CAREER advice wasn't a laughing matter in Scottish schools in the early 1970s.

It consisted of a disinterested teacher handing out dog-eared leaflets on how to work in a bank. There may still have been literature on the Army so old that Lord Kitchener was still pointing a finger at you.

At no time was a career as a stand-up comedian ever suggested. I mean, there were certain pupils who were frequently asked by teachers if they thought they were comedians, but they were never actually given follow-up advice on how to do it full time.

After all, the only comedians the teachers had heard of were people such as Lex McLean who had to slog it out for years in moth-eaten variety shows before finally making a comfortable living doing five-month summer seasons at the Pavilion Theatre in Glasgow when he would catch the last train home every night from Queen Street to his luxury home in Helensburgh - a stark contrast to the cloth-capped muffler-wearing Rangers fan he portrayed on stage.

Then came Billy Connolly, a folk singer of course, whose comedic introductions to his banjo-playing got longer and longer, and funnier and funnier, until people came to hear him speak rather than sing. My own introduction to Connolly was as a young reporter when he immediately threatened me with all sorts of bone-breaking violence after I introduced myself. Seemingly what had been written about him in the paper that morning did not find favour with him.

When I phoned my news editor to tell him the interview had not gone well, he told me to go back and tell Billy the paper would not be intimidated by him. Funny folk, news editors.

Television in Scotland also sought out the funny men, and the person who really captured it was Rikki Fulton with his must-see Hogmanay shows.

Rikki, pictured below, was indeed the stereotype of the comedian who was deadly serious away from the stage, able to speak on just about any subject if you met him, but if you asked him to tell you a joke he would give you a withering look as if you had trod dog dirt through his carpet.

Actually, he would have forgiven you for that. Rikki loved dogs. He once wrote a supportive letter of condolence to a colleague of mine when he wrote a column about his dog dying.

Today's stand-out Scottish comedian is Kevin Bridges, still in his twenties, whose tours and DVDs have made him a millionaire. Despite moving from his native Clydebank to a desirable west end address, Kevin strives to keep grounded. I bumped into him when he was concentrating on firing off text messages, and he apologised for being distracted. He explained he was checking which mates could make the five-a-sides. If a pal called off because he had a hangover, reflected Kevin, then everyone else would joke about what a character he was. If Kevin himself called off, they would all immediately decry him for getting too big for his boots.

The money Kevin has made will be at the back of the minds of a few who will be appearing on stage at the Glasgow International Comedy Festival, which begins this Friday. Suddenly comedy is seen as a career path where you can indeed become a millionaire in your twenties. Very few do of course.

The most successful owe their fame to television, but apart from Kevin, few working-class voices will be heard on television comedy. And if you ask Glaswegian Janey Godley, she will point out that working-class female comedians on TV are virtually invisible. Part of the reason, says Janey, is that television bosses don't want to hear a woman swearing. It's ok from the chaps, but not from a woman.

Although Janey, appearing at Oran Mor for the Comedy Festival, can be a bit, em, robust, when she is on stage, she admits she was a bit naive when she was younger. In her first job in a factory as a young girl, she was asked by an older woman if she had a boyfriend. When Janey answered yes, the woman asked: "Are you getting off the bus at Paisley?"

"But I live in Shettleston," answered a confused Janey, unaware of the lady's colourful description of a basic form of birth control.

Tommy Sheppard, director of the Glasgow Comedy Festival, says that the people who staff the gateways into television comedy, the agents, the television management, are irretrievably middle-class, and only the occasional working-class voice - such as Bridges - gets through. TV favourite Michael McIntyre accepts he is accused of being bland middle-class. Argues Michael: "If I'd had a more troubled upbringing, maybe I'd do more edgy material, but all that happened was some people came round for pasta."

Tommy himself drove a young Kevin to a gig in Kirkcaldy when there were only 16 in the audience. "He had a ball," recalls Tommy. "A year later he was selling out shows."

Tommy's day job is running the Stand comedy clubs which are more intimate than say the Glasgow Hydro. Says Tommy: "Artistically, the big venues are crap. You need a telescope to see anyone. You are not involved with the artist as you are in a club where some nights it just takes off on a magical adventure and you are just glad you were there to experience it."

So, basically take Tommy's advice and buy a ticket for a comedy festival show involving acts you have never seen before. This time you might be in the crowd of 16 and be able to tell your friends you saw the next Kevin Bridges before he was famous.