neillis