Credit where credit is due... the men who tried to destroy Glasgow. Robert Bruce... no not that one This one... Robert Bruce was the author of the Bruce report, otherwise known as the First Planning Report to the Highways and Planning Committee of the Corporation of the City of Glasgow. And what was his plan for the redevelopment of Glasgow? To destroy the city and rebuild it. Perhaps his name went to his head and he developed delusions of monarchical grandeur. His 'plan' called for the demolition of some of the greatest architectural treasures in Glasgow ..read more

Alfredo's, when I knew it. A picture I recognised immediately was of Alfredo's, a pub on West Nile Street which sits next door to Amalfi's restaurant. I once spent a very pleasant morning inside. I had just arrived in Glasgow by night-train from London and as I left the station I bumped into an old friend. It was just before eight in the morning and I assumed he was on his way to work but he wasn’t. He asked me if I wanted to go for a pint - they say you know a man’s character by the company he keeps. Well, I hadn’t slept much on the train and I was feeling tired and dishevelled, but I hadn ..read more

Loch Lomond             Since 1948, a Field Research Station had been established on the shores of Loch Lomond by the Zoology Department of the University of Glasgow. The loch is the largest body of freshwater in Britain. The fertility of any body of natural water – whether salt or fresh – depends on the interaction of certain factors; the amount of energy gained by the body of water from solar radiation; the physical and chemical characteristics of the water itself, notably its content in solution of certain nutrient salts; and the nature of the substratum on which the body of water lies, an ..read more

            To get back to the photographer’s pictures.                         There was a particular picture which I recognised but could not place. It was a sculpting of a figure, a man, holding what appeared to be a ship, looking down from on high. It was, obviously, on the side of some building. But which building and where? I was sure I knew it but, out of context, I found it difficult to place. I discovered it by accident when I was wandering around the city centre and decided to avoid the crowds on Sauchiehall Street and take St. Vincent Street. And there it was, number 200 St ..read more

Wee Tam McSing Before the relatively recent wave of new immigrants into Glasgow from the Eastern European nations there was, of course, a large group of immigrants from much further East; from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and from East African Asians who had left at threat of persecution from Idi Amin. The first Indian immigrant to Glasgow is said to be Mr Noor Muhammad Tanda who left Bombay in 1916 at the age of 19, and arrived in Glasgow via Liverpool, living in lodgings at the Broomielaw until he found work in Greenock at a shipyard. Mr Tanda had the wanderlust. After travelling extensive ..read more

            In 1953, the Chinese population of Glasgow was all of three families. They were soon to be joined by more Chinese in the 50s and 60s, most of whom were from Hong Kong which was then, of course, a Crown Colony. The Imperial Act of 1914 declared that everyone born within the allegiance of the Crown in any part of the Empire was a British subject and, as such, had the right to freedom of movement to other parts of the Empire. The benefit of this to England meant a great many more people would be available to fight in the First World War.             Hong Kong had been a British Colon ..read more

When I was a boy, being Catholic, we attended mass at St. Simon’s at Partick. A mass for the Polish community - in Polish - would have just finished before the mass in English would begin. The men leaving the Polish mass would light their first cigarettes after having gone without for half-an-hour while the men waiting for the mass in English would be having their last before their enforced abstinence. My father would often stand there puffing away like a condemned man before his execution while Talking to a Polish friend of his, who would be, very leisurely, smoking a pipe. St. Simon'sThe Pol ..read more

One of the major immigrant groups to Glasgow was, and still is, the Irish. The 1991 census recorded 10,000 people in Glasgow who were born in Ireland. As of 2016, the total of Irish born (that’s Republic of Ireland) in Scotland was 26,000. A good many of them, I'd guess, in Glasgow. Incidentally, the number of Polish-born in Scotland was 81,000. The Irish have been coming to Glasgow for a long time though. In 1689 the Committee of Glasgow Churches complained of the numbers arriving and at the end of the 1700s ministers complained of the flood of poor Irish, with their ‘superstitious religion a ..read more

I had an odd experience in the University Café once. I said earlier that I hadn’t been in Glasgow in a while but I often go there in my dreams. I see people, places, buildings, that no longer exist. I remember much more in my dreams than I would while awake. In one dream, I visited my grandparents' old home in Dowanhill Street. I saw wallpaper, pictures, ornaments, furniture, and linoleum on the kitchen floor that I had completely forgotten. In my garndmother’s home it is always the mid to late-seventies. Somewhere in my mind, it would seem, whatever ‘mind’ is, there is a perfect facsimile ..read more

To get back to the Mitchell’s phenomenal number of 1,213,000. That’s nothing compared to the British library which has an estimated 170-200 million items, not all in English. As a legal deposit library, it receives copies of all books published in the United Kingdom, which amounts to approximately 8,000 each day. Each year 9.6km of new shelf space is required. Compared to that, the Mitchell seems modest in comparison. I once had a first edition copy of the collected essays of Thomas De Quincy which I bought from Voltaire & Rousseau at what was for me, then, the expensive amount of £7.50 ..read more