IT was a typical Saturday morning in Glasgow's Springburn yesterday. Customers queued out the door of Weir's butchers, bets were placed at the two big bookmakers on the main street and some headed for an early pint and pre-match patter at the pub.

Around a mile away, Commons Speaker Michael Martin was having a less ordinary day. As pressure mounts on him to resign over his handling of the parliamentary expenses scandal, he quietly and swiftly left his constituency home, a modern house in a plush cul-de-sac, with his wife and what looked like a leather overnight bag.

Police were on hand to make sure the couple safely made it from their front door to a waiting chauffeur-driven car. On Friday, he had phoned his local police station to complain about the journalists who were surrounding his house. Talk is that he wants to prosecute reporters who approach his front door looking for an interview, and officers yesterday appeared to be checking out the property, and those who gathered close to it, on a regular basis.

While he may be able to find some protection from the media, there will be no hiding place from the ordinary people of Springburn and the rest of his Glasgow North East constituency. Many made clear yesterday that they have been left staggered by Martin's alleged comments to a fellow MP that he "did not come into politics not to take what is owed to me". His own expenses include claims of nearly £50,000 in air travel over recent years, while his wife, Mary, has run up £4000 in taxi bills. Already, Martin's salary of £141,000 is almost 10 times the average wage of a working man in Springburn, where unemployment is two and a half times the national figure.

At Springburn's main shopping area yesterday, where Martin can sometimes be seen popping into the chemist for a prescription or attending St Aloysius RC Church, where he once served as an altar boy, mere mention of the Speaker's name provoked an immediate reaction. For years he won mass respect from his voters for being "one of us", but the greed which has been exposed by the expenses revelations has left many people of Springburn wondering what to do with their votes come the next general election.

One woman, a retired hospital caterer, said she did not have a bad word to say about Martin, whose son Paul is the area's MSP, after he helped get her aunt rehoused when her home was set alight by vandals, but many sentiments on the street yesterday ran deeper than that. "If Michael Martin fell in the canal, I would walk away," said one 76-year-old man as he stepped out of Ladbrokes. "We were always brought up to be ordinary working-class people and we always voted Labour - we thought Labour was for the working class. But this is the worst, cheating, lying, thieving Labour Party ever in existence. I will never, ever vote Labour again."

James and Pearl Nicol have been married almost 50 years and have lived in Martin's constituency almost all of that time. "I don't think anger is the right word," said Mr Nicol, 71, a former post office worker, over their morning coffee and cake in the shopping centre. "I think we are just both disgusted. If ordinary people steal, they go to jail, and I think the same should apply for politicians.

"Who do we vote for now? Who can we trust? The general public are just sickened by all of this and I think a lot of people just won't vote in the next election.

"Of course, that is counter-productive. But I think that will be the way people protest about this whole thing. We got rid of the Tories once and now, because of all this, there could be a real danger that they will get back in. Either that or people will start listening to parties such as the BNP. That would be a bad day for democracy."

John Kerr, 75, a retired machine operator, said people will "probably vote for the SNP" next time. "I could see this whole expenses thing coming, and Mr Martin needs to be more public at this time. I have met him a number of times and he is a nice person to speak to but I think he is maybe not as in touch with public feeling as he was," said Mr Kerr.

Of his role as Speaker, Martin is reported to have said: "My life as a Speaker is rather like that of a clergyman. You have the great big church, the House of Commons, but also the pastoral work among constituents, and that's very important to me."

However, as he stands accused of misjudging the public's anger on the issue, some feel he has become disconnected from the ordinary people he has claimed to be so close to.

Catherine Dale, 50, a full-time mum, said: "Martin has become removed from the public and removed from what the public expect a parliamentarian to do. He should definitely resign, and resign now. He tried to stop information coming out about something which was deeply immoral."

One of five children, Martin was born in Glasgow in 1945 and raised in an Anderston tenement before his family moved to a room and kitchen in Springburn. He left St Patrick's school at 16 for an apprenticeship at a train-repair workshop, then became a sheet-metal worker for Rolls-Royce Aero Engines.

He was a shop steward and union organiser and was elected to Glasgow District Council in 1973. Five years later he was selected to replace Richard Buchanan in Springburn. By 1997, he had the largest Labour majority in Glasgow; it now sits comfortably above 11,000. As MPs prepare to table a no-confidence motion against him, friends of the Speaker say he is making plans for his resignation and wants to go on his own terms.

But for those having a flutter in Springburn yesterday morning, no-one was too keen to lay a bet on the demise of their MP. As one man said on exiting the bookmakers: "People round here will vote Labour if they put a dog up as a candidate. That is something you can be sure of."