TAM Paton's bottom lip quivered. He shifted awkwardly on his red leather chair, crossed his legs to reveal sports socks under his suit trousers and his mood – earlier upbeat and jocular – turned dark and melancholy.
"I've been spat at in the street," he said. "I go to the supermarket and people walk into doors because they are so busy staring at me, and they trip over trolleys.
"It's because I'm a peculiarity, I'm not the norm and I don't live the normal lif
e. I was never meant to be normal."
It was January 2007, in the week when he had been fined £20,000 after admitting being concerned in the supply of cannabis at his Little Kellerstain home off Gogar Station Road. The fine was one thing, confiscation proceedings to seize crime profits was quite another, resulting in him handing over £180,000 – significantly more than the value of the drugs police recovered.
It hinted that the justice system suspected there was more than just the six kilos of cannabis found at his home floating around in Paton's background.
Paton, however, was eager to point out he was no drugs baron. Eyes twinkling, a smile lingering on his face, he wanted to insist he was innocent and if there was a faint whiff of cannabis floating in the air, well that was medicinal . . . for his own use . . . really nothing.
Then aged 68, he had already survived two heart attacks, a stroke and a bizarre attempt to take his own life by swallowing a £1 coin while he sat in a police cell, under arrest as part of the investigation into shamed pop guru Jonathan King's liaisons with teenage boys.
He was waiting for a heart valve operation, concerned that he, as a vegetarian, might be given a pig's valve. "I couldn't have an animal die to save me," he lamented. Later, as he said his farewells, he let slip that he couldn't wait for dinner – "steak and chips".
The former Bay City Rollers' manager was nothing if not enigmatic, charismatic and curious. Larger than life, in character as well as – as he cheerfully pointed out – in girth, he adopted an air of openness and frankness.
But those insistent pleas of innocence that he wasn't a drugs baron, had no interest in underage and vulnerable young men and that he didn't know where the Rollers' money had gone came peppered with so many reflective episodes regaling how he had been persecuted by some, ostracised by others, that, really, who knew what to believe?
"I have always taken my cannabis in yoghurt. I have high blood pressure, it calms it down to the extent I sit and watch Mickey Mouse and think it's hilarious," he continued, gold jewellery rattling.
His two Rottweilers and two Staffordshire bull terriers had been ushered – barking furiously – from his sumptuous living room. He sat on his expansive leather chair, underneath one of two ostentatious £1000 chandeliers dangling from the ceiling.
Months later, I visited Alan Longmuir at his Bannockburn home. The one-time bass player with the Seventies pop phenomenon had just finished a long shift in Dundee – it was almost 8pm – and had returned to a small semi-detached property with a postage stamp garden and little in the way of flamboyant furnishings.
If Paton's lounge was grand and impressive, the "wet room" nearby with its plunge bath – where he would later suffer a fatal heart attack – was quite the opposite. Bathed in a grim reddish light, dirty towels and rugs lay scattered on the floor, a damp odour permeated the air and mould crept up the walls.
Yet he was proud to show it off, pointing out the tub, a sauna and exercise area with treadmill, step machine and numerous sets of scales lying around the floor.
In the kitchen gathered a group of young men, some with shaven heads, others painfully thin. They made tea, laughing loudly. One wandered from room to room, talking to himself.
Paton was eager to point out how he was helping them. One with boyish looks had been "taken under his wing" after falling out with his parents. "If they weren't here, I'd be sitting here going 'tum de tum de tum, what are you going to do tonight then Tam?' I can be a lonely animal at times," he said.
"I tell these lads to have a shave or get cleaned up. Maybe they are living off me but I don't want to be rattling around in this house all by myself."
He threw open the door to a small "snug". On the walls were photographs of Paton with Lulu, the Rollers – naturally – Tam at the controls of a plane, and him in Jamaica. A bar was stocked with sugary liqueurs, while hundreds of CDs lined the walls.
