A popular, working-class Glasgow poet has been confirmed as among the dead after a police helicopter crashed on to a pub late on Friday night. John McGarrigle, aged 59, had been sitting in his usual spot exactly where the pub roof gave way, his son and friends said. Nine people are said to have died, including the pilot and two police officers aboard the helicopter, when it hit the Clutha bar in Glasgow.

A blogger who knew McGarrigle wrote: “The Clutha along with the Scotia, just across the road, were much more than places for a drink, together they formed an institution, an oasis of poetry, music, debate, banter and laughter. Those who visited either of them once, usually became life members of both, you could slip seamlessly from one to the other, perhaps even several times in a night. I was a great fan of the Scotia poetry nights, and it was there that I met John McGarrigle.”

The blog quotes two poems from McGarrigle’s volume of poems, Glasgow’s McGarrigle. Fans of his poetry said he regularly performed live, according to a report in the Scotsman. He also contributed to compilations of poetry about Glasgow and its working class. 

As police search and identification efforts went on at the weekend, his son, also named John, showed journalists a picture of father and son together on his phone and told reporters: “He’s a regular and it came through right at his usual spot. I just know he’s dead. He is not answering his phone, he is not at his house.” His father's death was confirmd by police late on Monday night.