“... forced to make compromises even as they attempt rebellion. The chequered bus-conducting career of Robert Hines, the eponymous protagonist of Kelman’s first novel, The Buscoductor Hines (1984), ends with a dispute between Hines and the management when he refuses to go to head office in his free (and thus unpaid) time to pick up a disciplinary ‘line’. He ...”

“... He hardly ever ate. He was agitated, burning on all cylinders, and he died in 1964. A colleague in Motherwell later described him as the man who killed himself trying to solve Glasgow’s housing problem. He solved it well enough, but only for the shortest time. Those blocks couldn’t handle the Glasgow weather, and people couldn’t live on top of one ...”