Amazing pictures of Billy Connolly in Glasgow as comedian turns 80

Our archives are bursting at the seams with fantastic photos of the Big Yin in action and to celebrate his 80th birthday, we have selected some of the best.

Billy once said about his home city "the great thing about Glasgow is that if there's a nuclear attack it'll look exactly the same afterwards” and he also said "when I was 12, we went from Glasgow to Aberdeen on a school trip. It was called fresh air fortnight.”

Billy Connolly at the Pavilion, 1980. (Image: Newsquest)

But he has always had great affection and respect for where he came from.

“After my knighthood was announced, a woman from the BBC came to Glasgow to interview me,” he wrote in Made in Scotland: My Grand Adventures in a Wee Country.

“We sat down in a lovely hotel in a nice part of town, and she hit me with her first question: ‘This must mean a lot to you, with you coming from nothing?’

“I looked at her, and I laughed. ‘I didnae come from nothing,’ I told her. ‘I come from something. I grew up in the tenements of post-war Glasgow. In fact, I used to specify exactly where, onstage: it was on a kitchen floor, on the linoleum, three floors up.'

“The early years of my life were spent in grinding poverty but it wasn’t nothing. It was something - something very important.”

Billy has appeared countless times at Glasgow’s great variety theatre, the Pavilion, including at this show, pictured, in 1980.

At Café India, Billy was a regular - he is pictured here with manager Raj Bajwe.

Billy with Cafe India manager Raj Bajwe. (Image: Newsquest)

In 2007, Billy was appointed patron of the Celtic Foundation, and we also found this fantastic picture of two huge Hoops fans (Billy and Rod Stewart) having a chinwag at the Celtic v Hearts game in September 2010.

Billy Connolly and Rod Stewart at a Celtic game (Image: Newsquest)

Did you know Billy also refereed a Celtic match? It was in 1976, and Jock Stein was back in charge for a  testimonial for Jimmy Johnstone and Bobby Lennox versus Manchester United, whom Celtic thrashed 4-0.

Stein made Billy run out on the pitch to referee dressed in a Rangers hat and scarf.

Billy refeering the Celtic match in a Rangers scarf, 1976 (Image: Newsquest)

In an interview with the Daily Mail, Billy said: “I said to him: ‘I can’t run out there with this on, they will eat me.’

“The Big Man laughed and said 'they will love it and it is only for ten minutes.’ 

“Out I ran from the tunnel to be met with deafening jeers. I kept running straight out and I went to the old jungle and produced a red card sending them all off.

“To this day, I don’t know how the hell it happens, but the fans seem to all have been equipped with some sort of strange communication device that they all tune in to. It happens in every stadium.

“Anyway, I am standing there frantically waving the red card when, to a man, they suddenly start chanting 'you can stick your flaming wellies up your ****.’ A memory that will live with me forever.”

Never one to shy away from a chance to get involved in the thick of things, Billy took to the sky to help launch plans for the Glasgow Garden Festival in the mid-80s, posing in a hot air balloon with TV presenter Selina Scott and politician George Younger.

In April 2006, Billy accepted an honorary degree from Glasgow’s RSAMD (now the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland) alongside singer Annie Lennox and actor Tilda Swinton.

And in 2010, one of Glasgow's greatest sons received the richly deserved Freedom of the City of Glasgow from lord provost Bob Winter. His famous banana boots - now in the People’s Palace - shared the stage as he accepted the accolade.