Television sets blared in nearly every room. His bedroom, however, featured the biggest set of all, a massive wall-hung plasma screen faced the unmade bed, scattered around were dozens upon dozens of DVDs.
Paton managed the Rollers from their inception until the band imploded in 1979. During that time they sold millions of records, toured relentlessly, dabbled in drink, drugs and groupies in spite of their carefully manipulated "boys next door" image.
Whatever happened behind the scenes, there was little to doubt Paton's magic touch – long before the likes of Simon Cowell and Take That he masterminded a unique "product", a pop group that ticked all the right boxes, manufactured and packaged in tartan by him.
Later would come unsavoury allegations from some of the band concerning their income – or lack of it – and, worse, suggestions that Paton had sexually assaulted them.
As always, Paton had an enigmatic smile and a dismissive response.
He had already planned his funeral. He said he wanted Bing Crosby singing That's What Life Is All About – although in the event, the funeral music consisted of three hymns.
He predicted crowds would turn out but only to shove his coffin through the crematorium doors.
The official details of his will haven't yet been revealed but then he said his £8 million property empire would be handled by trustees. Money would go to his favourite charities – the Canine Defence League, something for the dog and cat home at Seafield, a bit for the children's hospice at Kinross. It might help change people's opinion, he hoped.
Eyes twinkling, he gave a gutsy laugh. "It'll be then that people will turn around and say, 'oh he was OK after all, he wasn't the dirty old bugger that we thought he was'."
'THE BEAST OF KELLERSTAIN'TAM PATON had bought his Gogar mansion, Little Kellerstain, in 1974, and being sacked by the Bay City Rollers in 1978 and returning to live in the area, began to amass other properties around the Capital. In 2000, he said in an interview that he owned, "About 41, 42 beautiful West End flats in Edinburgh", which he had bought, renovated and rented out. By 2006 he was reported to be earning more than £160,000 a year in property rents.
But the darker side of his life began to come to light in May 1982, when he was jailed for indecency with 16 and 17-year-old boys and served three years in prison.
It would not be the last time he was accused of being a sexual predator. In 2003 he was cleared of sexually assaulting a 12-year-old boy in the 1970s, after an investigation based around Surrey youth club the Walton Hop. Also in 2003, former Bay City Roller Pat McGlynn alleged that Paton had tried to rape him in a hotel room while the band was on tour in 1977. Police investigated but decided there was insufficient evidence to prosecute.
Les McKeown also added to Paton's woes in 2003 when he released his autobiography, Shang-a-Lang, which painted a picture of him as a controlling manager presiding over a regime of terror.
Even Paton's business dealings brought him into contact with the law. In October 2006 he was chased out of his home by three Liverpudlians brandishing knives after a business deal went wrong and they demanded money. The trio were later jailed.
The following year he admitted to being concerned in the supply of cannabis after drug raids at the house recovered 17 bars of cannabis resin with a potential street value of £25,920. He was fined £20,000, and also ordered to hand over £180,000 as part of police proceedings to seize the proceeds of crime.
Around the same time he lost one of the few constants in his life when his long-term, open relationship with partner Ray Cotter broke down.
So it was that on the evening of April 8, he was back at home in Gogar, lounging in Little Kellerstain's plunge pool when he was struck by a suspected heart attack.
Within a day of his death, Les McKeown had told the press that he too had been raped by Paton when the band was at the height of its fame, and referred to him as "the beast of Kellerstain". The only Roller to attend his funeral on April 24 was singer Nobby Clark.
While acknowledging that Paton had been a controversial figure, his nephew Phillipe Boussiere said that his family had known him as an "enigmatic, charming and above all cheerful person".
The family have had little respite from scandal, however.
Three days after his death, Scottish Government adviser Sarah Nelson called for an investigation into allegations that Paton had been involved in a paedophile ring responsible for the abuse of dozens of youngsters.
Even cremation, it seems, will not lay the ghost of Tam Paton to rest.
The full article contains 1628 words and appears in Edinburgh Evening News newspaper.
