Cliff Hanley

Clifford Leonard Clark "Cliff" Hanley (28 October 1922 – 9 August 1999) was a journalist, novelist, playwright and broadcaster from Glasgow in Scotland.

Originally from Shettleston in the city's East End, he was educated at Eastbank Academy.

Born: Glasgow, Scotland, October 28, 1922

During the late 1930s, he was active in the Independent Labour Party.

During the Second World War he was a conscientious objector.

He also wrote a number of books, including Dancing in the Streets, an account of his early life in Glasgow (in its contemporaneous serialisation in The Evening Times, retitled My Gay Glasgow), The Taste of Too Much, a coming-of-age novel about a secondary schoolboy, and The Scots.

Reporter, Scottish Newspaper Services, Glasgow 1940-1945

Sub-Editor, Scottish Daily Record, Glasgow, 1945-1957 (Columns/features also under pseudonym Andrew Bonar)

Wife: Anna Hanley, married January 1948

Children: Clifford G. Hanley, Jane Hanley, Joanna Hanley

Education: Eastbank Academy, Glasgow

Conscientious Objector in WWII

Glasgow Philological and Literary Society (Ours Club),1956-1999, President 1962-1963 and 1996-1997

Dancing in the Streets, my first published book, was written at the suggestion of my publisher, who wanted a book about the city of Glasgow.

At the time I thought it a rather pedestrian recital of childhood memories and was taken aback by its critical and commercial success (it is still used as background reading in schools of social studies and urbanology).

My first novel, Love from Everybody, written previously but published later, was frankly intended as a light entertainment, to make money, and was later filmed as Don't Bother to Knock. Having then retired from journalism, I wrote what I considered my first serious work, The Taste of Too Much, as a study of "ordinary" adolescence, without crime and adventitious excitement, and it may well be my most successful book in the sense of fully achieving the author's original conception.

In the subsequent novels under my own name, I think my intention was to look at some areas of life—a businessman's troubles, the family situation, the agonies of work in the theater—simply in my own way, without reference to fashionable literary conceptions.

Features Writer, TV Guide, Glasgow, 1957-1958

Director, Glasgow Films, Ltd., 1957-1963

Columnist, Glasgow Evening Citizen, 1958-1960

During the 1960s and 1970s, he published thrillers under the pen-name Henry Calvin.

They were more successful in the US and Canada than in the UK.

A collection of his humorous verse in Scots, using the pseudonym 'Ebenezer McIlwham', was published by Gordon Wright Publishing of Edinburgh.

He also wrote the words of what some still feel is Scotland's unofficial national anthem, Scotland the Brave, and both wrote and recorded The Glasgow Underground Song - a humorous anecdote on the pre-modernisation era Glasgow Subway.

A recording of this was made famous by Francie and Josie.

Oscar Award for 1961’s Seawards the Great Ships

Television Critic, The Spectator, London, 1963

He wrote a number of film and TV scripts, including Between the Lines, an episode of which was described by Mary Whitehouse as the "filthiest programme" her family had seen on TV "for a very long time" at the first public meeting of the 'Clean-Up TV' campaign in May 1964.

Hanley's other scripts include Seawards the Great Ships, The Bowler and the Bunnet, and The New Road.

His son was artist Clifford G. Hanley.

Following updates added by his daughters, February, 2024.

Pseudonyms: Henry Calvin, Ebenezer McIlwham (The Bard of Whifflet West)

Nationality: Scottish

Close Theatre Management Committee, Glasgow 1965-1971

Scottish PEN, Vice-President 1966-1973, and President 1974-1977

Inland Waterways Amenities Advisory Council, 1967-1971

Scottish Arts Council, 1967-1974

Writers’ Guild of Great Britain, Scottish President 1968-1973

Visiting Writer in Residence, Glendon College, York University, Toronto, Canada, 1979-1980

Died: Glasgow, Scotland, August 9, 1999