A Govan Childhood
Part II

RIVER TRAFFIC – THE FERRIES

Crossing the river other than by using the tunnel between Mavisbank next to Prince’s Dock and Finnieston or the bridges upstream was by ferry. Between Linthouse and King George V Bridge at Commerce/Oswald Streets there were eight ferries at six crossing points. The early vehicular ferries did not carry passengers. The first of the large capacity vessel to do so was introduced on the Water Row to Yorkhill crossing in 1938, but they were slow and ponderous and except for those with time to spare, passengers preferred the smaller boats which could make the crossing in half the time. The only occasion it was quicker for people wanting to cross the river was to use the vehicular ferry if a passenger vessel had just left and the vehicular boat was ready to depart. The two locations where both types of boats, large and small, operated side by side were Linthouse/Whiteinch, and Water Row (Govan)/Pointhouse (Partick), while the other four crossing points had one small boat each, and there was a vehicle/passenger boat at General Terminus/Lancefield Quay.

PASSENGER BOATS

The passenger carrying vehicular boats (24) were Govan Wharf to Meadowside, Highland Lane (at the dry docks) to Yorkhill, and Springfield Quay at Kingston Dock to Anderston Quay. The ferries did not seem to operate to a time­table, but just travelled back and forth continuously with only a short pause to allow passengers to disembark and board. On my travels with granda, who walked a lot and took me along at every opportunity, I most likely passed over all these crossings. The clearest memories are of Linthouse/Whiteinch where the terminal was at the foot of Holmfauld Road, and Water Row/Kelvinhaugh, because experience of using them in later decades is less distant in time.

 

 

Each passenger boat had a crew of two, and the steam engine with its coal fired boiler, water supply and bunker of coal, was centrally placed in a steel cabin with rounded corners and flat roof and a door at one end. The engine room (small hut describes its appearance better) was set in the middle of the vessel's deck, leaving narrow passages either side for passenger movement from one end to the other. It had no windows as such but there were openings to allow the engineer to keep a lookout when negotiating the terminal and watching for passing river traffic. There were wooden slatted benches which doubled as life rafts along each bulwark away from the narrow central section. There are photographs of these boats taken in the early years of the 20th century which show the engine and boiler with only a rudimentary cabin. In the ‘30s and ‘40s the cabin was larger, but as seen in photo 83 it was still just a kind of roofed steel box on two levels with a step between it and the entrance at one end.

 

Where the tall chimney emerged from the roof above the boiler it had a hinge at roof level, so that at the end of the working day it could be lowered to rest at an angle on a bracket. In later, post-war years a small amount of shelter was provided for passengers by fitting a steel awning on both sides. It projected out from the cabin roof over the side passages and curved down at a steep angle and was fixed on top of the bulwarks. But this would accommodate only about ten per cent of a full complement of passengers. Steering was by small conventional marine type of ship's spoked steering wheel mounted on a pillar at both entry opening, one at each end on the port side when viewed from the middle of the boat. Up to the 1940s the helmsman had no weather protection but small cabins for them were added later.

 

The terminals had small bollards set one on each step on each side alternately, and the vessel was secured to one by the helmsman hitching a mooring rope to the nearest one according to the level of the tide. Here, they were just steel pins about one-and-a-half inches thick and six inches high with a ball thickening at the top. After looping the rope over the pin the ferryman held it in tension so that there was as little movement of the boat as possible when passengers were leaving and boarding. To ease the tension on the rope the engine remained running at slow to push the boat gently into the dock. When ready to depart, the engineer gave the engine a burst forward to slacken the rope to allow it to be unhitched, then the helmsman stepped on board and secured the coils. As the engineer reversed direction and opened up the engine, the helmsman made his way through the passengers to the opposite end, where he unlocked the wheel there and began to steer as the crossing got under way.

 

The small engine made a quite distinctive rhythmic chuffing sound only a little quieter than that from a railway engine, but the exhaust steam and smoke puffed out the chimney just the same. As the helmsman took control the engineer increased the speed to cruise, and the vessel steamed briskly across at a speed of about 7 knots, while the crew kept a sharp lookout for other vessels passing along the main channel. A delay could be prolonged if a large ship with tugs fore and aft was passing.

 

Other factors to be taken into consideration during a crossing were wind and tide. A combination of the two could in the severest instances result in the service being suspended, and during the worst conditions in which it was possible to operate, a crossing could be lively, alarming even. A strong wind with a rising or falling tide often carried the boat a fair distance away from its normal path, making it slow and laborious work to return to and tricky to steer into the dock. Nearing the end of a crossing steam was shut off at a distance of about 30 feet out. Then approaching the steps the engine was put in reverse, the `glunk' and slight jerk of this is well remembered, and opened it up to maximum so that it gave off a loud chuntering roar. Turning in reverse, the propeller produced a violent frothing under the forward end of the vessel, causing it to slow down quickly as it approached the steps.

 

At this point, after ensuring the heading was correct the ferryman locked the wheel and moved to the prow and, holding onto a rail with one hand and braced against turbulence and the braking effect, he stood with the mooring rope in the other ready for docking. If the engineer's judgement was correct, the vessel would have just enough way left to mount the steel edge of a step aided by the curve of the keel. The ferryman then stepped off onto the one level with the prow and quickly put a couple of turns of rope round the mooring pin a few steps above. He leaned against the wall of the dock with his foot resting on the tensioned rope, while holding and maintaining his grip on the free end to stop it coming off the bollard, to allow passengers to leave and those for the return journey to get on board.

 

Jumping on and off would best describe the manoeuvre, and it will be clear from the foregoing that this way of crossing the river was for the young and agile, and although I never witnessed one, accidents to people using the ferries were occasionally reported in the newspapers. The main hazards were falling off the open ends of the vessel during a crossing, for there were no barriers in the narrow openings, or someone missing their footing when leaping off or on board while the vessel was moored in the dock. When ready to depart, the rope was freed and the journey commenced. Sometimes a lack of patience caused someone to take a dip. Men who thought they were still young and fit, who arrived as the ferry was leaving, were guilty of trying, in the second or two before the gap between steps and boat became too great, of rushing down and taking a flying leap.

 

As indicated above, the steps were set at a very shallow angle, but even so, anyone stumbling and falling was fairly certain to roll down into the water, where frantic efforts would have to be made to get them out with a long shafted boat hook. Hooks for this purpose hung on a pair of brackets with one at each terminal and one on each side of the ferry cabin, and life belts too were placed at the terminals and on the ferries. Among other hazards encountered was the wash from passing ships, especially tugs, steaming past light (without a tow). Their tubby lines generated the worst waves which could make passenger ferries lively.

 

A story of one occurrence is a good example of what could happen. It took place during a crossing of the Govan to Partick ferry during an evening rush hour in winter. The boat was packed to capacity with shipyard workers returning home, when a man who had been among the last to board said to people in front of him that someone who had come aboard behind him had disappeared. This was brought to the notice of the ferrymen who reversed the boat, and although a search was carried out for some time nothing was found. The man who raised the alarm was accused of being mistaken, but he stuck to his story, maintaining that the man was behind him when the ferry left, and could not have passed him unobserved as he was standing in the narrows, at what was the `stern' between the bulwark and steering wheel. It was an evening of fog and hard frost, and in the gloom anyone in the water wouldn’t have stood much of a chance of being found or surviving for long.

 

The event became a mystery which was never solved. Newspapers took it up, and speculated on the possibility of someone being reported missing in the surrounding districts that would fit the description, but with there was no result I ever heard about. At the end of the 20th century, the long disused Forth and Clyde canal had been restored for use by pleasure boats, one of which was a refurbished CNT passenger ferry.

 

When in dock the deck of the hull was normally hidden by the vehicle deck above, but during a crossing at low tide, with that deck in the highest position, the hull was exposed to view. The massive girders forming the vertical supports for the vehicle deck gave the boats a very clumsy and ungainly appearance. They rose to a height of over thirty feet from around the outer edges of the hull, vertical at the sides, but leaning in slightly at the ends of the later boats, and sweeping up and curving sharply inboard at their highest point, to meet in a continuous flat up-side-down ’U’ over the vehicle deck.

