Novelist, Journalist, Lyricist, Playwright

Cliff Hanley

The Official Website

The Return of a Classic

Cliff's vibrant, unsentimental and hilarious account of growing up in the 1920s and '30s, and of his later working life as a journalist, author, lyricist, playwright and man o' parts. His razor sharp observations and anecdotes cover topics from family life, art and showbiz to politics and sex. Even the most bittersweet stories are leavened with humour, and the irrepressible Glasgow spirit always shines through. “Mr. Hanley’s no phoney. He’s danced in the streets, he’s drunk in the saloons and he’s necked in the parlours. He’s done all this in Glasgow and he’s written the best book from Scotland that I’ve read in years …brilliant book.” James Kennaway, New Statesman "Like a portal into a vanished Glasgow, but one where the city, its people - their foibles, hopes, humour and warmth - are instantly familiar." Norry Wilson, Lost Glasgow
Published by Birlinn, available at Waterstones, on Amazon and at your favourite bookstore.
Raised in tenement Glasgow in the twenties and thirties, Cliff Hanley emerged, fully-fledged as an author with Dancing in the Streets, which recreates the life of his native city and which is now accepted as a classic of its kind. His early training was in journalism, but his energies erupted into radio comedy, song lyrics (including the world-recognized anthem Scotland the Brave), a score of novels including thrillers under the pen name Henry Calvin, scripts for the theatre, television and documentary films, notably the Oscar-winning Seawards the Great Ships, and poetry as Ebenezer McIlwham, the Bard of Whifflet West. "There are prettier cities, and it wouldn't be hard for a city to be prettier, but few of them that I know have the seething cauldron effect that Glasgow has always had for me. Out of it's horrible smoke-bleary streets it keeps throwing up jokes and songs and poetry as well as bloody murder."
The Cliff Hanley Archive is held in the Mitchell Library in Glasgow: Accession Number 6833 and Reference Number TD2226.
This project did not start life as a website. As the last of Cliff's children, I inherited many boxes of material: books, scripts, notes, photos, clippings, all sorts. Much of it is now safe in his archive at the Mitchell Library, but it was important to get the contents into some semblance of order. I'd been online to check on a copyright, and spent way too much time jumping from one site to another to track it down, noticing a surprising number of errors in the process. And finding one thing would lead me to so many others: not just falling down a rabbit hole, but plunging headlong into a whole warren. Why not gather it into one place? So here's a website of Cliff Hanley information, built from the stuff in all those boxes and elsewhere. I'm still on the hunt to fill gaps, and Morna Gourlay has been a huge help with the musical side of things. Oh, I might add one or two family bits, just because. Thanks for looking. Cliff's daughter Jo, June 2025
Copyright 2025 The Estate of Clifford Hanley