When Glasgow played host to Billy Graham - and 100,000 turned up to hear him preach

“My friend and I had been to the Billy Graham Crusade at the Kelvin Hall – Glasgow Corporation had given every third year pupil the afternoon off to go,” she smiles.

“We all saw it as an afternoon off, yippee.

“There were photographers taking pictures but we didn’t pay much attention. The next day at school, I was greeted by my friends telling me my photo was in the newspaper.”

Hazel laughs: “I had no idea, but it was in two of the papers, I can’t remember which.

“We were quite impressed by him, and we went back to listen to him at Hampden Park which was within walking distance of where we lived (and maybe there wasn't much on at the pictures that Saturday….)

“He certainly could hold an audience in the palm of his hand.”

Charismatic US evangelist Graham began and ended his 1955 Scottish ‘crusade’ in Glasgow.

It started with a surprise Sunday-morning trip to a church on Hyndland Street, and finished several weeks later with open-air rallies at Ibrox stadium and Hampden Park, the latter in front of a congregation of 100,000 - possibly the largest in Scottish church history.

He also addressed 1000 ministers at the St Andrew’s Halls, where he admitted to feeling nervous.

“I stand in fear,” he admitted, confessing that every time he was “called upon to address a group of ministers he became extremely nervous,” reported the Evening Times.

“The evangelist told the meeting that about 1000 letters a day arrived at the crusade office. The prayer support was overwhelming.

“’I believe Glasgow is the most prayed-for city in the history of the Christian Church because of communications today that carry the news of the crusade to every part of the world,’ he said.”

Speaking to journalists on Sunday, May 1, just before he returned home, Graham said his All-Scotland Crusade had been the largest evangelistic effort in history.

More than 2.5 million people had attended crusade meetings and relay services, and more than 50,000 “decisions for Christ” had been recorded, he said.

The six weeks had been “amazing”, he added, beyond anything that he had ever imagined, and was indicative of a “great spiritual hunger” in Scotland. There had, he conceded, been accusations of showmanship, but showmanship did not affect the people in the little towns to which the services were relayed: they had not a person to see, but only a voice to hear.

Graham’s visit prompted a debate at Glasgow University Union, at which a motion “that this House considers Billy Graham to be an undesirable immigrant” was narrowly rejected by 190 votes to 187.

The Rev Dr Nevile Davidson told Glasgow Cathedral that one of the most remarkable things that Graham had achieved was to make religion, at least for a few weeks, the main talking-point in Scotland.

Graham was born in 1918 and died aged 99 in February 2018.

He became famous for holding massive rallies all over the world, at which hundreds, sometimes thousands of people, discovered their faith.

His obituary in the Herald explains: “Advance organisers would arrange for local churches to sponsor the rallies, to provide members for a massed choir, and to book blocks of seats so that the auditoriums were sure to be well-filled even if the general public was slow to respond. Skilful public relations work also ensured good press coverage.”

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“He would close with an emotional and repeated demand for members of the audience to “make a decision today for Christ” by coming forward to the stage, where they were met by counsellors, provided by the local churches but trained by the Graham organisation. The personal details of converts were carefully recorded and passed to the local churches to follow up.

“He visited Scotland three times: in 1955, 1961 and 1991.”