Positioned centrally on top of the main girder above the vehicle deck and reached by a ladder at from the side and a cat-walk, there was a small cabin in which engine and steering controls were housed, from which the ‘captain' supervised the working of the boat. The overall impression conveyed by the vessels, particularly the newer type with its lighter construction of thinner beams, was of a giant spider with a heavy undercarriage, thick legs and a tiny head.

 

To compensate for the tidal changes in water level, the vehicle/passenger deck was raised and lowered by huge vertical screwed shafts, two on each side of the older boats while the newer vessels had three, set within the massive ‘U’ girders required to support it. These shafts carried the weight of the deck with its load of vehicles and passengers. The hull was simply a pontoon with barely a suggestion of a cutwater at each end, and had hatches on top giving access to the propulsion unit, diesel engines driving a generator, and one or two of the usual but low ship type ventilators. The engine exhaust was carried up in two tall curiously thin flattened funnels which rose to a few feet above the level of the control cabin at the mid point of the sides. Because of the much greater height above water level than the passenger boats, the impression gained by passengers was of quiet stately movement, with much less engine noise even from the older boats’ steam engines than that generated by the passenger boats. So much so that on board you were more aware of vibration, little though it was, than noise, but that was because the engines were low down.

 

Suspended between the main girders the vehicle deck was laid out for three lines of vehicles, with the passenger area on the newer boats a narrow strip along one side only of the vehicle deck. In the 1930s, vehicles using the ferries were divided roughly 50/50 between horse-drawn and motor lorries and vans, plus an occasional private car. The edge of the vehicle deck at each end of the boat had a metal lip projecting as an extension out from the deck which, when the vessel moved in to the end of the basin when docking, engaged in a slot just below road level. The outer edge of the road had a matching lip, a metal flap hinged on the landward side, which seemed to have been levelled by two low fixed crane jib heads in casings and with chain lifting tackle, on which the road gates were mounted.

 

The flap provided a smooth transition between road and car deck, it but seemed to have been operated automatically by the aforementioned horizontal projection from the boat, as other than the ‘cranes’, there was no other mechanism visible ashore for doing this. The lights seen in 84 were mounted on top of the jibs for night-time operation, the corroded remains of one of which remained in situ at the end of Water Row more than forty years after the last time it was used in the mid 1960s when the Kingston Bridge was opened. There’s a 1980s photo in the family collection of grandson Paul standing beside it. Instead of mooring ropes, the vessel was held in position by two short thick steel cables with heavy `T' pieces on the ends which in repose lay in slots in the deck, one each side at both ends. They were lifted out and dropped over fairleads recessed at ground level ashore by a deck hand, then the slack was taken up and the cable held under tension by a winch or hydraulic means to hold the boat, so that no power was required to hold it steady.

   

At the both locations where two ferries operated together, they were located side by side with the passenger ferries upstream from the vehicular boats. Queues of carts and motor vehicles lined up in single file at the gates on both sides of the road, and when the last of the arriving vehicles left the ferry, they plodded and crawled on board for the leisurely trip. That illusion existed until the crossing ended and the two pairs of double gates, the one ashore and the other afloat, were thrown open. Then, accompanied by the thunderous roar of steel shod hooves and steel rimmed cart wheels on cobbles, they all surged off three abreast, so that it sometimes developed into a dangerous race between drivers to arrive first at the main road junction. Traffic authorities of the time endeavoured to curb this practice by requiring gatemen to restrict the opening initially to the centre lane only, then the other two in turn.

   

Noise made by the cart wheels was lessened somewhat by tracks laid on the nearside of cobbled roads in areas with a lot of horse-drawn traffic. This was in the form of lengths of granite in three or four foot sections laid in line and parallel at a distance apart which corresponded to the wheel tracks, or distance between the wheels. Certain main roads and some of the busier cobbled side streets had such strips, a few of which could still be seen for many years in districts untouched by redevelopment. These strips really helped to reduce what today would be described as a most irritating high decibel din that could be painful for the ears.

   

Passenger accommodation was on one side only, separated from the vehicle deck by a waist high stout steel stanchion railing of the same type as the one round the rest of the deck perimeter. Access from the ferry deck was by a narrow arched drawbridge mounted one near each end for the docks on each side of the river. When the boat had docked the landward one was pivoted over by hand by the side rails. In the raised position the ridged foot-walk with its `hump' became part of the guard rail. The ridges were anti-slip transverse wooden strips, which used to cause irritation because of their tendency to trip people up unless concentration was exercised on where they were putting their feet. Because of the many distracting sights around, for me there never was time for that so I had a few stumbles. Two or three slatted life rafts similar to those on passenger boats doubled as seats.

 

The boats berthed in basins that were a snug fit, set deep enough into the bank to take almost the whole boat, so that when docked, to avoid obstructing the channel they projected out only a small amount into it of what was after all a busy and fairly narrow river. The basin itself, like those of the passenger boats was of timber construction with vertical walls round the three faces, but the shape was more of a ‘U’ than the ‘V’ of the passenger ferry docks. Because of the open to the elements aspect of Holmfauld Road, like most of the other ferry terminals, a ‘waiting room’, a stoutly built wooden hut, was placed on the level surface of the area between the bays, which was very necessary, there being no other shelter in bad weather for about five hundred yards. The hut was a square shack with a boarded over window, a pitched slated roof, and bench seating extending round the walls.

   

There are a few photos of the ferries in my collection, but the book of photographs entitled Glasgow At War by Paul Harris, published in 1986 by Archive Publications Ltd, in association with the Evening Times newspaper, has two illustrations of a vehicular ferry being used to carry equipment to a ship on fire in the early 1940s. On page 46, photos numbers 69 and 70 show one of these ferries fairly clearly although the captions are wrong. The subject of number 70 is described as a `Special Fire fighting Barge', but it is actually vehicular ferry No.4 which had obviously been pressed into service for the emergency. It would have been ideally suited to driving the fire brigade vehicles complete with trailer pumps straight on board, and moving to wherever they were needed anywhere in the upper reaches, then the intake hoses of the pumps could be lowered into the water.

   

The other caption for 69 describing the same event, states that the location was Rothesay Dock at Clydebank. But the event depicted is more likely to have take place in Yorkhill Basin adjacent to the Govan ferry crossing point, connected with the wartime incident involving the cruiser HMS Sussex, the story of which is told in my second unpublished book of reminiscences entitled IN PEACE & WAR. The ferry-master's cabin above the vehicle deck was normally of glass above waist height for all round vision. But it can be clearly seen that these windows are covered over as required to comply with wartime night-time blackout regulations.

   

The Ship Room at the Transport Museum at Yorkhill has models of vehicular ferries on display, one of which is excellent with all the detail described above visible. (It is not known if the new Transport Museum at Yorkhill has the display). A good source of information on the river in general is Clyde Navigation - A History of the Development of the River Clyde, by John R. Riddel (1979). Another book by the same author is The Clyde, a much shorter edition with less text but more and better photographs, was produced in 1988 for the Glasgow Garden Festival. Copies of both are in my collection. They have excellent views of both types of ferries as they were in the 1930s.

 

Built to the same two designs, these ferry boats were different from the third type that operated downstream at Renfrew and Erskine, the funding for which was shared by the two county councils in whose area they operated, Renfrewshire in the south and Dunbartonshire on the north. They were worked by twin chains which stretched from one cobbled ferry ramp across the river to the other. During crossings the chains were hauled in through the engine room by pulleys on each side of the boat, with the slack passed out aft to lie on the river bottom clear of other traffic. They were driven initially by steam engines then latterly by diesels on either side of the vehicle deck, each with a chimney projecting above the two engine compartment/passenger shelters. The vehicle deck was a well along the centre containing three lanes for vehicles, access to which was by a kind of double-wing gate-protected drawbridge, while passengers occupied enclosed spaces round the engine rooms and on the open decks above. The counties operated ferries charged a fare, while those in the upper reaches provided by the Clyde Navigation Trust were toll free.

