Ian McCall - All Youse That Want Pies

However, unlike sentimental, misty recollections of so many old Lanarkians, Ian's autobiography definitely does not look back at the pre-war town and his upbringing in it through heavily rose-tinted spectacles.

Ian looks back with an amazingly sharp eye – and memory – for the tiny everyday details, some of them pretty earthy, that made up real life at the time.

Even the title of his work, All Youse That Want Pies and Other Pieces, is a reference to an ancient and otherwise long forgotten piece of Lanark minutae.

It was part of the war-cry of the big, crabbit woman serving at a Lanark bakery when telling the school children who wanted hot pies at lunchtime to stand back out of the way of her more genteel, adult customers at the counter.

It is hundreds of seemingly tiny insignificant, recollections like that which builds to make this such a different and genuine memoir.

All Youse That Want Pies and Other Pieces by Ian McCall is available via Amazon.co.uk or via LuLu.com.

And for more information on this story, pick up a copy of this week's Carluke and Lanark Gazette.