LIFE. Individual journeys around the eastend, sharing LIFE stories as we walk, creating an outdoor “museum” for the people of Shettleston. As Covid-19 changes the way we do LIFE, so Today Museum has changed for safe participation. In this archive, the community share stories from their past. This project is part of Creative Communities Artist-in Residence Programme (Shettleston ward) funded by Glasgow City Council and managed by Glasgow Life.

 "I do remember one night waking up, and my uncle and my dad and my mum were having a cup of tea. I thought 'it's the middle of the night why are you doing this?' It turned out a bomb had fallen in the street parallel to us, and my uncle had come to see if we were alright."

"I had just got a camera and I think I’m 5 because I’m wearing school shoes. Classic dad just putting me in anything to take me out the house. I remember my dad taking this photo, it was one of those classic dad days ‘cmon lets go out with our cameras!’ I remember not wanting to get my school shoes muddy, but at the same time being really buzzing that my dad was taking me out."

"...and Carrie, and my mother - the three girls. So she was left a widow in her early 40s as well with three wee girls. She must have had a right struggle. She always remembered Mr Tate who used to come and deliver the coal. And she would open her door and there would be a bag of shopping. She said we would have been hungry many a time, so he didn't just do it once, he did it regularly, a bag of messages at her door. That's church being what church should be, not, we all love one another but don't do anything for one another, or we don't visit one another or we don't do something like that almost anonymously. It wasn't quite anonymously, she knew fine. We would just open the door sometimes and on the door handle, a bag of messages. We would have been hungry many a time if it wasn't for Mr Tate. He used to go round shouting ‘Tate’s Coal! Tate’s Coal!’ When you think of those closes. Three flights of stairs! He lived until his mid 80s.”

“We had a big slide-a-thon. And I came in and my mum hosed me down at the back door, she wouldn’t let me in the house. I had to stand there - this is like, as a kid, a traumatic experience - I had to stand there with a cold water hose just getting hosed down by my mum because I was so dirty and she was so mad at me. One of my other friends who lived just down there, his mum threw all of his clothes in the bin that same day because we were actually like caked, like filth. I guess it’s that whole kind of thing, these days when you look at football it’s much more kinda sanitised, much more kinda clean. Whereas back then it felt like it was wild football.”

“I’m just trying to get my bearings. So we faced Celtic Park. So my gran’s house, I’ll show you, I’ve got a picture and we watched from the window and we cleaned the cars. This is your London Road and I guess my gran is standing, well to me she’s standing on the London Road.”

“It’s all changed.”

“I suppose it’s a shame they pulled them all down, but then they would have been getting older and then they wanted this here [the Velodrome]. It’s a development isn’t it. […] My grandad’s grandad and all that, they all worked - because I’ve done my family history - and they all worked in the Forge. They were all iron-mongerers and they all worked in there. Because they all came down from Tiree and we all lived in the East End, everybody lived in the East End. I was born there and then we moved to the West End. […] I think it’s quite nostalgic that the house was here.”

Michael - “Interestingly, everyone’s done well from what we came from, and we all talk about that. You know, what our parents gave us stood us in good stead and if you look at all of our families, all of our children, the majority are working decent jobs. Having come from what was very poor.”

Harry - “Even in the 80s they said this was was of the poorest areas in Britain, or it was the poorest area in Britain.”

Drew - “I spoke to my mum a couple years back and we were just chatting about when we were kids, and genuinely - these guys’ll be the same - we wouldn’t swap our upbringing for anything. We’ve got a sense of values growing up, right and wrong - might be guilty of a few wrongs sometimes [Laughs] - but you got a great sense of values. I’ve came across people from much more privileged backgrounds with just no manners and no respect. So I wouldn’t swap my upbringing for anything.”

Michael - “They want, want, want all the time.”

“I used to play there, the buildings are different there. There used to be an ammunitions factory during the war but these ones were different buildings here. The boys used to play in the big pulley, there was a big pulley in one of the buildings and there used to be rocks, we would call it The Rocks. We used to all jump over the rocks in different bits like that. We’ll just go along here, there was tenements up here as well. My youngest brother, God rest him, he has meningitis that left him with a deep voice, he used to pretend to be a security guard and say, "What are you doing here?" and they got a fright at first, then go “Awk it’s just Bobby!” [Laughter] He was a lovely boy so he was. Right so see where that first building was, we faced there to the house there. I’ll show you a photo, my two brothers are sitting at the house, the Camerons and the Rolos and they’re sitting at the stairs with the Cameron boys.”

“I was very comfortable, and the way I used to be always on edge, I just felt dead relaxed. I could just be myself, it was good. Especially, as I say, where I came from. I didn’t realise until when it was all finished what we were actually going to be doing - like in front of 500 people, no I can’t do that! - but I just went on and pushed through the fear and it was excellent. After it people were coming up and saying, “Aww you were really good, you were so funny.” And I’m like, I’m trying to be a serious police. [Laughs] And as I say, they were coming up and they were saying, “You were fantastic as that sheriff.” And usually I don’t take compliments, I’m usually “Oph!” But I didn’t realise how good I was at learning lines. It wasn’t as if it was just two lines, I had a good wee part in it. It was all coming back to me, ‘cause I was like, “What am I good at?” and then I was finding all these certificates from when I was younger and I have done a lot of stuff. I give it a try and if it’s not for us then I can try something else.”