 

The free to use ferries were replacements from the days before development of the river began, when it was possible to ford the river in these reaches, and when work of deepening the channel began the Trust was obliged by law to provide them at existing fords. Each of the three types of boats was bi-directional and didn't require to be turned for each crossing. CNT passenger boats were oval shaped at deck level, like a rugby ball cut in half along its length, with a heavy keel having an angled section to match that of the landing stairs. The steel plating bulwarks round the deck edge had a broad flat wooden top with rounded edges, and there were restricted openings at the narrow ends for passenger access.

DOCKS

Favourite places full of interesting sights when out walking with granda were to go round the docks. King George V (opened 1931), was known mainly by the abbreviation KG Five. Shieldhall Dock, the quay upstream from the dock, was the most frequented as it was nearest. Prince's Dock and the quays upriver were visited occasionally, although many of the unloading berths there were inaccessible to the general public. He had a good eye for the unusual and exciting, and checked newspapers for things of interest to go and look at. Sometimes we would go a long way to see a particular ship or an unusual happening. On one occasion there was a report in a newspaper that a tug had sunk in the river off Plantation Quay, so at the first opportunity on the following weekend, on Saturday afternoon or Sunday, off we went together to see it. Sure enough there it was, although all we could see of it was the upper half of the tall thin funnel and mast rising above the surface in the middle of the river.

   

It was one of a pair of tugs in charge of a cargo ship, the one at its stern, which had her propeller turning over slowly to assist the manoeuvring. The tug had drifted too close under the stern and had been struck and holed by it. The boat had gone down quickly but the crew had saved themselves by climbing up the mast, to quote the report in the paper related by granda, ‘in a leisurely fashion' and hung on calmly until they were rescued. All were experienced watermen and knew the depth of the river at that point. (After writing about that incident I came across an interesting book entitled The Clyde Puffer by Dan McDonald (ISBN 0 7153 7443 5), in which there is a photograph on page 37 of the operation to recover the tug (26). Four puffers were used and are seen preparing for the lift although the only part of the tug that is visible is its funnel. It will be seen in the centre rising up from beyond the bow of the puffer on the right. The mast was probably removed for the operation. The caption states that the incident occurred in April 1938.      

   

The docks were nearly always busy and the quays a hives of activity. Ships were being unloaded and reloaded, with horse-drawn, motorised, and steam powered vehicles, and hand barrows also, constantly coming and going, and crowds of dockers stacking the loads on vehicles as they came off the boats. Because of a fascination with railways, of greatest interest for me was the rail system. Young people today, other than students of this aspect at that time who study it through reading history, watching old films, and looking at photographs and maps, would find it hard to appreciate just how extensive the network of lines really was around docks. Some idea of what it was like can be gained from large scale Ordinance Survey maps of the period and the range produced by Allan Godfrey of Newcastle.

   

These maps show in excellent detail to the very large scale of 15 inches to one mile, vast acres of marshalling yards with dozens of sidings. Prince's Dock, General Terminus and Shieldhall Dock, with their associated access routes were a maze of lines. There were the even more extensive layouts at Queen’s Dock and along the north side of the river. Originals of these maps, however, can be seen free and photocopies ordered at reasonable cost from the Glasgow Room of the Mitchell Library.

 

The network around loading and discharge points was constantly busy with wagons being shunted into position to be emptied or loaded, then hauled away to adjacent marshalling yards by dock shunters like the small ex-Caley class 23 0-6-0 tank engines, or the larger classes 29 and 782. Govan Cross Goods Station was also quite extensive, with plenty of facilities to serve the surrounding industrial premises, some of which had their own sidings. Harland and Wolf’s Clyde Foundry on the west side of Helen Street, known as `The Glasshouse', had a `kick-back' siding from the goods yard to the east which ran across Helen Street near Loanbank Street.

 

A memory of a visit to KGV dock stands out. The sheds where cargo was stored awaiting transhipment were sometimes full, with the excess stacked on the quayside clear of the railway and travelling crane tracks to leave sufficient room for other vehicles to pass. Sometimes there was so much that progress could be difficult even walking, and on this occasion granda and I were approaching an area stacked up with wooden crates from which a fruity smell emanated, when a policeman came running up from behind. Passing us he went on ahead and turned into a recess in the stacks. After a few seconds he reappeared holding by the scruffs of their necks two youngsters of about ten years of age, each of them with an armful of oranges heading, I was certain, for the nearest jail.

 

Sentinel and Trojan steam lorries were seen occasionally in Govan Road proceeding to or from the docks, and sometimes one would draw up at a fire hydrant in our area to top up with water for the boiler. The quieter stretch in Renfrew Road between the Southern General Hospital and Hardgate Road was mainly used for this. These fascinating vehicles had rounded open to the elements cabs, waist-high curved fronts and a roof like the upper deck end of a tramcar. The boiler and firebox, tiny in scale compared with railway engines, was at the front of the cab. The chimney from the firebox passed up through the roof and projected above it for a few inches, and was capped with a counterweighted lid.

 

Steam from the boiler was carried to the engine situated below the load carrying platform and was transmitted to the back axle by an enormous unguarded chain which ran round small-to-large sprockets. Memory of them is fleeting as they were being withdrawn and disappeared from the roads soon after WWII. I bet the crews were glad to see them go, with their open cabs, especially the Trojans with their solid tyred wheels. They must have been most uncomfortable when running on cobbled roads, although the last of them had inflatable tyres, to say nothing of the disadvantages of the work involved with the boiler fire in the cab.

THE ORIGINAL CLYDE TUNNELS

Another place of interest visited with Granda was the original twin tunnels under the Clyde, accesses to which were in the still existing rotundas at Mavisbank on the south side and Finnieston on the north bank. Built for use by both pedestrians and vehicles and long since disused and part filled in, the tunnels provided the then unique thrill of walking under the river. The subway also passed under the river but sitting in the train you were much less aware of it. The rotundas, still used by businesses, were built over wide round vertical shafts with 160 stairs for pedestrians. There were lifts for vehicles that were operated by power supplied from the nearby hydraulic power stations in the form of pressurised water which also powered the dockside cranes.

While walking down the stairs to the tunnel I remember watching a carter having to calm his agitated horse disturbed by the motion of the lift by standing up close and stroking its nostrils while keeping a firm grip on the bridle. Also still in existence, the power station building long since disused and the machinery removed, became the tram depot for storage and maintenance of the four trams which ran during the Garden Festival in 1988.     

STARTING SCHOOL

My school attendance commenced at St Anthony's Infants in Harmony Row in the late summer of 1935. Living close to the school in the 1900s, Mum and her sister had received all their education there. St. Anthony’s was the only catholic school in Govan until St. Constantine’s and St. Savour’s Primaries were built in the 1920s and St. Gerard’s Secondary in 1937. My recollections of St Anthony's are slight due to absences caused by illnesses. However, faintly remembered are making things with pieces of cut-out coloured paper, drawing on thick dark paper with coloured crayons, and making shapes with plasticine. Using the sand tray is more clearly recalled. Small shallow trays about eight inches by six with a wooden border and a shiny tin base which contained about a table spoonful of fine sand were handed out by the teacher. When the tray was shaken gently a thin covering was spread evenly over the bottom. It was in one of these I learned to write figures and letters with a fingertip. After use a shake would provide a fresh surface and save on pencils and paper.

 

Another teaching aid was the slate and pencil. It was a piece of ordinary roofing slate about ten inches by six, with the working surfaces polished smooth. One side was blank while the other was lined off in squares for arithmetic. Each slate was in a wooden frame with a hole in the centre of one end, the reason for which seemed to have been that, although collectively they were stored pile up, they could also be hung on a nail. The drawing implement was a thin rod somewhat thicker than ordinary pencil lead, made of some kind of brittle material that may have been pencil lead to which a hardener had been added, that had to be used with care. A fairly heavy pressure was required, but not too much or it was liable to make a screeching sound which could set teeth on edge or break.

 

Why there were two different teaching aids for the same purpose isn't clear, but it may have been a time when a new system was introduced and the older one hadn't been discarded. The older one would be the slate for the pencil wasn't very efficient, the mark it made being rather faint and was difficult to erase. Blackboard chalk would have been far better, but probably more expensive and certainly messier with the chalk dust it produced.

