John McCuaig

John McCuaig, who has died aged 84, was an impresario who promoted Billy Connolly after spotting him performing in an Irish pub in Canada. The Govan-born police officer-turned-promoter was an honorary member of the Burns Club of Vancouver and it was an email from the club that announced he had died. I visited him in Eagle Ridge Hospital in Coquitlam, British Columbia, in 2005 after he suffered a stroke and he told me then he was on his last legs. He used this expression again when I was at his apartment in Toronto in 2007. He was born in Glasgow, but he had a Highlander's constitution. His feet were not easily cawed from under him.

He was the first person I interviewed for the Scottish Voices from the West oral history project run by the Centre for Scottish Studies at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver.

When I received word of his death, I listened to the interview again. It struck me that his emigrant story was a classic mix of serendipity, determination, courage, ambition and luck (both bad and good). It is also a nice example of the general experience of post-war Scottish out-migration which, in the age of the internet, easy air travel and changed social conditions in Scotland, will never be quite the same again. Born and brought up in Govan, he left St Gerard's Secondary School at the age of 14 to work at the Rolls-Royce factory in Hillington. From there, he joined the army and was posted to Fontainebleau in France. On his return to Scotland he trained for the Glasgow police. He came top of his class and "they gave me a tie and sent me to the Gorbals". He walked the beat in one of Europe's most deprived areas for two years before deciding to try his luck in Canada where he expected to join the Toronto police force.

He sailed to Quebec in 1954 and discovered he was in the land of plenty when he was presented on the docks with the largest piece of apple pie he had ever seen. In Toronto he took a job at the stock exchange while waiting to retrain for the police. By the time the force got in touch with him he had committed to work at a brokerage house and his Toronto police career was over before it began.

In the meantime, he was becoming closely involved with local Scottish societies. He was the founding president of the Caledonian Society of Scarborough, Ontario, and in that capacity started to invite well-known acts from Scotland such as Andy Stewart, the Corries and Jimmy Logan. Eventually he left the stock exchange and formed his own company to arrange tours of Canada for Scottish and British acts. A new career as an impresario was beckoning.

In 1974 he was invited to an Irish pub in Toronto to cast an eye over a Scottish band playing there. One of the band member was Billy Connolly. Connolly broke a string during the set but his patter kept the audience in stitches while he fixed it. Other promoters who were present declined the opportunity to get involved, but Mr McCuaig was immediately interested in Connolly who he thought "very talented, very clever and with a very bright future". Their relationship lasted 10 years and took them from gigs in places such as Fort McMurray and Medicine Hat in Alberta to Massey Hall and the O'Keefe Centre in Toronto.

After Connolly, he signed agreements with numerous Scottish and British acts: Max Bygraves, Kenneth McKellar, Andy Stewart, Lena Martell, Helen McArthur, the Golden Fiddle Orchestra (which was boycotted in Cape Breton by local fiddlers who resented the intrusion), Andy Cameron, Hector Nicol, Jimmy Logan, Acker Bilk, Glen Daly ('my mother liked him a lot more than I did'), John Cairney (as Robert Burns) and so on. For the Irish community, he brought over Mary O'Hara who instructed him to fetch her harp from an upstairs room, wrap it in a blanket, put it in the back of his car and deliver it to Massey Hall. O'Hara was a former nun who surprised him by not being very nun-like. There were, however, a large number of reverse collars at her shows.John eventually left showbusiness and returned to brokerage, this time in Vancouver. Scottish immigration to Canada was in decline and second generation Canadian-Scots were less interested in Scottish acts than their parents. Billy Connolly's affairs were taken on by Harvey Goldsmith and "instead of a handshake I was getting a 14 page contract. In all honesty, he [Goldsmith] could do more for him than I could".

When I saw John in 2007, he insisted I take some of his papers and add them to the interview to make a package. I have these papers before me now. They include examples of his poetry (which had become a passion in the last decade or so of his life) and the first contract he signed with Connolly. The contract is for a gig at Cedarbrae Collegiate in Toronto. The artist agrees to appear at a salary of $1000 inclusive to be paid cash on night. It has a number of special clauses, one of which requires management to supply one high stool. The same thing can be said of the contract as can be said of John – we won't see the likes again.