Cliff Hanley

Versatility was the key attribute of this writer and former broadcaster, a small and sprightly figure familiar on the after-dinner circuit in the West of Scotland and in the professional clubs and watering-holes frequented by the city's writers, artists, actors, and journalists.

He listed his profession, in his Who's Who in Scotland entry, as ''Writer and Performer''. Performer he certainly was (''Wee Cliff'' was also a member of British Actors' Equity), lacking nothing in confident and witty delivery as he boldly addressed erudite audiences of scholars and professors, adding an offbeat and often a zany twist to the most serious of subjects. But he also billed and proved himself as novelist, journalist, and songwriter, more evidence of that versatility.

This was the totally self-assured and accomplished Cliff Hanley, for whom it had all started to blossom in the post-war Glasgow of the late 1940s and early 1950s when he joined a small news agency in Glasgow's West Nile Street and turned himself assiduously to court and crime reporting, before teaming up with fellow-scribes in busy Kemsley House at the foot of the city's Hope Street. It was there, amid the roaring Scottish presses of the Kemsley Newspapers organisation that young Hanley, then in his mid-20s, found himself in his element, writing fast news pieces, theatre reviews, humourous articles, and full-scale features on almost

any subject an editor could demand. Even advertisers, mounting special pages, would ask for the editorial to be written by ''your bright wee man Hanley''.

Hanley's light and humorous touch, even in his topical comments on the news of the day, made him a popular figure on the media scene. But his versatility was always trying to break out, as when he tackled comedy script-writing for the Radio Scotland programmes of the 1950s. The then head of radio variety, the late Howard M Lockhart, found a refreshing new writer (and performer, too, be it said) in this wee fellow with the sturdy East End of Glasgow accent.

I can recall one special moment at 6.30 on a weekday evening some time around the early 1950s when most of the editorial staff of the Daily Record left their desks to gather round an old-fashioned radio set, conveniently hidden inside a steel cabinet containing office stationery, to listen along with staff-man Hanley to his first situation-comedy series from the Queen Margaret Drive studios.

His interest in writing for the performing arts moved to the fore some years later, when he was asked by the late Robert Wilson, the then famous Scottish singer, to write the words to accompany

an old Highland pipe tune. Wilson was about to feature it on a

recording as well as in the

theatre. This was to become, although few realised it at the time, a nationwide and, indeed, an international hit, titled Scotland the Brave, a likely contender, over the years for the still unresolved honour of acceptance as Scotland's national anthem. The

Hanley lyric combined with the rousing music to make it a winner for all time.

This flair for writing songs continued a year or so later when Hanley turned out, in collaboration with the late Ian Gourlay, the Scottish musician and composer, a number of popular comedy songs. It was fitting that these, as penned by a man born and bred in the city's East End, should reflect a strong pride in, and knowledge of, the humorous ''slanguage'' of the native Glaswegian.

But it was the year 1957, at the age of 34, that proved a turning point for Hanley, a few months after he had briefly joined the editorial team of Roy Thomson's weekly TV Guide, the programme journal for early Scottish Television output at the Theatre Royal studios in Glasgow.

His first book, Dancing in the Streets, an evocative look-back at his growing-up-in-Glasgow days, proved successful enough with readers and critics to launch him on a full-time book-writing career. Novels such as The Taste of Too Much, The Red-Haired Bitch, and Love from Everybody flowed in quick succession from his pen, and there was an acclaimed documentary made for television and the cinema about the high and low days of the Clyde shipyards, featuring a young Sean Connery.

He brought his gutsy Glas-wegian accent to the job of

presenting, for a short period, an early-morning news series on Radio Scotland, neatly fielding criticism from those who, at

that time, sought a traditionally ''BBC-ish'' accent.

Then, in 1979 and 1980, he switched with natural aplomb to a professional role when he travelled to Canada with his wife, Anna, and became writer-in-residence at

York University, Toronto. The experience and honour, he said, was a highlight of his career. Meanwhile, in Scotland, he had been taking part in many activities in the literary world and, from 1965 to 1972, was an active member of the Scottish Arts Council.

Predeceased by Anna, he is survived by a son and two daughters. His last few years, spent comfortably in a city nursing-home, were marked by a memory deterioriation that saddened his friends, all of them contrasting his changed condition with the ''sparky'' writer and wit they had known in his heyday. But he will be remembered by most as that lively little Scots writer whose deft turn of phrase went ''dancing in the streets'' of an earlier Glasgow he knew, loved, and wrote about with so much wit.

Gordon Irving