 

St Anthony's infants/primary school (and still also a secondary until St. Gerard’s was opened in 1938) (27) had been built on a restricted site behind and alongside the church, and the playground area was small. Having been crammed into the space between the church and an adjacent Harmony Row tenement, caused the lower classrooms to seem dark and dingy. In those days, like most other regulations lighting standards would be less demanding than now, and this is probably why the impression was of a dull and gloomy place. But friendly and cosy are better words, as my single term there from August 1935 to September 1936 was quite happy, until ill health caused me to be confined for five months in hospital. Only one name stays with me from this school was Miss McGinty, a short stout ‘ancient' lady probably in her early twenties. Visiting the building in 1990 after a redevelopment scheme had been carried out it was found to be no longer a school. It had been leased to the business community for use by small companies from one of which I required a service.

 

During walking around inside the building I became acutely aware of the historical significance of the place. Nearly fifty-four years had passed since I had enrolled, and eighty-three years since my mother began her education there. She and her younger sister would undoubtedly have walked these corridors and sat in the very room I was about to enter. The family had lived in the previously mentioned tenement at number 16 Harmony Row, and the kitchen window of their house overlooked the school. Mum said her mother could watch the class room activity and see it breaking off at mid-day, so that she had the dinner on the table ready for them.

ON JOURNEYS INTO TOWN

Travelling to and visiting new places was a craving within me on a level similar to and complementing the fascination for railways. From an early age there was strong compulsion on any journey to look out from tram, bus, train or steamer at passing scenery. How people could possibly have the inclination to read or talk or play games during long journeys except during hours of darkness, use to puzzle me greatly. My initial awakening to travel was on the occasional trips by tram with Mum into town from Govan, and eventually every foot of the way became familiar. The journey was always referred to as ‘going up the town’ i.e. in the upriver direction. Even now, recollections of the thrill of anticipating features that interested me most as the journey progressed remain.

 

On boarding the tram at the Howat Street stop, and later at Holmfauld Road after we moved to Linthouse, pleas were made to whoever I was with to go upstairs, then with the request granted, hurrying on up so that nothing was missed. Travelling from Linthouse, if I was quick enough and got up before the tram moved beyond the allotments on Steven’s shipyard ground, it was possible to see over the fence bordering the plots which gave a good view of any shipping movements on the river. The railway line nearest us in Linthouse was the Riverside Line on the north side of the river. It ran along a high embankment above South Street with Whiteinch Station perched on the bridge above Ferry Road, and although distant it was within sight from here too, and a plume of steam and smoke indicated the presence of a train.

 

Beyond Drive Road, Elder Park and pond were on the right, while on the left there were glimpses to be had over the wall bordering Fairfield shipyard, with farther along the strange sight of what looked like a range of 'doocots' set in the boundary wall of the yard. These were a number of narrow doorways to time-clock offices through which workers passed to clock on or off. Later, an extension was added to the west end of the office building which displaced the wall section with these entrances. Then there were the interesting stone carvings round the main entrance to the yard office building. In the years after 2000, changes of ownership of the yard had rendered the office building redundant and it became disused and was boarded up while efforts were being made to classify it for preservation as a grade one monument. It is now used by a conservation group.

 

Beyond here excitement mounted with the chance of seeing Fairfield’s steam engine which occasionally ventured out on a shunting manoeuvre into Govan Road, or puffed along to the goods station but that was a rare treat. It did not have a bunker; its coal supply was carried in bags in the cab. That was the sight which made my day - a steam engine puffing along among the traffic in Govan Road with its train of wagons. At that time there was a high wall bordering the yard along Taransay Street at the end of Howat Street, and living in the latter street I was constantly frustrated by the sight of clouds of steam drifting over it. It was the engine or a steam crane working its way round the yard.

 

In the 1936 an English Electric steeple-cab locomotive (28) was acquired for this work. It used to emerge from the yard main gate two or three times a day, and trundle along the tramline for the third of a mile to the goods station hauling up to half-a­-dozen wagons (29). I never found out if the steam engine was retained to work round the yard. If not overhead cables would have to be installed for the electric locomotive.

 

The electric locomotive cab’s height was lower than the trams and it had a tall bow current collector similar to those on single deck trams, to pick up power from the overhead supply. I used to be on tenterhooks hoping fervently that the main gate would be open which allowed at least a glimpse of any movements taking place inside the main entrance of the ‘yard, with the possibility of seeing the steam engine working.

Travelling on past the Lyceum Music Hall before it was burned down in 1936, and after it was rebuilt and reopened as a cinema (30), the next landmark to watch out for was the `Black Man' statue of Sir William Pearce at the Burleigh Street gusset. Then there was Water Row, where a brief glimpse might be caught of the river. We were much closer to it here, and although the view was very restricted, there was the possibility of catching a fleeting glimpse of a passing ship. There was also the faint chance that Harland & Wolff’s engine, a battery powered English Electric built steeple-cab locomotive (31), might be seen crossing over Water Row from one part of their yard to the other. Greenhaugh Street with its entrance to Govan Cross subway station was on the other side of Govan Road almost opposite Water Row. Then there the open space of Govan Cross LMS Goods Station itself, which had opened as a passenger and goods station in 1868. The line into the goods yard left the tram lines here (32), and curved and merged and passed away through the west gate to be lost among the sidings (33).

   

The main road here was at a slightly lower level, and the view of activity within the station itself was very restricted, but there was still the possibility of seeing a movement on the other extension, a second line of rails out of the station. Harland & Wolff’s shipyard platers shed was directly opposite here, and their branch extension emerged from the middle one of three goods yard gates, to pass across Govan Road into it, making a 90 degree crossing with the tram lines. Harland’s fabrication shed was to the west of the ferry and, as mentioned above, this line continued on through the eastern section across Water Row into it. Although passenger services from Govan Cross station ceased in 1921, the two platforms were visible on the west side of the goods yard until it closed in the 1970s, but they were still used occasionally in the ‘30s for excursion traffic.

   

An occasion is recalled when passing the goods station of being amazed to see a train of passenger coaches at the platform and a crowd of people standing and looking around, with me trying unsuccessfully to find out what was happening. Perhaps it was a local works outing, or, if such a thing existed then, a visit by a train load of railway enthusiasts. On the east side of the goods yard and fronting on to Govan Road there was a cinema. While the Plaza (34) was built around the middle of the ‘30s, there is no recollection of seeing the original building, the Old Govan Cinema, or the Plaza which replaced it being constructed.

   

Continuing the journey, after scanning Orkney Street for fire­ engine and police activity, the next place of interest was the dry dock or docks as there were three of them. They are still there lying side-by-side but derelict, with the largest next to the road. Approaching the docks, of particular interest to watch out for was, are there any ships in for repair and is there a big one? From the top deck of the tram everything could be seen over the high fence, except when there was a big ship in nearest basin. Graving Dock No. 3 was of sufficient length to take two ships at the same time and occasionally both sections were occupied. It had a dividing door at mid-point, which allowed the outer basin to be flooded and a movement to take place without interrupting work going on in the inner section. But two ships in No. 3 dock, interesting though they were and they were always studied intently, created the frustrating effect of obscuring the wider view of other perhaps more exciting activity beyond.

   

Some time in the future these docks will be filled in and the ground re-developed. However, efforts are being made to preserve at least one of them, preferably the biggest, to hold as an exhibit one or more of the old Clyde-built ships that exist and are still in a condition to be moved. If that aim could be achieved it would make an excellent foundation for a museum to display a history of shipbuilding on the Clyde opposite from the where the new transport museum has been constructed.

 

Beyond the dry-docks the road was bordered on the dock side for the rest of the way round by a high brick wall, and to see anything other than masts, funnels and cranes you had to be on the tram’s upper deck. The road made a sharp right turn then passed round the three sides of Prince's Dock, a distance of just under a mile (35). Many ships sailing out east were crewed by Lascars from the Indian sub-continent. When their ship was in dock, during the free time they took the opportunity to acquire domestic or trade items to carry home, heading usually for the 'barras', Paddy's Market and other flea markets located around the city. It was common to see groups of them returning loaded up with second hand domestic items such as furniture, bedsteads and bundles of clothing, and as workers in the Far East were known by the derogative term ‘coolies’, this stretch of road was known to locals as ‘Coolies' Mile'.

