Clifford Leonard Clark "Cliff" Hanley (28 October 1922 – 9 August 1999) was a

journalist A journalist is an individual that collects/gathers information in form of text, audio, or pictures, processes them into a news-worthy form, and disseminates it to the public. The act or process mainly done by the journalist is called journalis ...

novelist A novelist is an author or writer of novels, though often novelists also write in other genres of both fiction and non-fiction. Some novelists are professional novelists, thus make a living writing novels and other fiction, while others asp ...

, playwright and broadcaster from

Glasgow Glasgow ( ; sco, Glesca or ; gd, Glaschu ) is the most populous city in Scotland and the fourth-most populous city in the United Kingdom, as well as being the 27th largest city by population in Europe. In 2020, it had an estimated popul ...

in Scotland. Originally from

Shettleston Shettleston ( sco, Shuttlestoun, gd, Baile Nighean Sheadna) is a district in the east end of Glasgow in Scotland. Toponymy The origin of the name 'Shettleston' is not clear and, like many place-names of possibly medieval origin, has had a mult ...

in the city's East End, he was educated at Eastbank Academy. During the late 1930s, he was active in the

Independent Labour Party The Independent Labour Party (ILP) was a British political party of the left, established in 1893 at a conference in Bradford, after local and national dissatisfaction with the Liberals' apparent reluctance to endorse working-class candidates ...

. During the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposi ...

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 Coming of age is a young person's transition from being a child to being an adult. The specific age at which this transition takes place varies between societies, as does the nature of the change. It can be a simple legal convention or can ...

novel about a secondary schoolboy, and ''The Scots''. 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 "Scotland the Brave" ( gd, Alba an Àigh) is a Scottish patriotic song, one of three often considered an unofficial Scottish national anthem (the others being " Flower of Scotland", and "Scots Wha Hae"). History The tune probably originated i ...

'', 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. 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.Joe Mora
''Armchair Nation: An intimate history of Britain in front of the TV''
London: Profile Books, 2013, p.124 Hanley's other scripts include ''

Seawards the Great Ships ''Seawards the Great Ships'' is a 1961 British short documentary film directed by Hilary Harris. It won an Oscar in 1962 for Best Short Live Action Subject, the first Scottish film to win an Academy Award. The film chronicles the Shipbuildi ...

'', '' The Bowler and the Bunnet'', and ''

The New Road ''The New Road'' is a historical novel by the Scottish writer Neil Munro, which was adapted as a television serial by the BBC. Munro is now mainly remembered as the creator of the comic character Para Handy, but this is regarded as the best of ...

''. His son is artist Cliff Hanley (born 1948).

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* {{DEFAULTSORT:Hanley, Cliff 1922 births 1999 deaths Scottish conscientious objectors Independent Labour Party politicians Writers from Glasgow Scottish journalists Scottish novelists 20th-century Scottish novelists Scottish male novelists People educated at Eastbank Academy 20th-century British male writers 20th-century British journalists