Any books on Tenement buildings?....

[Maud Jarvis]

Thanks StewL for the site mentioned, I will look at it when I finish this posting. I went to Clydebank High school, and also went shopping in Clydebank so remember what it was like quite well, expect it has greatly changed by now though! Sometime before 1948 we moved from Clydebank High to a different school, I don`t recall the name though, I think it was in Janetta Street? it was about a mile walk from where we lived, so not much further than Clydebank High had been, we always had to walk to school, only if the weather was really terribly bad would my mother give us tram fare (if I remember rightly it cost a half-penny each way then during the lunch hour), mostly however, I would use the money to buy something and just walk anyway I never got such a thing as pocket money.

Thank you also Nancy for the offer to send a picture of your husband getting into a "set in bed" my son will probably understand better what I mean when he can see it, he cannot imagine how my brothers and myself, could sit underneath our grannie`s bed during the war when the sirens went. My mother would never go into the brick shelter in the back court (it proved useless anyway, when a bomb fell nearby during the Clydebank blitz, everybody in it was killed because it just collapsed)
We lived on the top flat and my grandparents on the ground floor room & kitchen, so when the sirens went we would go down there to shelter, my mother would stand my grannie`s treasured rosewood polished table up against the window to protect us from any glass blowing in, poor grannie was so upset in case her table surface got damaged, we hardly ever seen the surface of that table, it was always covered with a floorlength cover, ideal for hiding underneath when we wanted to eavesdrop on the adult`s conversation!

Once again, I must thank all you kind people for the help & suggestions you have given my query about the tenements, it has been much appreciated.

Yes Nancy, the part of Essex where I am has nice countryside, sadly some of it being destroyed unfortunately by the building of massive shopping centres, like "Lakeside" for instance,only about a couple of miles from where I live, then the next thing was "Chafford Hundered" a massive housing estate built almost next to the shopping area, so some of the green fields have disappeared for good. If John Prescott gets his way, even more green fields will disappear in the same way !
Still, I suppose we must accept what they call progress but its such a shame when you see beautiful countryside being ruined.

[Maud Jarvis]

I clicked on the site given, The Clydebank Story, and have just finished reading through it, I found it really fascinating reading about the very early days of Dalmuir (where I was born) but as I read through the other parts, I realised that I would be lost now in Clydebank and the areas around, it has all changed .From what I`ve read, to me now it would be a strange place and I would not recognise it.

Perhaps it is just as well that I will probably never see the area again, at least now I can picture it as it was when I lived there, if I were to visit it now, it would be as a strange place I would not have seen before.

Almost the same thing is happening where I live now. This was just a large village when I came here, and now it has drastically changed, but at least it has not happened all at once, it has been a gradual process which seems easier to absorb, and at least there are still many of the familiar landmarks existing so one does not feel lost if having been away for any length of time.

[tishgibbons]

Maud et al,

I've really enjoyed watching this thread. Maud you make everything sound so alive and interesting! I only recently found family members who moved to Glasgow, Kennedy St and Black St and from the numbers at each address in the census, I presume they were large tenement buildings also. So I'm getting real value from this thread. I enjoyed the photographs in the Mitchell Library and I must watch out for that book, though I think Maud your descriptions make it more real for me than any book or photograph!

Tish

[Davie]

Hi Guys
Like Tish, I am enjoying this post.
I don't want to get two of the strap for advertising, but Andrew Stewart has a similar book to Old Dalmuir called
"Old Townhead's a goner" also published by Richard Stenlake.
He has well in access of fifty of these wee books.
On the new shopping malls going up the outskirts of the cities.
We have Estate agents advertising houses in the Braehead area.
The advert runs something like:
Leave the stink of Glasgow inner city and get a house in the country to be near the shops.
A sign of the times indeed
I was also brought up in a tenement in the east end of glasgow.
Although we did have an outside toilet in the close, most of the other houses had inside loos.
No baths jist the cludgie.
So it was a trip every friday to Whitevale Baths for the weekly wahsh.
There were 16 families living up oor close.
You should also get a copy of Tony Roper's "The Steamie" on DVD.
Here is guid wee song.


I was born in Dennistoun, Glasgow EE-WAN, [E1]
I made butter in a boattle, jumped the dykes an’ kicked the can;
At dodgie-ball I ducked, at Whitevale Baths I dived;
There was naeb’dy then to tell ye that your childhood was deprived.

CHORUS: Oh the Glasgow I belong to is the Dear Green Place
It’s the capital o’ Culture, it’s a dampt disgrace;
It’s Kelvinside an’ Calton, pan-loaf, plain breid;
It’s the Tron an’ the Tramway an’ the Sarrie Heid!

For ma yooni education, I went over to the West.
Walkin’ hame frae Union dances is the bit that I mind best;
Two o’cloack in the mornin’ has a magic all its own,
Even in North Woodside Road an’ Dobbie’s Loan

I began ma teachin’ in a northern housing scheme--
The “neighbourhood unit” of the Corporation’s dream.
Their plans were well-intentiont but, to say the least, bizarre:
Forty thoosan’ drinkers an’ no a single bar!

Eh’ve lived on the South Side noo two decades and a hauf;
You can tell the way Eh’m talking that Eh’ve became a toff.
It jist only goes to show you how one lives and learns:
You’d swear Eh’d been born in Clarksting or in Newting Mearns.

