A small and great city, his mind answered. A city with its face against the wind. That made it grimace. But did it have to be so hard? Sometimes it felt so hard…It was a place so kind it would batter cruelty into the ground. And what circumstances kept giving it was cruelty. No wonder he loved it. It danced among its own debris. When Glasgow gave up, the world could call it a day.
William McIlvanney
Last weekend I swapped Newcastle for another city familiar to me. No, not London this time, but Glasgow. A city I first visited as a babe in arms and one to which I have returned many times throughout my life, primarily for family visits (my paternal grandmother was Scottish) and holidays, but also for business.
While my early visits were to stay with relatives of my father, my more recent visits have been to stay with younger members of my 'blended' family and, on this occasion, to meet for the first time my youngest Grandson - yes, a young Scot in the family.
Those who read my piece 'Christ of St John on the Cross' a couple of years ago will know that Glasgow's Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum houses a favourite painting of mine by Salvador Dali. A picture I first saw at age eight when on one of those early visits to the Scottish side of the family with my parents. That family was primarily my Uncle George, Auntie Jean, and Cousin Jeanette. However, to my young mind, there was also a bewildering array of other uncles, aunties and cousins who would appear from around the city. I've already mentioned Uncle George in a piece from earlier this year. He of the broken toe in 'Oh, I do like to be beside the Seaside'. My parent's association with Glasgow stretched back further than my appearance. They honeymooned near Loch Lomond and its bonnie, bonnie banks.
As a youngster, I was close to Jeanette, and in some ways, she became my 'big sister' after Judith, my actual sister, left home to join the army when I was around nine. It will be, therefore, no surprise that I much enjoyed the Glasgow visits. Memory tells me that my parents did too. Those family 'Gatherings of the Clan' to paraphrase the well-known phrase were a chance for the adults to swap banter and tales over a glass or three. This was after ushering we children off to bed.
I recall seeing a photograph of my father taken on one visit long before I came along. He is standing barefoot in my uncle and auntie's sitting room with a lampshade on his head and his trouser legs rolled up to the knee. Why he is 'attired' this way, I know not. He may have been reliving that form of squiffy light-heartedness popular in his youth in the 1920s (he was born an Edwardian, some four years before Titanic's close and tragic encounter with an iceberg). Alternatively, his 'get-up' might have been some variant of a Masonic lodge ritual. Although, it was my Uncle Jimmy that was high up in that organisation.
And as an aside, mention of my Uncle Jimmy calls to mind a joke from the much-loved north-eastern stand-up comedian, the late Bobby Thompson or the 'Little Waster' as he was known in the northeast. Sadly, his telling of regional jokes in his thick Sunderland accent (as opposed to Geordie) didn't travel well. Most of Bobby's jokes were of and from the culture and language of the Northeast. The joke, oft-repeated in our family circles and that consistently acted as a leg-pull to my Uncle Jimmy, was this one-liner (much funnier in Bobby's telling, accent, and comic timing than on the page)
"Aye, my uncle, he's a freemason; ……he puts fireplaces in for nowt."
Anyway, back to Glasgow and a memory I have of Uncle George. He very much liked three things. Glasgow Rangers, a glass of whisky (he worked for the Distillers Company - the then makers of the famous Black & White Whisky), and to watch the pennies.
In preparation for one visit when I was young, my mother was packing my things when my father noticed a bottle-green jumper in the suitcase and a royal blue jumper. My father cautioned my mother not to take the green one and suggested I wear the blue one for the trip. It was July, and even in Glasgow, it didn't call for a jumper, but with my father's encouragement, I did. It paid off. As Uncle George opened his front door on our arrival, his already smiling countenance changed to a broad beam on seeing me in my bright blue jumper. In no time, my uncle reached into his trouser pocket and drew out a shining sixpence that he pressed into my small hand, saying, "there ye go, wee man, that's fur ye."
Later that day, my father suggested I might frame that sixpence. At the time, I had little understanding of what wearing the blue jumper meant and what might be so precious about this particular sixpence.
Something else I recall from those early visits was the family tradition for a youngster to have their photograph taken on the PS Waverley. Even today, one can still take a trip on what is now the world's last seagoing passenger-carrying paddle steamer.
My Glasgow visit last weekend was both relaxing, in spending time within cosy family company and pleasing, in my meeting for the first time with my youngest Grandson. I thought him a happy little soul (his parents may take issue with that being the case all the time), and the abiding memories I now have of him were not only his contented chortles but also his clear delight while consuming excitedly every spoonful of food right down to the last scraping. No faddy eater, is he.
As it's from an earlier Glasgow visit, I'm cheating a little with my photograph this week, but I chose it as a signpost to Glasgow's transformation. The Glasgow I recall first visiting with my parents in the early sixties has changed much over the decades. No one could have imagined that within twenty or so years of those first visits, Europe would hail Glasgow as the City of Culture rather than in its earlier guise of Europe’s murder capital. Merchant City is one of Glasgow's oldest quarters, dating back to the 1750s. Then it was home to tobacco, sugar, and tea warehouses before becoming Glasgow's central fruit, vegetable, and cheese markets. It is now enjoying a renaissance as an area of independent bars, restaurants, galleries, and boutiques.
A city transformed.