Robbie Dinwoodie meets Jimmy Boyle, redeemed hard man and torchbearer for the disenfranchised
Man who
broke the
mould
JIMMY Boyle writes of his native Gorbals with a strangely wistful longing in the catalogue for his new exhibition of bronzes, the first showing of his characteristically tortured, stylised sculptures for 22 years.
``What is it about this place that draws me back. Here I am, 52-years-old, now settled in quite plush surroundings and wonderful family circumstances and yet this miserable place attracts me like nothing else.
``How does one begin to describe what it's like to live in a place like this? On the one hand there is hardship and squalor but on the other there is something enriching about it.''
There are two curious things about the admission. One is Boyle's own inability to resist looking back at hard days in the Gorbals, when he can bristle at others constantly wanting to hark back at his own part in that dark past.
The other is his definition of his current lifestyle as ``quite plush'', given what must be one of the most magnificent homes in Edinburgh, a renovated property entirely rebuilt to the rear with balcony views beyond his studio to the nearby city centre.
Tonight sees the preview of In Praise of the Human Spirit, an exhibition of bronzes which runs from Monday until the end of the month at the Demarco European Art Foundation, in Edinburgh's Albany Street.
Next year Boyle will have been outside prison for the length of the life sentence he served, 15 years. During that time the artistic talents discovered and developed during his time in the Barlinnie Special Unit have made him a wealthy man.
The author of A Sense of Freedom and The Pain of Confinement, who spent almost all of a 25-year period in institutions or prisons until the special unit and his marriage to the psychiatrist Sarah Trevelyan changed the direction of his life, has since carved out a wonderful lifestyle.
Some grudge him that and he did not go out of his way to placate them, driving around in a Rolls-Royce and becoming a connoisseur of fine wines. Actually, there is an anecdote behind the Roller which gives a glimpse of his earning power as an artist.
Boyle was working on a commission for Hull city council when he was approached by a wealthy American asking him to undertake a sculpture for him. ``He was a guy from Las Vegas, the kind who didn't like paying taxes,'' he recalls. ``He said he had to get out of the country by tomorrow and he wanted to talk to me about doing a sculpture.
``I said I would need money upfront before I could start buying materials, and so on. Would I accept cash in kind? I said what? He said a car. I said you're joking, but his driver brought it round. It was the Rolls-Royce. I said it's a deal.''
There are 16 bronzes in the new exhibition, some of which will go into a bigger showing of 40 pieces in New York next year. Each will be cast in a limited edition of six, producing almost 300 works for sale - big money.
The new home is the most tangible sign, purchased three years ago and rebuilt, that the Boyles were committing themselves to a future in Scotland. They had been looking at the possibility of seeking the right to settle in Australia and they considered moving to the South of England, but the quality of life in Edinburgh and the strong sense of community north of the Border swayed their decision.
Maybe society expects those released after a life sentence for murder to show continuing penance, particularly given the violence inside prison which only ended in the special unit.
Perhaps repentance is not exemplified by driving around in a limousine and building up a wine-cellar.
Boyle admits he was deliberately bucking the image he felt the media were demanding. ``It was a rebellion, the same thing that got me through prison,'' he says.
The most telling quote about his attitude to public repentance came in his first interview, on his release in 1982: ``If I stand up and say I'm sorry, as many guys have done, who's kidding who? I'll show them with my deeds and everything that my life's about.
``If I thought getting down on my knees and begging for forgiveness would cause any significant change in the people I identify with, then I would do it.
``But all that is just a big pretence. It's like these guys in prison with scars on their faces and broken noses, all going to choir practice. Who's kidding who? Are they going to do that when they get out? If you want that kind of hypocrisy, then we are all kidding each other on. I'm for real.''
In as much as Boyle cares for the judgment of others, which is not a lot, he would at least like some credit for what he has done for the last 14 years, or at least more of a focus on that rather than the continuing concentration on what went before.
Of those who grudge him material success and personal happiness, he makes an appropriate analogy. ``The only thing I can really say about people like that is that they have allowed themselves to become prisoners of my past. I have moved on but they have allowed themselves to get stuck.
``My life has moved on
far beyond my wildest dreams. There is a thrawn, jealous aspect to some
people's attitudes.''
Jimmy and Sarah Boyle set up the Gateway Exchange in Edinburgh after he was released, a gallery, workshop and advice and campaigning centre for young people at risk drawing on special unit lessons about the therapeutic and empowering potential of art. They funded it themselves, largely through proceeds from his work and income from books and plays.
But in the course of eight years Boyle became less an artistic mentor and more a bureaucratic administrator. The couple had a daughter and a son and he wanted to give time to them and to regain his creative edge. Meanwhile, the Gateway hit funding difficulties and the whole project was over-run and overwhelmed by the enormity of the Aids crisis which hit Edinburgh so badly.
The building is now operated as an HIV information centre by the charity Solas and Sarah Boyle still does counselling work there. The Gateway Exchange name lives on as a charitable trust set up by the Boyles, with its own administrator and board of trustees.
Groups as diverse as former drug users playing football in Glasgow's East End, women writing in the Gorbals, homeless people staging drama productions in Edinburgh's Grassmarket and young people making music in Alloa are among those helped by the trust. Several groups working with drug users have been supported.
Boyle's son James, from his first marriage, became involved in drugs and died in a related stabbing incident in Glasgow two years ago. He also saw at first hand the silent toll exacted by HIV in the Edinburgh drug scene as those who passed through the Gateway Exchange in its early years increasingly fell victim to the disease.
``I saw all these kids I had worked with first at Wester Hailes and then at the Gateway become intimate friends as they got out of heavy drugs and into theatre. They died one by one - with dignity and strength but silently, sorting out at the end who they would leave their few possession such as LPs to.
``An entire family of three brothers died, one after the other, so many others, it was terrible. I don't see anyone saying sorry to them and they are all dead.''
It was Richard Demarco's exhibition of Boyle's work during the Edinburgh Festival in 1974, and his introduction to the German artist Joseph Beuys, that brought international acclaim for his work. The new exhibition is by way of thanks to Demarco, who also opened Boyle's eyes to the horrific conflict in Bosnia.
He asked if the Boyles would look after the 18-year-old daughter of the murdered Bosnian deputy prime minister Hakija Turajlic. Samra has been staying with them in Edinburgh and a section of the new exhibition, War Zone, is dedicated to the Turajlic family.
As one of the bronzes was being cast, an image signifying the rejection of arms, showing a tethered hand and a bullet, the Dunblane massacre took place and brought the spectre of violence closer to home.
At the heart of Boyle's work there is a kind of violence, or its close relative, resilience. It teems with figures fighting and straining to rise out of limitation and constraint.
It is there too in the brief Gorbals tale recounted in the exhibition catalogue - picaresque writing not unlike that of Jeff Torrington - which bodes well for Boyle's forthcoming novel, Hero of the Underworld, a struggle set among the disenfranchised of the underclass.
Boyle may have moved on and moved almost unrecognisably far, but he hasn't left everything behind.
