Benji of Bearsden

Benji Gilzean came of age in post-war Scotland during the 1950s and 1960s. In Benji of Bearsden, author Ferguson MacLeod recounts Benji’s childhood in a suburban area of Glasgow, Scotland.

Based on real events, it shares a young man’s varied life experiences. It includes stories of his involvement with golfers still suffering from World War II stress disorders, tales of his first love and sexual encounters, his schooling experience, and his time as an apprentice plater going through brutal rituals of initiation and a death-witnessing trauma.

A novel, Benji of Bearsden offers an interesting perspective on the cultural clash between a boy from a middle-class background and those from the working-class environment generally referred to as the Red Clydeside.