body rather than mind, spirit or application. He appeared to relish the challenge of devising ingenious new ways of skiving, of getting one over on the management, or anyone, for that matter, who told him what to do and when. ‘There was a pipe room,’ explains Whitehall. ‘Robert had a very black sense of humour, and he’d say he went in there for a sleep, so he’d be well rested for training. He’d also come out with things like, “I’ve perfected a new way of sleeping in the toilets”, then he’d demonstrate how he could lie, with his head resting on the cistern. Sometimes I wouldn’t know if he was serious. I’d think, “Are you having a laugh?” But he was serious.’
The first twelve months of the three-year apprenticeship included basic skills, using drilling machines and fitting machines, all geared towards the manufacture of water pumps. After the first year the apprentices were ‘let loose’ in the factory, working in castings or assembly. ‘You tended to get moved around every six months,’ continues Whitehall. ‘As a technician apprentice, which is what Robert and I were, you were seen as being a potential manager in years to come. So there was a bit of an “us and them” divide between the apprentices and the workers on the shop floor.’ Whitehall describes the atmosphere on the shop floor as ‘male-dominated, typical west of Scotland’, in the sense that there were two preoccupations among most of the workers, ‘ragging and shagging’. ‘There was a lot of smut, and I think Robert felt ill at ease among all of that, especially among lads his own age. “What did you do at the weekend?” they’d ask, really goading him. “Did you get a burd?”’
Apart from drinking, football and girls, Glasgow’s religious divide was another preoccupation, and it manifested itself at Weir’s in strange ways. The Protestant–Catholic schism was not overt, says Whitehall, ‘but it seemed more than a coincidence that in one particular office everyone would either be a nonbeliever or a Protestant, while next door it would be the other way round. It seemed to be arranged like that. I don’t think it was an accident.’ Although Millar came from a Protestant family, he showed no religious leanings, says Whitehall. ‘Cycling was his religion.’ Interestingly, one of Millar’s teammates from his days riding professionally in France, Ronan Pensec, makes a similar observation: ‘He was almost religious in his dedication to training.’
It was another of the unwritten rules of Glasgow life – in fact, it must be written in the city charter – that in places of work nicknames are compulsory, even if it is only, and most commonly, ‘Big Man’ or ‘Wee Man’. Often one will be used as a prefix to someone’s name – hence ‘Big Davie’ or ‘Wee Rab’. But inevitably there was cruelty in the nickname assigned to ‘Wee Rab’ Millar. He was known in the factory as ‘Eagle Beak’, Whitehall reveals, ‘because of his large nose’.
It would appear that every Billy Connolly-inspired caricature of the Glasgow working-class male was reinforced on the shop floor at Weir’s. Connolly told tales of the shipyards, but by the seventies many of these had closed and factories like Weir’s developed a similar culture, with rigidly applied rules concerning what was acceptable for young males. Working hard, going to the football and the pub, and ‘pulling burds’ was not only standard but required behaviour; falling asleep in the toilets while dreaming of riding the Tour de France was not. ‘Weir’s was Robert’s worst nightmare,’ says Whitehall. ‘It was just like a Billy Connolly sketch – there were these dominant characters, people you’d be a bit afraid of. And Robert was different, not because he was a cyclist, but more because of his demeanour. He was perceived as a weirdo. He didn’t talk much, which was what struck most folk. When people did try to communicate with him they got the impression that he didn’t want to talk to them. I think he just felt he had absolutely nothing in common with them. Robert talked to me a bit, about cycling and races, never family or anything like that. The only other thing he talked about was the boredom of the factory, and how he couldn’t wait to get out. He used to say he found it mind-numbing. “The only reason I’m doing this is to make money to buy bike equipment,” he said. His attitude was that he didn’t want to go to college and he didn’t want to be at Weir’s either, but he had to do something until he could go over to France to get the professional contract. It was a means to an end.’
Racing provided more than a weekend diversion. As 1977 approached Millar took to training with even more gusto. He was now following a programme of weight and circuit training as well as cycling, with Bilsland providing guidance. Bilsland took him to his old interval training circuits, timing Millar and Brodie as they made repeat efforts. ‘There were guys who were better as juniors,’ comments Bilsland, ‘but you could see that Robert had a big margin for improvement. He was so consistent when we were doing interval training and mile reps [repetitions]: he could bang out more or less the same times sprint after sprint, even at 16.’
For the last two winters Millar had also been attending circuit training classes run by Bilsland’s old coach, Jimmy Dorward, held in a large school in the Springburn area of Glasgow. The classes were held on Tuesday and Thursday evenings and they always followed the same routine: a twenty-minute warm-up followed by a session of circuit-type exercises – squat thrusts, sit-ups, press-ups – designed to improve strength and overall fitness. The hall was divided in two, with cyclists training at one end and footballers – among them several who would go on to play for Rangers, and one, Walter Smith, who was eventually appointed Scotland coach, and who attended the class at the same time as Bilsland – at the other. Bobby Melrose was a regular. ‘The warm-up was severe, never mind the circuit training,’ he recalls with a grimace. ‘The footballers only did the warm-up, then they would lie at the back of the hall on mats while we did our training. Then we played football with them at the end. It was brutal.’
‘It was a great night,’ says the ageless Jimmy Dorward, now in his fifth decade of coaching cyclists. His description of the warm-up doesn’t quite tally with Melrose’s – actually, it is amusingly at odds with it. ‘General callisthenics,’ is how he describes the class, his hands flailing dismissively, ‘limbering up, stretching, a little jogging and so forth. I drew cyclists from all over Glasgow for those classes. But it was a great night and the lads loved it. I tried to get the footballers to join in when Alex Willoughby, a midfielder with Rangers, came along. But they said, “No chance, we don’t want to be shown up.” But then, cyclists have tremendous dedication to training.’ To illustrate the point, Dorward, who was Bilsland’s coach, told me what his pupil told him on his return from the 1968 Olympics in Mexico. ‘He came back and said that the cyclists hadn’t really mixed with the other athletes, many of whom seemed to be there to enjoy themselves. The ones they mixed with best were the boxers. The boxers know that if they don’t train they’re going to get a leathering. The cyclists were the same. So the cyclists and the boxers behaved impeccably – they had that in common.’
Dorward is modest about the significance of his role in running the legendary Springburn circuit training classes. ‘It wasn’t on my account that it was a fantastic class. Billy used to go, and he sent Robert. I watched him in circuits and he stood out there. He drove round, you know? He was a very good example to everyone. I remember Robert as being special, even when he was 16, 17. You don’t get many of that calibre.’ Dorward didn’t coach Millar, but he would have liked to. ‘It’s like a cabinet maker,’ he reasons, ‘if you see a nice piece of wood you’d like to work with it.’
Almost certainly as a result of all this dedicated training, Millar made an immediate impact in 1977, his first senior year. In the first event of the season, a handicap race in Ayrshire in mid-March, he sprinted in first, just beating Whitehall. Two weeks later, the Tour of the Shire provided a sterner test. According to Cycling, ‘Sandy Gilchrist and Dave Brunton [both seniors, who tied for first place] were red-faced when junior road race champion Robert Miller [sic] was only ten seconds down’ in a race run off ‘in tough conditions, with an icy crosswind’. Next up was one of the biggest events on the Scottish calendar, the Easter weekend Girvan 3-Day in Ayrshire. With his performance here, in the colours of Strathclyde, Millar offered ‘hope for the future’, according to Cycling; ‘a fine fifth place by Scottish junior champion Robert Millar