“When I was younger, the day my dad died I said to my ma, don’t worry I’ll play football and buy you a big house. And that’s kinda stuck with me through my life, do you know what I mean. […] I thought that was my get out of this place and it was a lot of false responsibility I had at a young age ‘cause I was the only boy left in the house after my dad died. I took that on, I took that to heart and it affected me quite badly but I didn’t realise that at the time, I just thought that was life. I didn’t know how to cope with that either, do you know what I mean? It was like, I wanted it but I didn’t know how to cope with it. Whereas if you read that you can see that it’s all about me being hot headed [laughs] and the manager was talking as well saying “He has to control it at times.” I just couldn’t control my behaviour and I think I used to use football as a way to vent. I would go to football and let all this steam off and then I would mope. Reading it this morning, I used to laugh at that hot headed bit and stuff like that but when I actually sat down and thought about it this morning, I was quite sad thinking back to that wee boy. I actually think about that quite a lot, I had no guidance, I had no support because I hid it quite well. The manager and stuff like that knew that I was pretty off the rails at times and would try to curb it but didn’t know the extent of it. I didn’t have the ability to be honest, I was terrified of losing my career and just terrified of everything to be honest. I did try, I did really try but I didn’t know but what up with me, I didn’t know how to do it. I used to have to actually talk to myself before I did anything, like “Right don’t swear the day, don’t shout at the referees, don’t be shouting at people.” I was 17 shouting at grown men on a park, they’re like that, “Who’s this wee idiot?” [laughs] Proper shouting at guys on a park and I’m only just 17. I just couldn’t control my mood at times and my actions.”

“When I was just a teenager I got a job in what was Shettleston Creamery, I don’t know if you know where Pettigrew Street is, just along here? So I worked there for a while. I came from just down there along to here to go to work each day, went home for lunch, came back and that was it. I think we finished at half four or something, that was the normal time because we started about eight. And every so many weeks you had to take your turn working on a Sunday because the cows don’t switch off at the weekends, know what I mean? So the milk comes in every day. So that was that.”

Rebecca - “Did a lot of the workers come from down round here?”

Ellen - “Uhuh, but there used to be buses come from Uddingston and that, Chapelhall and that, aye, they used to come as well. There used to be hundreds and hundreds would come out that door at night, they would go in and out and in and the buses were all lined up and then it got less and less because the machines got better. You know, and they needed less people. Most people were there for years and years and years, the ones I worked with, I was there for 25 odd years and the ones I worked with in the Taxi, well I used to work in the Bandit to start off with, and then it went to 54321, do you remember? No? [Laughs] It was the Bandit first, then 54321 and then we went to Taxi. Do you remember Taxi?”

Rebecca - “I do remember!”

“It all started with my dad taking me and my brother to Tollcross Park and that was where it all started. It was great, I loved it. One of the best things my dad ever done, I don’t think he even realised he was doing it. He introduced me and my brother to tennis and golf. I still play a little bit of golf, very badly might I say. [Laughter] And I’m still playing tennis in the west end and I’m still playing in the doubles leagues. So it’s great fun, it’s a great sport, but it’s unfortunate because people think it’s an elitist sport - but it’s not as elitist as golf I don’t think - but we certainly don’t have a pathway into it anymore. Because the pathway years ago was the public parks and I’ve seen so many players who are in all the tennis clubs, have been around the west of Scotland and there are a small number of them, and it is a small number, but they all started in public parks. It’s great, it’s a great thing to get into. You meet so many different people from different walks of life, it’s incredible. You meet people from all walks of life, all around. It’s a bit of a standing joke between me and Susan, if she says “Oh we’re going to see so and so and they live here,” I’ll say “Where’s the nearest tennis club?” Because I know Glasgow by tennis clubs. If you say, "Oh that’s Newlands tennis club, it’s Broomhill, it’s Mount Vernon or that’s Garrowhill,” you know. That’s how I know my geography of Glasgow and the west of Scotland is through tennis clubs.” [Laughs]

Corinne - “I mean I used to ride Willow around the East End. [Laughs] It was a bit mental. We would get into like proper domestics out in round like, because we could ride out to Mount Vernon Park just over there and around Garrowhill and up to Bothwell Castle. We had dogs chase us, fights with people because their horse pooed in their housing estate and stuff like that. They weren’t happy - fair enough! But it’s just kind of mental to think, like people would go down to the McDonalds on London Road on their horse sometimes, just on their horse,and it’s quite mental to think back ‘cause if you think of 14, 15 year olds they’re pretty much children, and we’re just kicking it about the East End in housing estates, finding a bit of grass to gallop on.”

Rebecca - “On your horses!”

Corinne - “Yeah! It was a good community, we used to do like jump nights every couple of weeks and all the local yards up there would come and compete. It was all very working class, you don’t expect that from the horse world. But everyone’s just like dad’s a taxi driver, dad owns an ice cream van, it was all very much like that, we all kind of stoted around in our Addidas joggies with socks pulled up to our knees and so many love triangles, heartbreak and young love at the stables. […] We took the bath tubs and sledged down in the bath tubs, that was really fun, we used to just have so much fun.”

“They built this to take in Shettleston and Tollcross. And because of the distance, it’s quite a distance for a 5 year old to walk, but the Glasgow corporation refused to provide buses so our parents took us out in strike way back in 1962 or something like that. The photograph I sent you is the day they finally agreed to provide buses. And in that photograph I’m the kid right in the middle looking, I didn’t know I was looking at camera, I’m the kid looking at the camera. That was the first day we got the buses because our parent took us out on strike to bring us here and I think to this day they still come by bus.”