Workers’ City, Merchant City, Glasgow on the Clyde!
It’s the Workshop of the Empire, East End, Sooth Side!
Frae Castlemilk tae Possil, frae the Drum tae Provanmill,
I belong to Glasgow and I always will!



Davie

[Maud Jarvis]

Good m orning Davie,
I enjoyed reading your "song" must read it out to my son later, lazyh monkey, he is having a "lie in" this morning, however, we did not go to bed until after 1am, we were enjoying watching a video and had not realised how late it was getting, and as I had had a snooze earlier on (two hours!) I was not tired, he however had a busy day, and then had gone for our shopping to Tesco, did not get home until after 7pm, so by the time he had dinner and then a bath, he felt he was entitled to sit and relax for what was left of the evening, hence our late viewing of the video.

I am looking forward to the arrival of the book on Dalmuir, son has ordered it for me from Amazon, and I have a feeling that there will be some other books being sneakingly ordered and put aside for my Christmas pressies! I`m still trying to find time to get around to reading some of last years books I received , this family research business does eat up a terrible lot of time, I used to wonder how I would fill my time when I retired, but I think I work a lot harder now than I did before! I often feel that there are not enough hours in the day for everything I want to do (wonder how I managed to find the time to go to work previously) still, I suppose its good for us really and helps to keep the brain active, as they say, if you don`t use it you`ll lose it.
I`m sure almost everyone who researches their families, could write books about the secrets etc that become uncovered along the way, as they realise the various things our ancestors got up to!!

It would be great if a time machine could ever become a reality, so that we could travel back and have a peep, I bet it would be far more interesting than any film!
Must get cracking now and get down to some work, there is so much filing to be seen to, otherwise I will end up being buried under a paper mountain.

[Davie]

Hi guys
If you have not seen the "Steamie"
I would highly remmend it.
Another wee insight to life in the West of Scotland in the 50s.
Amazon has copies for under £5
Here is a wee review of a stage performance
http://www.edinburghguide.com/aande/the ... chry.shtml
Davie

[Rachel]

what a good laugh i've had reading all your posts. I used to live in Parliamentary Rd before they did away with the " Toonheid"and can remember jooking ower the dyke to play with or fight with that lot in Black Street and Kennedy st. A great treat during the summer months was to watch my dad play bowls in Black st and go on to the cuddies park or stinkie burn. My three grandchildren went to Colchester girls schoool but two have now moved on to university and one studying for her GCSE's still. Like Maud I wonder what they would think of our single end and the cludgie but bet they never had the laughs that we have had.
Ah weel times change mairs the peety.
rachel.

[Rachel]

PS for Davie. Yes I saw the Steamie a couple of times and it was the best funny play I had seen for a long time. Would love it to be repeated on the TV.
rachel

[Maud Jarvis]

I really must ask my son to get me a copy of the "Steamie" it sounds so interesting.
I have not had that experience, in Dalmuir we did not have Steamies, we had instead a wash house in the back court, we also had our weekly bath in there, one night for the "weans" an old blanket would be hung up at the window, and even on a winters night it would be lovely & warm, what with the steam and heat from the boiler, there could well be several weans at a time having their baths and the mothers would be standing around chatting, in between making sure that all parts (the name of privates, being whispered) were cleaned properly, one night would be for girls only, then another night for the boys and so on.
Then the next job to be done, which I HATED was kneeling on the floor on top of a brown paper sheet, and mother dragging ..painfully.. a metal tooth comb through my hair, to make sure I did not have any of te dreaded NITS !
I had rheumatic fever in 1939, just before the war, and we had been evacuated from Yorkhill Children`s hospital to Drumchapel hosp. then in green fields, shortly after my arrival there, one day when having a bath, the nurse asked if I would like to have my hair cut, it was quite long then, and my mother had tortured me with putting it up in rags so I would have ringlets like Shirley Temple!...it was believed at that time that long hair should be cut short if you had a fever, scarlet or rheumatic etc, and I suppose that nurse thought of this old fashioned idea was doing me a favour in cutting it. Unfortunately she was not much good at haircutting, she just gathered it up in her hands and chopped it off, it must have looked a right mess, and when my mother came to see me the next day, she raised **ll, there was a right row between her & the Sister, and my mother, who was an SRN herself, decided to take me home and nurse me, after all, we were not that far away from the hospital, and she reasoned that if that was considered to be safe from bombs, then it should also be safe where we lived in Dalmuir.
It turned out of course, not to be so safe as was proved during the "Cydebank Blitz"

It is quite true that in those days we did have many laughs, do you remember the back court concerts ? we had many a laugh at those, and the mothers seemed to take it quite seriously, they would hang old blankets or rugs whatever, on the railings, and some of them would even provide a "sticky bun" and a drink of sugarally watter! the wash house was the changing room, and a space in front was the stage, where we would perform, some singing, tap dancing, reciting poetry etc etc, we at least thought we were great, I would love to go back and have a peep at those days.!!

[DavidWW]

Maud

All I can say is "Ouch"

I spent 12 weeks in Ballochmyle Hospital as a 12 year old with mild (luckily in terms of heart damage) rheumatic fever.

Obviously my hair grew to the point where it had to be cut, and the local amateur was called in to "perform".

You know those serrated scissors which are used to give a slightly varying length to the cut hair?, - aye weel his were blunt, so that when the blades came together, they didn't cut, so he just pulled..........

I jest not when I write that it took me something like 20+ years before my eyes didn't start to water when I saw this instrument of torture appearing in the hands of a hairdresser ............

David