St Mungo's Medals - Short Film Clip of Gorbals 1950's and Outskirts of Glasgow

Credits. Photos of various Saltire and Festival of Britain award plaques (.33); Aerials of Glasgow, including Princes and Queen's Dock (1.10); Glasgow University, Kelvingrove Museum, River Kelvin and shipyards. Docks. Woodlands area of Glasgow, Park Circus and smart tenements (2.40); Poorer tenements on the south side of the city. Back courts, rubbish in streets, children playing, etc. (4.00); Family at tea in single room flat in the Gorbals (parents, daughter and son-in-law, two children and the lodger). Farewell meal before the family move out of the close after fifty years (6.20); Demolition of tenements (6.50); Corporation Housing Committee in session (7.33); Interwar housing in Mosspark and Knightswood (8.40); The Gorbals parents move into old people's cottage homes (award winning Festival of Britain development) (9.30); The Gorbals lodger in her new flat (10.34); The young Gorbals parents and family in their new home in Mossheights multi storey (11.41); Construction of the new town in East Kilbride (12.12); Aerial views of Glasgow's peripheral estates, probably CASTLEMILK and Easterhouse (12.54); Construction of homes in peripheral estate (13.00); New school (13.22); Crookston Castle (13.50); [1961] Queen Elizabeth visiting old tenement flat in the Gorbals. She watches demolition of vacated tenememnts. Shot of new flats, possibly at Fyvie Avenue (Festival of Britain award site). General views of new housing all around the city (16.42); Multi storeys at Royston (16.50); Aerial views (17.05); [1961] Queen Elizabeth unveils foundation stone (probably Basil Spence's Queen Elizabeth Square, Hutchesontown) (17.37); General views as two children walk home through old tenement areas to their new flat after watching the Queen (18.18); Shots of award plaques (18.30); ecs (19.25) ssa.nls.uk/film.cfm?fid=2102&s...

[@mandymj]

My Dad went to St Mungos. I was a baby in Springburn, a child in Easterhouse, a teenager in Cumbernauld. There’s something about Scotland that never leaves you 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿💜

[@someoneelse.2252]

could that 'something', be self absorption ?.

[@carolannemckenzie3849]

No. Pride.

[@angiepanjie]

My dad went to St. Mungos too. I was in Denistoun until 4, then Easterhouse until 7 when we moved to Condorrat. My gran lived in Springburn. Wonder if our paths ever crossed…at the swing park or something😁

[@awilson5398]

56 seconds in you can see the tenement I lived in, on Govan road at the Graving Docks, sadly unnecessarily demolished in 68 - Not all tenements or schemes were as run down or deprived as the Gorbals

[@scottydog1407]

All those majestic tenements, replaced with bleak prison blocks. What. Were. They. Thinking.

[@belladonnanightshade2332]

you wont get much better built houses than those sandstone tenements

[@tedoneilclark4710]

I was brought up in one, unfortunately they were all crumbling with age and had to be demolished. Most of them anyway.

[@sebastianohalloran9093]

They wanted to provide fresh air and space with limited resources. Hindsight is wonderful. The tenements that survive in West Glasgow show what the many that were pulled down in the East could be; with upgraded courts, rooms combined to create larger apartments, plus internal plumbing.

[@scottydog1407]

@sebastianohalloran9093 if you haven't already check out the destruction of Charing Cross to make way for the M8. Absolutely criminal.

[@micahbodha6129]

Its an effort to break up community spirit

[@LI3TOM3]

Fantastic seen so many places i used to live ,

[@barbara1904]

7.11 is were you'll find the villains responsible for the Glasgow clearances. What a partonising narator.

[@tmac3771]

Love the old footage of tenements ❤️

[@tedoneilclark4710]

I've watched this so many times. So very nostalgic 😀

[@weesue]

It is indeed Ted... 😃

[@stevo53]

Mum was born in 1929 in the tenement at 13 Crown St, (which appears centre of screen at 16:54) ,and lived there till leaving for Australia in 1950. I've stood at that spot, when I took her back in 2007, but this is the first glimpse I've had of her much talked about and much loved home, which is now just a small grassed park. Her old school in Adelphi Tce / Florence St, is still there, but I'm hoping to find some old pictures of this end of Crown St. And of the Swiss Cafe in London Rd, where she worked as a teenager, which is still there, next to the Tolbooth Bar, as the Val Doro Restaurant, still serving fish and chips, which we just had to have for a nostalgic bit of fun, sitting at the same Swiss Cafe furniture from all those years ago. Black Pudding Supper, well that's something different for this Aussie. Yum!