 

For me the problem with docks generally and this area in particular was that there was always too much to see, which lead to much frantic scanning needing a lot of concentration in case anything of particular interest was missed in the movements of ships, cranes, interesting road vehicles or most of all on the dockside railways. The docks so much held my interest that many years passed before I became aware of the magnificent building on the right at the second, left hand bend, Old Govan Town Hall the location of which is seen in this map (37) lying between Govan Rd., Summerton Rd. and Merryland St.

 

Histories of the period record that it was a time of depressed trade. But what is remembered of the docks and the river then is that they appeared to be busy and full of bustle and movement. The quays seemed to be constantly lined with ships, with tugs manoeuvring inwards the latest arrival or another which had completed loading being taken downstream. Of particular interest was the ship coaling stage installed in 1903 on the south quay in the canting basin area of Prince’s Dock known as the mineral quay.

 

The stage was a tower at the edge of the quay with a lift and a tilting mechanism, the platform of which had a turntable on to which wagons of coal were propelled one at a time. Wagon bodies were built with one end that opened as a flap that pivoted at the top. Once on the turntable it was elevated then turned through 90° with the opening end facing the ship. With the wagon securely fixed to the platform, ships moored there had their bunkers filled with coal by having the catches of the wagon released and the platform tilted for the load to be deposited into it with a thunderous roar and cloud of dust. Elsewhere in this book I’ve written about being frightened during thunderstorms. Female members of the family used to explain the thunder as ‘Ach it’s jist the boats gettin’ coal!’

 

Before the platform returned to ground level the empty wagons were returned by gravity down an inclined way built partly against the retaining wall on Govan Road to the sidings on the quay (37). Old Govan Town Hall is seen here in the centre background. Note in the bottom right-hand corner of the photo the wagon with CR on the side, denoting that it belonged to the Caledonian Railway Co. and the contents came from a pit in the Hamilton area. (The coal hoist was demolished in the 1930s

 

On the stretch of Govan Road which passes round Prince’s Dock when eastbound, where it turns left at the third of the four corners of the dock at Harvie Street, there was a bridge that carried it over the concealed dock access railway. The line, built in 1904, was in a cutting and ran from the Ibrox direction, and beyond this cutting and looking back from the tram, Govan Tram Depot could be seen. Located in Brand Street it was near Harvie Street, and as the tram we were travelling on went round the left hand curve, if you were in a convenient seat, by peering back round past the advertising hoardings which bordered the top of the cutting, a glimpse into the depot yard might be obtained.

 

My interest in trams almost equalled that of railways, and although most of the cars on depot were inside the shed, there were always a few to be seen with perhaps one or two of slightly different design or in unfamiliar colours. However, because of the awkward position of the depot shed with its open end close to the adjacent tenement building, the view was very restricted. There was also the interesting layout of tramlines giving access to the branch through Lorne Street to join the Paisley Road West line.

 

Sometimes, depending on which service the car we were travelling on, a number 12, on peak-hour only service to Mount Florida for example, ran via Lorne Street (38) and along Paisley Road, then turned right into Admiral Street at the Toll. But it was much more interesting to go the other way to pass the south bank tunnel rotunda. Here, though, was one of the most frustrating parts of the journey for me. Much of the dock railway was out of sight, even from the top deck, because they lay at a lower level than the road and were mostly hidden by tall advertising hoardings, fencing and bushes. Still prevalent today, this habit of long ago of hiding the most interesting views of railways and industrial sites behind hoardings was a never ending source of irritation for me. Who on earth, I used to wonder, would rather look at advertisements than docks and ships and trains?

 

Good views obtained of the dock basins and railways were the fleeting glimpses through gaps in the hoardings at each of the two corners here. But most frustrating of all was that the dock access line and marshalling yard in a cutting was completely out of sight, and if the amount of smoke and steam seen rising up from both sides of the bridge at Lorne School was anything to go by, there always seemed to be much activity there.

 

Beyond the dock, having rounded the fourth bend, the tunnel rotunda at the bottom of Ferry (Mavisbank ferry) Road was the next thing to watch for. A goods tramway ran along the road running parallel with Govan Road next to the quayside sheds at Mavisbank and Springfield Quays to look out for, in the hope of seeing a shunting movement. This line was part of a loop formed by the Princes Dock in the west and General Terminus lines to the east, and an engine coming in from one side, from the section of line at Shields Road that was known to railwaymen as `The Burma Road', could work its way round from, say, Shields Road low level on the dock side tramway, and go out via the line in the cutting mentioned in the previous paragraph, to join the Glasgow/Paisley line at Ibrox. On Govan Road, before reaching Paisley Road Toll Thomson's large musical instruments show room was on the right. They made and sold pianos and stocked other musical equipment, and I had an unfulfilled longing to pay a visit to them.

 

Beyond the Toll the road crossed the bridge over the line running into General Terminus. That name puzzled me until I found that it was built around 1840 by an early railway company, the Pollok & Govan for general cargo, hence the name. It was another location full of frustration because the interesting sights extended to both sides of the road, one of which was the marshalling yard at a lower level lying between Admiral Street and Seaward Street. I tended to be slightly neurotic in case something important was missed on one side, while I was busy looking out on the other. It was rarely possible to dash from one side of the car to the other, or even to look by craning to see past other passengers as the trams always seemed to be busy.

   

The next place of interest in Govan Road was a stonemason's yard at an old villa type house set back on the left side in a gap between tenements almost opposite Weir Street. It was probably originally the country mansion of a landowner of the eighteenth or early nineteenth century. Tucked away in an outside corner of the porch of the house there was an object which seemed to be of stone, but really must have been cast in cement, maybe fondue, of a model of rounded shape that looked like a big dolls house. It had the appearance of a kind of stylised Walt Disney's Snow White's castle. The other, a peculiar memory to retain, was of The West Riding Wallpaper Co’s shop just opposite which had a big frontage. Both lay approximately where the supporting pillars of the Kingston Bridge now stand. Then the masts and funnels of boats rising above the sheds lining Springfield Quay and especially those of Kingston Dock became visible before the tram turned into Commerce Street. We then crossed the river over King George V Bridge.

 

Finally, before reaching the town centre there was another frustrating sight. King George V Bridge had been built in the late 1920s, and as evidence of this a garage business, which occupied the south west corner site in Commerce Street at the corner of Clyde Place, up to the 1970s had a sign `Newbridge Garage' on it. When crossing from the south side in an age that was decades before the introduction of one-way streets system, to the left here the river was in full view in its upper reaches for shipping access, but still with plenty of movement to observe. Although boats coming this far up were smaller, they included steamers which brought on thoughts and memories of holiday trips downriver. The expression 'doon the watter' was unknown then so it must be an invention of a later age. But the most frustrating sight of the entire journey was engendered by what was visible on the right.

   

Somehow I knew that the massive bridge built by the Caledonian Railway and opened c1901, the stone piers and orderly forest of girders of the underside of which was the only parts visible, held one of the most interesting railway vistas in Scotland, where famous express trains hauled by the largest and most powerful engines of the latest designs were to be seen. (39) Showing the completed Jamaica Bridge with the railway under construction. And here I was passing glumly by unable to see anything except clouds of smoke and steam, and catching only fleeting glimpses of gantries with vast arrays of signals, any of which in the `off  position might be signalling the arrival or departure of one of the many important trains I longed to see. It is now clear that only local trains to Paisley and beyond crossed over at this point, the really interesting long distance traffic was on the far side, on the original (c1880) bridge. The old narrow bridge was dismantled in the late 1960s leaving only the piers which can be seen there today. Other than within the station itself, the place to catch a glimpse of the expresses was from the bridge on the east side, but the two-way traffic system of the time meant that our journeys to and from town took us only over KGV Bridge. Consequently Glasgow Bridge (or Jamaica Bridge as it was sometimes called) was unknown territory.

