HE'S a television broadcasting legend who is famed for his trademark sheepskin coat, unruly red wispy hair and eccentric commentary.

HE'S a television broadcasting legend who is famed for his trademark sheepskin coat, unruly red wispy hair and eccentric commentary.

But while his work has taken him all over the globe, Archie Macpherson's roots are firmly in the East End of Glasgow.

He was brought up at 771 Shettleston Road and spent most of his boyhood there and in nearby Sandyhills.

In the first part of our six-day series on the East End, the 73-year old baker's son, who now lives in Lanarkshire, recalls growing up in Shettleston.

Archie, whose memoirs are out later this year, remembers: lGrowing up in a family steeped in socialist politics and who were all admirers of the work of Robert Burns.

His first exposure to football coming from Shettleston Juniors.

Spending hours poring over books at the local library, which "gave him a proper education".

He said he is struck by the "gentrification" of the area every time he passes through.

And he is shocked at the statistics revealing the male life expectancy of men in Shettleston to be only 63 lower than some Third World countries.

ON FAMILY LIFE

"My family were great lovers of Burns' work. I grew up in a family reading and quoting prodigiously Burns' writing.

"Dean's Pub was just near my close' and there was another pub, the Central Bar, close by.

"My father used to go in there, he liked his hauf and his hauf pint' but he was not a big drinker.

"I used to sometimes sit outside waiting for him.

"Dean's was considered either a den of iniquity or a great water- ing hole, like many pubs then.

"Some men would go straight there and blow their wages before they went home.

"Obviously there was poverty and hardship but we had the benefit of protection from that.

"I can remember little argu-ments about money, I have tiny recollections of that, but it was not such that it affected my life.

"I never felt I have to get out of here'. It was never like that."

ON POLITICS

"The East End was part of the great socialist tradition all my family was interested in politics.

"I grew with very strong political views and I treasure the solid values. You could describe it as Old Labour.

"I used to go to the Labour Party meetings during the run-up to a General Election and see a man called John McGovern who was MP for the area.

"He inspired me by his oratory. He was not Labour, but Independent Labour Party which had strong roots in the East End though he joined Labour later.

"I used to go along to the Tory meetings and listen to the hecklers, which was great fun."

ON FOOTBALL

"We never stopped playing football.

"Shettleston Juniors had the white shirts of neutrality, people went to see them if the Celtic or Rangers games were off.

"The team provided me with a great deal of entertainment, passion and sadness.

"Years later when I was a student they got to a Junior Cup final and lost and I felt depressed.

"Shettleston Hill exists on a plateau from which you could hear the crowd from Celtic Park.

"There were five or six pitches up there - real bog-standard ash pitches - and I remember watch-ing men slide-tackling and getting gravel rash.

"My father was a very good junior footballer and he introduced me to Billy Liddell, who was outside left for Liverpool and Scotland, and I idolised him because he was the first professional footballer I had met.

"There was also a guy called Archie Macaulay who played for Rangers and then Arsenal.

"My father knew him and because of that I became an Arsenal man."

ON EDUCATION

"A lot of people were hungry for education.

"Many had not had the proper education that their abilities demanded and would have flourished under but when they became adults they devoured literature.

"A haven for me was Shettleston Public Library, I learned more there than I did at school".

ON GANGS

"I can't recall gangs as such. Shettleston by and large was gang-free apart from some trouble on a Friday and Saturday night coming out of the pub but that happened everywhere.

"I can't say that having lived there that I was conscious of gangs, I knew there were very powerful men like bookies around.

"You had to move in towards places like Bridgeton before you got into the Billy Boys."

ON SHETTLESTON

"I have travelled through Shettleston a lot and I have seen the gentrification taking place and changing the character of the place I am not sure for the good.

"Statistics recently showed that Shettleston was almost like a Third World country that surprised me.

"But if that is true then gentrification of the area made it worse.

"I can't ever remember ill-health being part of the culture that I lived in.

"We were pretty healthy people where we stayed and all our family lived to a ripe old age on both sides.

"I was brought up at the start of the National Health Service and I can't remember anyone being malnourished the biggest problem then was drink.

"I think that it might have to do with the environment of poor diet and drinking and drugs.

"Drugs were never part of my growing up, they simply did not exist.

ON THE FUTURE

"If I had a hope for the future I would love to ensure that the maximum ability of every child is realised through a good education, that's a universal thing.

"It's not particularly Shettlestonian but it relates to what Shettleston was working class ethics which inspired entrepreneurs and good values through a proper education."