[@weesue]

+stevo53 Hi you might like the Facebook page called "Old Gorbals Pictures" and some folks may help you remember old memories of your mum's...

[@jameswilson3991]

i was born in gilmour street and my mas house was spotless we were happy there linda wilson

[@bluecanary1note]

The Council built new slums for old. Great schemes of claustrophobic concrete tenements which became run down and grotty, where the streets were canyons of fear. I know. I lived in such a scheme for years.

[@maria14025]

People did not have much then,but we were happy,yes sad times too,but we made it.

[@garryallison5679]

Move firward 5 years; the past was better for many a reason.

[@SnowPink90]

But it was no way to treat people. When the city planners put people into those decrepit buildings, right away they should have started building places in a new area. They waited way too long and you poor people suffered. Dad grew up there and he was born in 1930 Glasgow.

[@glesgapal]

@@SnowPink90 kzbin.info/www/bejne/bX7Tpaajg6dkpZo

[@stuartleggat7176]

Absolutely fascinating footage of a bygone Glasgow...

[@johnmatrix1232]

In this period some of the worst architectural vandalism was carried out in many areas in Glasgow in the name of progress. Those council planners should've been arrested for some of the desecration they carried out.

[@weesue]

Agreed John... :( So sad...

[@barbara1904]

John Matrix Couldn't have said it better. I was shocked to see some of the buildings that were demolished. Granted some of the very delapidated buildings needed demolished. But Glasgow was like a mini London. Like Gorbals cross. All it needed was cleaned up and renovated.

[@sambokkjohnston1742]

weesue ? 🎉

[@rizwansaqib2065]

I was thinking the exact same! An absolute tragedy to the citizens of the Gorbals

[@johnlowdon5809]

It happened Nation wide .

[@Sheridan900]

No question that a certain character was lost when so many of the old tennaments were demolished and replaced by modern tower blocks but it has to be said, living in them is not particularly easy. As someone who has lived in multiple old tennament buildings they are tremendously difficult to heat, with single glazed windows and high ceilings, have tiny kitchens and bathrooms, often without windows because they were retrofitted, and can have major issues with old lead pipes and bugs from the crumbling sandstone. Remember the past always looks better when it's not your everyday reality.

[@ianjones6202]

The heat from the fire went up to the ceiling so yer maw had to be careful not to get 'corn mutton legs' sitting too close to the fire. You had to make sure the newspaper didn't catch fire when you were getting the fire going and keep the toast from getting burnt black holding it too long in front of the fire.

[@SnowPink90]

@@ianjones6202 My dad was born there in 1930 and he never talked to us kids about it. I found out by talking to my dads cousin who was younger by 5-6yrs and he told me all about it. It’d be so cold in the winter and the window had no glass. They had to put a piece of wood in it. Awful way to live. I feel so bad that you proud Scottish people had to live like that. 😔

[@glesgapal]

@@SpookyElectric319 ye mean 'corn mutton legs'.. 😂

[@geraldinehamilton2818]

@@SnowPink90 My dad was also born there in 1930. His name was Henry (Harry) Mc Cudden x. He hated the cold all the rest of his life! He left to do his National Service in South Africa in 1948. He was also in the Merchant Navy on the boats going to South America. He loved hot countries. No wonder.....😊

[@SnowPink90]

@@geraldinehamilton2818 Wouldn’t that be something if they knew each other?!!

[@peterbonnar3088]

Dad grew up in the gorbals and I think it was mostly Catholic. He worked on the Clyde and I remember him saying he helped paint the Queen Elizabeth ship

[@weesue]

There were very many sad times, Williamina, but the folks then didn't have much therefore didn't miss what they didn't have, and I know you don't hear the worst of it on here... I remember my childhood being happy, and we certainly didn't have much, but we were poor but maybe more fortunate that some... Sad times too... :(

[@michaelharrison3602]

I grew up in a similar tenement in South London two rooms for me two brothers mumm and dad outside toilet gas mantles for light never knew running hot water until i was thirteen

[@leitfie3579]

Excellent old footage, with an over-optimistic and patronising commentary, and the hoped-for shangri-la never materialised, though it is true that the standard of living in Glasgow now is vastly higher than it was then, when the country was strapped for cash and impoverished by war. What, I wonder, did the young queen really think, living in a palace and travelling in her huge limousine, about the people and houses of the Gorbals, where, according to the voice-over, three generations could live in a one-room dwelling? A country which allowed such inequality had no reason to feel satisfied with itself ........ and though we are far better off now, we have the foodbanks, the homelessness and the child poverty. It certainly makes you think.