 

Our destination was usually the Argyle Street shops so we left the tram in Oswald Street opposite Wilson's Zoo, which was owned and managed by Harry Benson, whose son is today a world famous photographer. The zoo was another place worth a visit, but I only succeeded in doing so once in the late 1940s, not long before it moved out of town to a location beyond Milngavie for a short time before it transferred to Calderpark. It survived there for a few decades until the manager died, after which it succumbed to falling numbers of visitors, and legislation covering the welfare of animals meant that it became too expensive to survive, and it closed down. We then walked along Argyle Street under the `Heilanman's Umbrella' to the sound of trains rumbling overhead. The name derived from the fact that in the 1900s, when the station was built, it became a meeting place for people of highland origin. The question now asked of myself is ‘why did I not ask Granda to take me to Central Station or any one of the three other terminal stations on our many outings together?' The others were St Enoch, Queen Street, and Buchanan Street; they would surely have been the ideal place for us.

HOLIDAYS IN ABERDEEN

They were the first holidays I remember. Others in the late 1930s are described in a later chapter. My parents almost always took their summer holidays away from home. For three years they we went to Aberdeen, 1932, 1933 and 1935, and there are enduring and fond memories of the sights, sounds, and smells of that city in 1935, as I was old enough to take in and remember more of the details. The pals I played with seemed less fortunate; none got to travel such a great distance to what then seemed to be an exotic place.

 

A feeling of importance was induced in being able to boast to them about it because they, if their parents desired or were able to afford a holiday at all, only frequented relatively nearby Ayr, Saltcoats, Largs or Helensburgh, places where we might visit on an evening bus run. One boy was pleased to be going to Rutherglen by tram for his holidays, while I could say we travelled on a Bluebird bus for all of 150 miles. The bluebird was then the emblem of the Scottish Motor Traction (SMT) Company's long distance coaches, and it was displayed on each side and at the rear of their vehicles. To a small boy who enjoyed every minute of it the journey seemed endless, lasting from early morning to late afternoon, but decades were to pass before I realised that few people had the same interests as I had.

 

Travelling by train to the east coast with my Mother on one occasion (it might have been to Aberdeen, but could have been to either Dundee or Arbroath), and going via the Forth and Tay bridges was an unforgettable experience which provided ample material to impress or bore my friends with. After leaving Glasgow the journey involved changing trains at a station somewhere to the south of the Forth Bridge, and searching the map in an attempt to identify it now, it would have been Falkirk. Somehow, a picture of that station remains with greater clarity than the actual crossings of the bridges. Situated on a curve it had a high stone embankment wall opposite the eastbound platform, which gave a restricted view of the line and its surroundings, and confined it to within the station itself. We had to wait a while for the train that was to take us onwards to pass over the world famous bridge but I certainly wasn't bored.

 

What stood out here was seeing other trains passing with engines and carriages of unusual design. It is significant that in my juvenile state of ignorance, I was able to recognise features belonging to other railway companies. On the south side of Glasgow the trains were all of the LMS, the London Midland & Scottish Railway, while here it was the LNER, the London & North Eastern Railway. In other words I didn't know what types or classes they were, but was aware that they were different. Perhaps Mum, knowing my love of anything connected with railways, arranged the journey by that route for my benefit and to see the bridge. Arbroath was a particular favourite because of Kerr's Miniature Railway which ran, and still runs along the sea front south of the town between the beach and the main line north from Dundee, and it now has a web site

 

Times spent there were so enjoyable and memories of Aberdeen itself are prominent. They include travelling by tramcar from the town centre to the beach, passing on the way within sight of an amusement park which had what we knew as a scenic railway, now called the roller coaster. This 'switchback' was one of only a handful I ever saw, and until old age began to catch up with me, regretted never having had the opportunity to take a ride on one. As well as being a busy commercial city and fishing port, Aberdeen was then a very popular holiday resort, and during good weather in summer the beach was crowded. There was a long stretch of sand that was ideal for building sandcastles, backed by a promenade decorated with flags and bunting. Booths sold ice cream and buckets and spades etc., and a wide grassy strip behind the prom was ideal for games. This postcard photo (40) shows this scene at that time.

 

Farther north there were dunes of tufted marram grass that was perfect for hiding games. Like other people's childhood memories, mine are of weather which always seemed to be warm and sunny, and this probably contributes to the favourable impression retained of the place. No doubt there were plenty of cold wet and miserable days as well, but they never seem to figure in the recollections of Aberdeen in later years.

 

At the height of the season during Glasgow Fair, crowds of holiday makers drifted back and forth between town and beach, a distance of perhaps a mile or two, and a frequent service of trams operated to transport them. Towards the beach beyond the scenic railway the tramlines curved to the north at the Beach Pavilion Theatre, where popular Scots comedians Harry Gordon and Will Fyffe (41) were regularly in the programme, then ran parallel with the promenade for some distance. Layout of track at this terminus held endless fascination for me because of its seeming complexity. If it is remembered correctly it fanned out into a number of loops, sidings with crossovers to cope with busy summer traffic. There was also something I hadn't seen before, crush barriers to control the queues.

During times spent on the beach with its long row of neatly aligned wheeled changing booths for bathers to change in, as well as paddling in the sea and building sand castles, we watched the fishing boats, of which there seemed to have been a constant procession entering and leaving the nearby harbour. Those departing early sailed out into the North Sea and, depending on atmospheric visibility, could be observed until they disappeared over the horizon.

Others returned later in the day from all directions and entered the harbour to unload their catches. Because of their method of fishing they were known as drifters, and had a very distinctive appearance which denoted their period, small steam engined boats with a wheelhouse and tall thin black funnel at the stern from which clouds of black smoke constantly poured. Just aft of the funnel there was a mast with a sail which might have started life any colour, but its position meant that it soon became black. Seeing photographs and film of them now carries me back with a powerful surge of nostalgia to that period.

 

Another fascinating place we visited was the fish market and harbour. The area was in constant turmoil, with boxes of fish being craned ashore and carried into the quayside shed to be auctioned, and boats having been replenished with empty boxes moved away after being emptied. But the market opened very early in the morning and most of the fish sales were over by the time we were able to go there. South of the harbour, Girdleness lighthouse where the River Dee flowed out into the sea, was a favourite place for picnics. The River Don was about a half-mile away to the north, where there were places with interesting names like Hazelhead, Bridge of Don and Torry. There are family group photos taken at Girdleness. Lighthouses were ineffective in foggy weather so in the days before radar they had a fog horn, usually mounted on the roof of a separate building that housed the equipment which produced the compressed air for the giant horn. It was heard on one occasion, and the sound it produced would have wakened the dead. Duthie Park was another favourite place we visited frequently, with its large pond and resident swans and paddle-boats for youngsters to amuse themselves on.

 

An unforgettable feature of Aberdeen was the smell of the gas-works. In the days before the natural North Sea type became available, gas was produced from coal, and although there was a gasometer storage tank at Ibrox there was no gas works in Govan. The nearest production plant to us, Tradeston Gas Works between Kilbirnie Street and St. Andrew’s Road near Eglinton Toll, was quite distant and the strong methane-sulphurous smell produced in the making of the gas had never before been encountered. Aberdeen gas works was situated behind the amusement park, so the smell was very noticeable in the vicinity of the beach if the breeze was coming from a southerly direction. As coal gas is no longer produced that smell is never encountered now, but until North Sea gas arrived it was very noticeable in Eglinton Street, when it drifted over on the prevailing west wind. Eglinton Toll was passed regularly when travelling into town after we moved to Pollok, and each time the smell was encountered there, or anywhere else in later years, it immediately carried me back to Aberdeen and the happy holidays spent there.

COAL MINES

On journeys across Central Scotland and Ayrshire the 1930s, among the interesting sights then visible in the countryside were the bings, artificial hills which were the disposable product of the coalmining industry. There being so many of them in some areas, coal mine winding machinery structures tended to merge into the landscape, but what caught my eye because of their height were the bings. They were once a common sight across much of Fife, central and south west Scotland as conical hills with seemingly precise geometric shapes. I used to look at them and wonder how, amid a landscape of such lumpy irregular outline, they came to have this shape, and what the machinery at the top was for. Apart from their shape, what made them look natural was that in most cases the older ones were covered with vegetation, as if they were part of the original landscape.

