A Troll Named NED

Over the last few months Michael and I have been casually house hunting (and when I say "Michael and I" I mean me), and one common issue has been quite recurrent: False Advertising. Ads will claim "beautiful Victorian home, 2 bedrooms with real character." The picture (and there's only one provided) will show the outside of a stately home, half-obscured by shrubbery. At the bottom, in fine print, the ad states "Buyer Beware- property comes as is." All in all, tha ad is deceptively saying, "This house is terrifyingly old! Termites have carved "creative" designs all throughout the walls! Fleas are dancing in what remains of the carpets! The atmosphere is so heavy the house will probably collapse next week!" These are all tips and signs I've learned over the years, but when I initially arrived in this country I was much more naive.

When I first moved to Scotland I was living in Glasgow's West End, which sounded quite posh. The brochure for my new flat showed pictures of upscale cocktail lounges and designer shopping, and I imagined myself living the high life. The reality was a bit more stark. My flat was in Maryhill, which I quickly learned is the long forgotten outskirts of the West End. The "spacious and clean" rooms advertised were the size of a typical walk-in closet and suspicious stains littered the carpet and mattress. The biggest shock were the thick steel bars on my window. Whether they were to keep dark intruders out or keep me locked in was a true mystery.

In order to get to my flat from the "real" West End you had to cross 2 bridges. At the entrance to my flat was the first bridge arching over the dirty canal water. Every week there were new surprises littered along the banks: a stolen bicycle, a car engine, a few discarded murder weapons. The NEDs ("Non-Educated Delinquents") used to love hiding under the bridge and jumping out when you came to pass, like ugly trolls from those disturbing fairy tales. It was hard to avoid these creepers. The second bridge was much larger, spanning across the River Kelvin just past the beautiful Botanic Gardens. Now, as I stated earlier, Glasgow's West End has a reputation of being quite high-end, and certainly it is in many places. But on my daily walk from Glasgow Uni, at the centre of the West End, to Maryhill, the scary borderlands, the serene atmosphere could change instantly once you hit the Kelvin Bridge.

Quite often I would spend my evenings with my flatmate and friends who had had enough sense to spend more than 5 seconds on the brochures and, consequently, lived in beautiful, large high ceiling flats next to the university. Usually we would take a cab back if it was dark, but one unlucky evening I was attending a party at one of these flats and somehow misplaced my purse amongst the rubble on the floor. As it was still early by Glaswegian terms (earlier than midnight), and it was a clear night for once, my flatmate and I decided a moonlit walk would be a nice change. One thing I should mention is that we lived in a large block of student flats, and typically on a Saturday night everyone else was making this migration from the centre to Maryhill, so it was very rare to be without at least a few other students walking nearby. Since we had left a bit early, however, we had unintentionally beat the usual migrating herd. After a few minutes walking, Sarah asked if she could make a quick stop at the chippy around the corner (the fish and chips shops are open all hours of the night). I wasn't hungry, so I slowly continued walking towards the bridge to wait.

The streets were eerily quiet. Even my footsteps echoed softly. As I approached the Kelvin Bridge, I could hear another sound mingling in with the whoosh of the swirling river below and the faint murmur of the chip shop. It sounded like... a bell. On a bicycle. I turned around, saw nothing, but quickened my pace as I crossed the river.


Ding! Ding!

I heard it again! But this time it was different...

"OI YOU!" 

I whipped around, and coming at me at a surprising speed was tiny bright pink and floral bicycle, and riding it was a mammoth of an old man with a long beard and an angry Scottish accent. He looked absolutely livid.


"OI YOU LASSIE, GEET AFF MA BRRREEDGE!"

He was pedalling furiously, the glittering pink ribbons on the handlebars streaking through the night air. I was cemented to where I stood, jaw dropped. I didn't know whether to be petrified or rolling on the ground laughing on his "brreedge" (bridge).

That's when I noticed something.

The now heavily wheezing old man was not riding a bike, but a trike -- a little girl's trike -- with fragile training wheels. Not your usual Britain's Most Wanted criminal. Even at his unthreatening speed, the tiny training wheels were spinning so fast they were in danger of flying off. As he came closer, I decided to get the hell off the man's bridge. I was racing in my 3-inch heels like a sprinter in a Miss America contest.

"What the hell? What the hell!" I shouted back. What else can you say when a crazed pensioner is trying to run you down on a 5-year old girl's tricycle?

"AH AM THE KEEEPERRR OF THA BRRREEDGE!" screamed the man, who had obviously mixed too much booze and theatre together in his day. I was now close enough to see his twisted mouth open widely as he laughed insanely (this man must have escaped from a high-security nursing home). I was also close enough to witness the sudden confusion in his eyes when his trike was abruptly stopped mid-air. One of the training wheels had hit a rock and unbalanced the imbalanced man, suddenly careening his glittering trike down the embankment and stopping just short of the river.

I ran to the edge of the bridge and peered over. Without missing a beat, the man looked up and announced, defeated, "You shall pass." I didn't need permission -- I booked it out of there, heels in hand, until I was around the corner at the shop. When Sarah saw me she didn't believe my story, and we began laughing hysterically at the insanity of it all.

Looking back, I often wonder if the brochures for my flat had shown Glasgow's true character, would I have chosen this city? If Glasgow was represented by a picture of Ned the Pensioner Bridge Troll, I hate to think I would have turned away. Because really, I wouldn't have wanted to miss a single crazy story in this mental town. And I speak from experience.