By Christine Lavelle
FORMER Bay City Roller Pat McGlynn is recovering at home after suffering from a heart attack.
The one time pop star told how he feared for his life when doctors informed him he needed urgent treatment.
The 52-year-old teen sensation said he had put a spell of chest tightness down to his heavy smoking, but was shocked to find out the seriousness of his condition.
Mr McGlynn was alone when he began to feel unwell, experiencing shortness of breath and pains in his chest.
He managed to get himself to the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh where medics leapt into action immediately.
He said: “I had been getting a tight chest for a couple of months and had been at the Chest Pain Clinic in August.
“But I thought it was just the smoking.
“I was up to between 80 and 100 a day then, thankfully I’ve cut it down but I’m finding it hard to quit completely.
“When I got to hospital and the doctor said the words ‘heart attack’ I just couldn’t believe what I was hearing.
“I thought I was going to die, having a heart attack in my early fifties – it was so scary.
“But I just felt so weak, I just listened to the advice they were giving me.
“My doctor was as surprised as me, just a couple of weeks before he told me my heart was healthy.”
Mr McGlynn, who joined the Bay City Rollers for seven months in 1976, had to have bare metal stents fitted to open up his two main arteries which had narrowed in width and were no longer taking enough oxygen to his heart.
He said: “I’ve just had the stents removed and the doctors say it will make me feel a lot better.
“The arteries had been forced open to allow them to perform the way they should.”
Mr McGlynn lives in Liberton, Edinburgh, with his wife Janine Andrews, 50, who starred as a Bond Girl in the 1983 film Octopussy.
Stress
He said he believes the heart attack, on October 3, was brought on by the stress of two on-going court cases.
He said: “All of the former members of the band are fighting for our share in royalties payments, which we believe Arista Records owe us.
“It just feels like it’s been going on forever, there’s a lot of atmosphere between us all now because I know a few of them don’t think me or Nobby Clark are entitled to anything.
“And I’m involved in another court case with the council – they say I have to pay for work they did on one of my properties a few years ago but I have been refusing to pay because it was a complete cowboy job.
“My lawyer is in talks with them now to hopefully negotiate something, so I’ll be glad when I can close the door on it.”
Mr McGlynn has been told by doctors that he will have to take aspirin for the rest of his life, and said he is doing his best to cut out the smoking and gradually take more exercise.
He will also have to attend regular check-ups with his doctor every three months.
Former Bay City Rollers boss Tam Paton died of a duspected heart attack in April last year, aged 70.