 

The possibility they were man made did not occur to me. Most coal deposits in this country are narrow, two to three feet thick is about average, but the mining operation has to cut out working room of five to six feet, which means that as well as the coal, even after back-filling there is still much surplus spoil which has to be taken up to the surface and dumped.

 

A pit is a vertical shaft that has been excavated down to a coal layer or layers, as there is often more than one of them, access to which was by a cable operated lift. The pithead tower built over the shaft was a truncated pylon, with what looked like a pair of giant bicycle wheels mounted side-by-side about ten feet apart on an axle-shaft at the top. A steel cable attached to the lift cabin in the shaft ran over one of the ‘wheels’, then passed down into a shed where the engine which powered it lay. It then went round another wheel in the shed, the driving wheel, at the base of the tower powered by the engine, went back over the other wheel on the pylon then down the shaft where it was attached to a counterweight. This meant that when the lift was in operation the wheels on the pylon counter-rotated, and the lift cabin and the counterweight passed each other at the mid point of the shaft.

 

A mine is a shaft, the angle of which can vary according to the geological requirements, down which a narrow gauge railway ran, usually cable operated on steep slopes, while the much less often encountered horizontal shaft into a hillside is called an adit. The coal company's narrow gauge railway laid down the sloping shaft was most often too dangerous for carrying underground workers, and was normally only used to carry out coal and spoil, so that mining operations often had both types of access. Spoil and coal were brought up separately in tub wagons on the mine railway and dumped on nearby ground set aside for it. As the mound grew, the railway laid on the side of the bing was extended ever upwards having a slope at an angle of around 45 degrees, until in some cases it was two or three hundred feet or more in height.

 

As the mining industry declined, a later age found that these hills of spoil contained material which was useful for the construction industry, in particular for road making. On journeys around the country in the sixties it was noticed that some roads were being resurfaced with a reddish material, referred to as `red blaze'. Later it became apparent the term was red blaes which came from a certain area, Midlothian I think, using material recovered from bings in that region. Over a period of twenty years from the 1960s virtually all of those conical `hills' which intrigued me have gone, with most of the material used in particular during construction of the motorways. When the section of the M8 between Hillington and Renfrew was being built a depot was set up near Hillington, and train loads of spoil from Fife was transported here to be used as a base for the carriageways, and part of which was laid on what had been the main runway of Renfrew Airport.

A RAILWAY EXPERIENCE

An eventful journey by train occurred on an excursion trip to the east coast, an ‘excursion’ being a day return at a special reduced fare to a popular destination. Where that destination was is forgotten, but the return journey began late and due to a number of delays along the way the train fell more and more behind time. We had been due back at Buchanan Street Station around 10 pm, and as it was mid­summer we should have been arriving in back Govan as darkness was falling. The journey was punctuated by long periods stationary at signals, and after a particularly long wait, with much grousing among the passengers, the train started up with a jerk and everyone cheered - which ceased abruptly when it was realised we were moving back. After a short distance we halted again and there was another lengthy wait, during which there were other movements on the main line, heard but invisible in the darkness, during which other trains appeared to be passing to go on ahead of us.

 

What stays most clearly in my memory about this episode was that the other passengers seemed a decent lot, and full of concern about me being kept out late for it was past midnight, obviously well past my bedtime. If the truth could have been told, bedtime went for nothing, for I was in my favourite environment. Eventually we got going again and arrived back at Buchanan Street after 1 am, but having fallen asleep there is no further memory of events that night. Taxis were still outside our scope, so I am curious about what transport? Were night services operated then by the trams, or did the railway company provide after hours transport for delayed passengers?

 

Because of later experience of railways, it is interesting to speculate and try to interpret what happened that night. Something leads me to think the incident happened between Perth and Stirling. The sequence of events seem to indicate that a breakdown had occurred ahead of us, causing traffic to be held at signals along the section, with everything coming to a stand until the controller could sort things out. Our train may have been at Auchterarder where there was a loop and sidings, and it was into one of the latter our train was reversed, as the loop was probably occupied by another delayed train, and the train that passed on ahead may have been a light engine sent to rescue the breakdown. Alternatively, perhaps the reason for the hold-up was at Greenhill or beyond, a points failure perhaps, and the line was cleared by our shunting movement to allow trains turning east at Larbert to go past, the line in the Edinburgh direction being clear.

 

Of many sights and sounds connected with the working of railways which disappeared over the years, well remembered, curious, and one of the most dangerous jobs was that of wheel-tapper. A man dressed in dirty overalls and a cap, there was one at all main line intermediate and terminal passenger stations, walked along the side of the train carrying a torch, a canvas sack and a long shafted hammer with a tiny head. The long shaft was necessary for checking the wheels nearest the platform. His task was then regarded as vital, to check each wheel on all medium and long-distance trains to make sure the treads had not worked loose, and the wheels themselves were securely fixed on their axles. He did this by hitting them with the hammer which caused a clean sharp metallic sound, except on the rare occasion when he found a faulty one giving of a different sound.

ITALIANS

My family liked ice cream and fish suppers and were familiar with the products of all the cafes and chip shops in our part of Govan. Our favourite ice cream was made in a cafe in Golspie Street, which seems to have been operated by two Italian families. Notariana's was midway up the lower half of the street on the east side opposite the Salvation Army hall. The other family connected with the shop was A. Fella (no kidding!). In the 1930s their ice cream was outstanding, to the extent that from Howat Street we would pass other cafes nearby in Govan Road in the vicinity of Golspie Street to buy our favourite. Ice cream cones were called pokey-hats, and wafers were known as sliders, but perhaps the latter was an east coast term used by my grandparents. Ice cream then was invariably vanilla flavoured.

 

Like many such establishments Notariana's was fairly high class and very well run, and they operated a couple of ice cream carts (42). Most such carts then were completely open, simply large push-along barrows with a roof supported by four pillars, and in season vendors on tricycles were still quite common. The big cool-box of the trike was mounted over the axle ahead of the rider with the whole assembly pivoting for steering, which was controlled by a long bar handle fixed to the box in front of the rider. Other simple horse-drawn carts in which the vendor stood were windowless, but Noteriana's appeared to be of the latest design and was then regarded as ultra-modern. The vehicles were totally enclosed with sliding windows at the sides, much like modern ice cream vans, but it was horse drawn. They soon acquired a motor van, the long engine bonnet from the cab forward resembled a Rolls Royce and may have been one, but I am probably wrong about this; it is likely to have been something much more humble such as a van body mounted on a light Albion chassis. It is only now, after nearly eighty years on, I see in the photo that the name of the café was The Lyric.

 

This vehicle had an external decor similar to that of the shop, which was tastefully set out in pale yellow, with narrow vertical black bars from a horizontal line at waist level down. We had a brown pottery jug of about two pints capacity which held up to six scoops, which was always used when buying ice cream by the scoop. Although a bit chipped towards the end of its life, that jug survived use in kitchen and kitchenette in my parent’s houses into the 1980s, and was forever associated in my mind with the delicious product of Noteriana, because even after it had been washed many times over the years the smell of the ice cream seemed to linger in it.

THE FAMILY DOCTOR AND PRE-ANTIBIOTIC TREATMENT

Our family doctor was Dr. Cummings. His consulting and waiting rooms (surgery is a modern term) was a converted dwelling one stair up in the single close in the short tenement in Govan Road between McKechnie Street and Wanlock Street, opposite St Anthony's church. He had a good reputation and was well regarded in Govan, and is recalled as resembling my paternal grandfather in appearance in portraits during his later years. As was normal then, it was a one-man practice. There was no nurse or secretary in attendance nor was there and appointments system. Waiting rooms were usually busy and anyone coming in for a consultation learned to ask who was last in, then watched out for them being called. On finishing a consultation the doctor went to the waiting room door and called out ‘next please?’

