DID YOU grow up in the Gorbals? 

Can you remember the sights and sounds of the streets where you lived, worked and played?

Perhaps you visited the local parks or cinemas, or went shopping along Cumberland and Crown Streets, or attended a local school?

Whatever your fond memories of the Gorbals, we want to hear your stories and see your old photographs as part of our fantastic new series Thanks for the Memories.

Following on from the overwhelming success of our Bridgeton launch event at Glasgow Women’s Library last month, we are heading from the east end to the south side and setting up at Gorbals Library on Tuesday, October 25.

The drop-in event, from 10am until 12 noon, is open to anyone with favourite memories of the neighbourhood and we’d love to see any old photographs, cinema tickets, newspapers or other artefacts you may have kept from the ‘old days’.

Local historian Peter Mortimer was born in the Gorbals and he says people will undoubtedly remember the area with great fondness.

“I lived up a close, surrounded by my neighbours and friends and I wouldn’t swap my childhood in the Gorbals for a million pounds,” smiles Peter.

“It was a smashing place to be. I went to Hayfield Primary and I remember going to the pictures at the George Cinema nearby, and attending the local Boys Brigade.”

He adds: “We moved to the East End when I was nine, when they were starting to pull down all the Gorbals tenements and put up the high-rises.

“There was no shortage of timber lying about in those days, because of all the building work being done, so on Bonfire Night, we’d get a pile together and light our own bonfire.”

Peter says he believes people will remember not only the sights and sounds of the old Gorbals, but the smells, too.

“There were two very distinct smells – the strong distillery smell from Strathclyde’s, where they made the whisky, and the fantastic smell of bread baking at the Co-op bakery,” he smiles.

“I’m sure plenty of readers will remember the shops, too – the big grocery chains like Galbraith’s, the Tesco of their day; and the smaller ones like the Shan Shop on Ballater Street, where they sold off all the bakery products the Co-op hadn’t sold the day before at knock down prices.”

There were more than 1000 shops in the Gorbals in the 1930s, Peter explains.

“All the way down Cumberland Street and Crown Street, there were wall-to-wall shops,” he adds. 

“People shopped daily in those days – no-one had freezers or fridges, so if you wanted milk you bought a pint for the day and used it up, and got another one the next day.

“I particularly remember the old sweetie shops, where you could buy penny dainties. There was a huge variety.”

The Gorbals began as a single-street village in the mid-1300s, but by the 1930s it was home to tens of thousands of people. 

Conditions were poor but plans to demolish the old tenements and replace them with giant high-rises proved disastrous and many of those tower blocks have been demolished. New housing and dynamic streetscapes have breathed new life into the area, which is home to a thriving community.

The Gorbals gained an unsavoury reputation in the 1960s, fuelled by the publication of No Mean City, by Alexander McArthur and journalist H Kingsley Long. 

The novel, based on McArthur’s own observations of living in the Gorbals, portrayed the area as one full of violence, gang fights, drunkenness and immorality. 

It was a terrible image and gave the Gorbals and its people a reputation they struggled to lose for many decades to come.

Peter says: “The Gorbals, like every district in Glasgow, had a lot of hard guys in it – it was a hard city. I understand that – but I also remember, from living there, the absolute warmth and sense of community.

“Physically, the place has changed incredibly but that sense of community remains.”

One of the other big changes, Peter says, is visible on the street corners and green spaces of the Gorbals.

“When I was growing up there, the streets were full of weans,” he smiles. 

“We played outside, from dawn to dusk and especially around this time of year, with Halloween and Guy Fawkes’ Night coming, there would be people everywhere.

“The streets are much quieter now.”
Peter adds: “We were lucky growing up in the Gorbals too, because Glasgow Green was right on our doorstep.

“Imagine that park, just a short hop across the river, being your very own ‘garden’ – it was incredible.

“I spent hours in the People’s Palace and the hothouses.”

Here at the Evening Times, we love to celebrate Glasgow’s rich past. We know that in every corner of the city, there are storytellers who recall the city’s good old days.

It could be your granny or your next-door-neighbour, your great-uncle or the man who has run the local shop for 40 years.

All of them have memories to share – so we want to hear about them.
lOver the next few months, the Evening Times will be pitching up in local libraries to hear the stories of Glasgow’s communities.

On Tuesday, October 25, we are visiting Gorbals Library on Crown Street between 10am and noon.

If you have lived in Gorbals all your days or grew up there and moved away, and have particular memories, we would love to hear about them. If you can’t make it on the day, please send your memories and photographs to ann.fotheringham@heraldandtimes.co.uk or call 0141 302 6555.