Great Glaswegians: Angus Young - the Cranhill boy who became one of the greatest guitarists of all time with AC/DC

Glasgow is a city known for producing outstanding musical talent, and although people associate Angus Young with Australia - the guitarists story began in the north east of the city.

Angus and his brother Malcolm Young were born and raised in Cranhill at 6 Skerryvore Road in their formative years - they came up hard in a small cluster of houses in the north east of Glasgow, just under the recently constructed (at the time) M8 bridge.

In a small tenement flat, Angus and Malcolm grew up with their mum, dad, older brother George, and sister Margaret who all squeezed into the tiny space. Very rarely did either of the two brothers speak of their time in Glasgow - Angus and Malcolm Young were eight and ten respectively when they emigrated to Australia in late June 1963.

Angus’ brother Malcom who passed away in 2017 reflected on their upbringing in Glasgow back in 2012 saying: “We came from quite a poor family in Glasgow and the reason we went there is because my dad was out of work. He was out of work for years.

“It was a chance. There were job opportunities, so the next thing we were all on our way. We saw brochures and it looked phenomenal.

“The reality is that when we got there we were put into an immigrant hostel. I’m not saying it’s bad but it was a very slim, bare necessities situation and it rained non-stop for six weeks with snakes crawling around the floor.”

He added: “We wanted to go home. But when we saw both our parents crying the night we arrived, we took strength from that to try and stick it out.”

Out of the frying pan and into the fire, the Young brothers knew they had to do something to lift themselves and their family out of this situation. They took inspiration from their older brother George, who enjoyed some success with an Australian pop outfit, The Easybeats.

Like AC/DC, the 1960s group was formed by recent arrivals to Australia. Malcolm Young spoke about how much this inspired him in a 1997 interview, saying: “The band was formed in a migrant hostel.

“Two of the guys came from Poland to Australia, others came from Liverpool and Yorkshire, and George from Glasgow. Within nine months, those five immigrants who arrived with nothing in their pocket were at number one in the charts.”

Young attributed the band’s success in part to old-fashioned Scottish grit. He said: ”Our Scottish background gave us a good grounding – we had a kind of doggedness and determination.

“We kept at it and never let go of what we wanted to achieve.”

Back in 2009, Angus Young revisted Cranhill after more than 30 years away. He didn’t say much about his visit to where he grew up after the fact, beforehand however he joked about renaming the area ‘Angusland’ and emblazoning his band’s distinctive ‘thunderflash’ logo on the water tower overlooking the scheme.

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AC/DC will return to Scotland for the first time in over a decade when they perform at Murrayfield Stadium in Edinburgh in August.