[@COLEEN322]

What do you expect from Royalty? During the Irish Famine of the 1840's, good old Queen Victoria gave a whopping £5 to the Famine Relief Fund. A million died and over one and a half million emigrated, and she gave a fucking fiver!

[@minty448]

Lord Nelson think yourself lucky!

[@SnowPink90]

@@COLEEN322 like any world leader, the Queen was more interested in her Offshore Accounts getting higher and higher and making sure they had enough young men to suit up and go to war at a moments notice. They go to events to pull some little curtain that’s covering the plaque on the wall, wave and off they go to their rich household and eats a 5 star meal. They and the wealthy don’t care. They put blinders on where there are homeless people. The Bible is right when it says, The whole world is lying in the power of the wicked one.

[@sputumtube]

To think.....the Easterhouse estate was once thought of as desirable. Just Google the images of it to see it now.

[@buskerharmony]

+paul greenwood Hi the good people of Easterhouse were never allowed a referendum on prohibition, nor allowed a peoples public hall, something the Glasgow city people always had. Everything it seamed had to be under the control of the councils private direct works department staff. Frankie Vaunghan, I understand received no support and is not even noted anywhere. regards busker

[@ianjones6202]

Ye can take the folk oot a Glesca but....ye canny take Glesca oot a the folks..

[@nothingisreal8618]

@@ianjones6202 Aye yer right there jimmy!

[@SnowPink90]

Did each apartment have its own bathroom and kitchen and had at least 2 bedrooms?

[@angiepanjie]

We got moved from our room and kitchen in Denistoun to Easterhouse when my mum was pregnant with her 3rd, my brother. Then they pulled the whole street we lived in down..Mackintosh street. Lived 4 years in Easterhouse. My mum hated it though. Born and bred in tenements.

[@janicepitt2347]

This film makes me feel very angry being-rehoused in Castlemilk, it wasn’t as great as the film led us to believe.

[@ianjones6202]

Gets ye right here...I lived in a similar tenement in Dalmarnock Rd. Bridgeton til I was 8 (1954). At 18:42 you see the back showing 6 toilets for 16 apartments and each apartment had around 6 people, so that's 96 people sharing 6 toilets and I mean toilets...no sink, shower or bath -that was the kitchen sink... that life spawned us tough resourceful Glaswegians, yet full of laffs. Then moved to Toryglen (Glasgow new suburb) until 15 (1960) and then to Toronto til now (2019). 'Wha's like us'...

[@weesue]

Thanks for your wee story there Ian... Yes I remember many a day like that too... But still living in Glasgow... :)

[@ianjones6202]

So, uh..what part do still live in Sue? I started a property Development company in 1980 so as a Scot, still carrying the banner in the 'New World'. www.bgigroup.ca ( The Bridgeton Group Inc.). PS - it's 3:13 that shows the back not 18:42...my boo boo...

[@weesue]

Hi Ian, I live in the New Gorbals, which is a beautiful place to live now... if you've seen recent pictures, very sought after houses and flats/apartments... My gran was born in Bridgeton... Not a far walk from here, very pleasant walking through the Glasgow Green... I'm a bit of a late night person too... Lol...

[@jameshandlin4310]

I lived in Brigton. My grannie stayed on Carstairs Street at Webster Street. Left Scotland in 69. Live in U.S. Great memories of family,

[@glesgapal]

@@jameshandlin4310 Hey Jimmy, have you got a relative in Toronto? Andy Handlin and his wife 'Magrit..'

[@rizwansaqib2065]

I was a Pollokshields baby and when I view what’s happening up the road I just see The Gorbals and Laurieston in such a state. What a mess the regeneration is doing; There’s nothing unique about the area and it looks to have lost the majority of its community which is a shame. The new housing should have been offered to those that were placed in other areas/towns. The clearance was a grave mistake by yet again this useless council then known as Glasgow corporation... and those responsible should been put on trial for what they done

[@SnowPink90]

My dad was born there(Gorbals) and at 15 went to work on the ships as cooks helper and in the 1950’s his family (Dad, mom, brother and sister) moved to Montreal and made a great life for themselves. All owned their own houses which must’ve been like a castle to them. My dad and mom bought their first house just after I was born and it was brand new. Mom said dad was so proud of the life he gave us.

[@michaelmcclafferty3346]

It’s a shame that they didn’t ask the people what they wanted. The Corpy demolished our home in Kinning Park to get the Kingston bridge built and moved us to Pollok. This place was huge but had virtually no facilities . A lot of tenements could have been saved but hey ho, they built human filing cabinets instead and called them skyscrapers.