 

A faint recollection remains of the waiting room, with its Spartan decor and naked light bulb overhead and rows of plain wooden seats. In those days doctors seemed to have a standard list of questions which were asked sometimes even before you had a chance to say why you were there. They were preoccupied with bowels and temperature. The first question for patients was `Have you had a bowel movement today?' posed as a thermometer was placed in your mouth! These observations are of course personal, in that when I attended Cummings knew well enough my long-term chest problem, and that using the thermometer would be required anyway. But bowels? It was as if he didn’t trust parents to keep track of that function of their offspring.

 

Before retiring from practicing Cummings had a house built in Mosspark Boulevard overlooking the private tramway track near the corner of Bellahouston Drive, but he died within a couple of years of moving there. In connection with the Garden Festival of 1988, a display to mark the 50th anniversary of the Empire Exhibition was set up. Among the exhibits were fine aerial photographs of the exhibition. A photo taken from the west shows two newly completed houses in this location.

 

At the age of around four, the worst illness to affect me was caused by three events which occurred at the same time. Had any one of them been absent I would have avoided most, if not all, of the subsequent chest ailments and thus been fit and well and perhaps still able to work at least to the retiral age of 65. The sequence of events which led up to it was as follows. My mother's parents came from Dundee, and members of their families living there would occasionally come to Glasgow to visit them. Easter was late that year of 1934, falling around the middle of April, and Grandma's younger sister and her husband had come for the holiday weekend, bringing with them a model yacht as a present for me. I was recovering from measles, but remember clearly the day they arrived and being taken to see them at Hutton Drive.

 

Entering the house the first thing to catch my eye was the yacht. Including the jib it was about two feet long and was a wee boy's dream, having a single tall mast with white fore and mainsails. It had been placed in a prominent position in the kitchen sitting upright across the top of an empty white enamelled pail to accommodate the keel. At first Uncle Jim and Aunt Mem joked about it, saying things like `Some lucky boy is going to get that boat as a present, I wonder who he can be,' and `Do you know anybody who would like it?' and so on, until exasperation began to show on my face. After a time they relented and said it was for me. Having watched with envy as others sailed their yachts in Elder Park pond I wanted to try out mine, but was in the recovery stage from measles. The following day was one of bright sunshine but there was a piercing cold east wind. I pestered mum to take me to the pond so much that, against her better judgement she would say in later years, she agreed to do so `Just for a wee while'.

 

Encountered together those three things, the measles, the yacht and the cold weather, were what brought me to within a whisker of losing my life. Had any one of them been missing I might not have had the serious illness. During the days following a cold became bronchitis, then pneumonia. Measles itself isn't a deadly affliction but the recovery stage leaves the body very susceptible to other much more serious diseases, and long-distance hindsight indicated that it would have been prudent for Mother to keep me indoors for at least another week. My Mother said years later what her mother had said about me. ‘Tha’ buoy’ll never live tae scratch a grey heid!’ I’m still here in 2011 and long past the age at which she passed away.

THE POULTICE

Chest illnesses have occasionally afflicted me for most of my life. Although it was probably the best available, the primitive treatment (by today's standards) administered in early years for bronchitis and bronchial pneumonia did not prevent bronchi and lung tissue damage, which left a greater susceptibility to bouts of bronchitis each winter for much of my life. Before antibiotics like penicillin arrived after 1945, the main treatments for chest infections were poulticing, applying a rub of camphorated oil to chest and back, and being dosed with sweet tasting syrup-of-squills soothing cough mixture and ipecacuanha wine. To an adult, poulticing would have been an unpleasant experience, but for a child of my age it was terrifying. Poultices were made up using a particularly glutinous substance similar in consistency to plaster called kaolin, now identified as china clay.

 

The kaolin of about the consistence of soft butter was bought in a tin which was warmed up by standing it in a pan of water on the stove. When it was hot, a piece of lint about 2 feet by 1 foot was laid out and held down by the corners, then kaolin was spread on one half and the other half was folded over to form a sandwich poultice. Two of them were made up, a quickly as possible to preserve the heat, then clapped on chest and back as hot as could be borne, and bound up with crepe bandages wound round and round the upper torso as tight as possible while leaving some slack for breathing. That treatment seems futile now and gives the impression it was done only to induce in the sufferer the impression that some effective cure was being applied, really as a kind of placebo to create confidence in the young or ignorant. In the past an expression used to describe an unpleasant or ignorant person was that he or she ‘was a poultice!’

 

Preparation of the poultice seemed to be carried out quite deliberately in front of the sufferer, the idea probably being that they would surely be grateful for the efforts being made to cure them. But the truth was that it was mental torture followed by physical agony, the judging of temperature of the poultice tending rather on the hot side. My mother said in later years this went on three times a day for about three weeks. Considered now, it was the most severe illness of several to afflict me during those early years that might even have been made worse by poulticing. However, it is realised that these thoughts are being set down in ignorance of whatever curative properties the kaolin did have, and if it hadn't been used I might not be around today.

 

An event remembered quite clearly and among the very earliest of my recollections, is that when recovering from an earlier extended period of being bedridden, truly confined that is, it was found that I could not stand on my legs. Mum proved to be correct when she said, though probably in jest, `You'll need to learn to walk all over again,' because it took a day of continued recovery and effort before I was able to get about without support and holding on to the furniture.

 

Fog used to be a regular feature of our winters, and while weather patterns have been less severe since the 1960s than previously, most of the prime causes of fog, smoke and dust particles present in the atmosphere have been eradicated. We seldom see fog now and never experience smog. It may not be possible today for young people under the age of 40 to visualise what an atmospheric pea-souper was like, but this is what had to be endured occasionally during calm weather each winter. Every house had at least one coal-burning fire, and industry, such as Dixon's Blazes ironworks south of Hutchesontown, Tennant's chemical works at Sighthill where there were the now demolished blocks of multi­-storey flats, and the Beardmore works at Shettleston, were only three of many old-style large industrial complexes continually pouring out smoke and ash from their furnaces into the atmosphere.

 

Other contributors to the pollution that is no longer around today were foundries, railway engines, gas works, electricity generating stations, ships, tar boilers (known as torry bilers) used by road-works gangs, steam road rollers for road mending, and traction engines. And there was much other heavy industry around the city such as shipbuilding which used coal in large quantities to produce power. If it was economical, most of the larger ones produced their own in coal burning boiler houses. The following may be the correct description to apply to an ordinance that saved the lives of a large number of people including my own. Before it became fully recognised as being seriously harmful, smoke pollution in the atmosphere in winter aggravated chest ailments until it was almost eliminated during the following decades.

 

The smog problem wasn’t eradicated completely until after the introduction of the clean air act of 1956. Even then it took twenty-five years or so to become fully effective. I’ve described in my writing in the unpublished ON THE BUSES how the worst conditions were still occasionally encountered in the 1960s. Unfortunately, the great improvement meant the loss of virtually all these labour-intensive industries, and developing industrial countries like China and India have inherited many of the health problems as well as the work.

 

A number of deadly diseases were still encountered at this time that are now rare or non-existent, such as polio, meningitis, scarlet fever, rheumatic fever and pleurisy. Even smallpox epidemics occurred occasionally, brought in from abroad by seamen. The most feared and one of the most common diseases was tuberculosis, then commonly known as consumption, and during the period of illness described above, towards the end of September 1936 with recovery delayed, by late summer it was feared that I had contracted it. Mearnskirk Hospital had been opened in 1928 for people with serious chest conditions, and specialised in the treatment of TB. Although not diagnosed as suffering from it, I was sent there for an extended stay in the hope that if I did have it I could be kept under observation and receive the most up-to-date treatment.

 

An aspect of needing to call on the services of our doctor so often then, how were the fees paid for his consultations and call-outs, no recollection of which now touches my memory. How on earth did my parents manage on Dad’s weekly wage of £2 / 10 shillings, because I think the cost was something like one-and-threepence (12½p) for a surgery consultation, and two shillings & sixpence (25p) for a home visit? They obviously must have been able to cope with the financial drain on their resources. Was it solely out of whatever small savings they had managed to gather, or was my father a member of a trade union organised health insurance scheme? The after-effect of pneumonia, in the 1930s a disease with a high fatality rate, was a lifetime of susceptibility to chest complaints. (My second book IN PEACE AND WAR has an account of the five months stay at Mearnskirk Hospital.)