[@robertdoyle687]

I'm a Townhead boy and it was DESTROYED by the Corporation - good houses demolished without a thought 🤬

[@ascott1953]

Hi, are you the same Robert that went to the Mungo, Kennedy Street - I remeber you were a great swimmer - we were mates for a while

[@robertdoyle687]

@@ascott1953 Yes and my swimming days are behind me.

[@ascott1953]

@@robertdoyle687 You lived next to Allen Glens school if I remember. We sat together in the Barony up the back of the class - I remember Abdul the French teacher. Are you still living in Glasgow

[@robertdoyle687]

​@@ascott1953 Dont know how but I ended up in Troon: no money and I dont play golf 😂

[@bettyprice6316]

Not all regeneration is for the better, it's not only buildings are destroyed, some of those buildings looked lovely.

[@seamusmccaffrey4420]

They did the same in belfast

[@WedgePee]

My grandfather lived here. I’m so glad these pathetic excuses for houses were razed to the ground and replaced with roomier, more hygienic living spaces. I watched a 1969 documentary on St Ann’s, Nottingham (site of a 1958 race riot) and I was shocked. Nearly 100 years since Charles Dickens died, and not that much had changed. People always told me that the 1960s were the decade when England swung. Apparently, they lied to me.

[@brianlenehan9055]

Twerp sure loves his exagerated condescending english accent, chewing on his words like like a self satisfied stranger. Spoiled it for me

[@weesue]

I guess it's a 'Pathe News' type of 'Queen's English'... That's what they did then!

[@williamdrummond7687]

did those two kids walk all the way from the gorbals to drumchaple, set up.

[@charliemctruth]

god bless us wananall

[@jamessinclair1826]

What have they done ? What have they done ?

[@jamescharles9615]

what planet is this joker on, jeezo

[@weesue]

A sign of the times James...

[@astra47420]

I lived in langside in 1970 to1981 brullint times

[@Ceorolus]

The results give the term escapee a new meaning. Vandalism and cultural manipulation are unwittingly well documented throughout this video.

[@thomasgillen5344]

i love my dear green city Tommy bhoy

[@thomasgillen5344]

nice one wee sue

[@g.macgregor5416]

Having been born and lived on Oxford st and attended St. john’s School i knew this area well, and it was awful. It’s notoriety was world wide even Monty piety did skits of it in the 70-80s.

[@g.macgregor5416]

Hooray let’s get out of the slums and build new slums. This philosophy is simply known as kicking the can down the road. Added insult the reading is by Percy Caruthers Dinghy StJohn Esq.

[@rabmcnamara5777]

😊 great commennt

[@dblenehan]

I moved from bridgton slums to the biggest housing scheme in europe called castlemilk. It was hellish. No shops, schools, theatres, churches, pubs, play grounds jobs or anything a community needed. My mum walked about a kilometer from the closest bus stop with groceries for a family of five, uphill. Lots of gangs though with burmed out cars in the street. Hundreds of acres of identical three story apartment style buidings. I was much happier in the slums. We escaped to canada in 1957,but dad came a year earlier on his own with the maximum of £50 he was able to take out of the counrty and his tradesman's electrical tools. Dad bought a new house after a year of being here and the family moved in after a few months of being here. Different world This video was english propaganda with a english narrator telling us how brilliant and caring they are for the scots. Some of us know better.

[@rabmcnamara5777]

Funny, propaganda was the word that came to my mind. They effectively destroyed community and scattered the pieces with the promise of a better future. I grew up in easterhouse, no amenities, very little for kids and they created division by grouping people that came from similar places. The result? Gang life. The one thing they had was a swimming pool next to the shopping centre and community centre. Great, some where for the gangs to gather and have a square go. Still, at least we had the propaganda 😊

[@ianofliverpool7701]

"Homes for heroes" sounds great till you see the soulless high rise boxes that they called homes

[@pt14930]

Ain’t that the truth. Was told by the U Of Glasgow research project that those with ‘their own doors’ were not Catholics. They got Castlemilk. It’s hard to believe.

[@edwardoneil3962]

Does anyone know the year that this film was made? Thanks 😀

[@weesue]

1961 Edward...

[@edwardoneil3962]

@@weesue Thanks 😀

[@paulowens7700]

Hi, I am doing a research project on the Gorbals area, to do with the tenements at Mathieson street, Sandyfaulds street and South Wellington street (later named Lawmoor) running North to South in the area and also the tenements of Rutherglen Road, Cumberland Street, Caledonia Road running East to West. I am also looking at the Basil Spence block which replaced them, I would be grateful if anyone has information of these blocks to get in touch with me or reply to this comment. Thanks

[@paulowens7700]

***** Thanks for your help Susan, do you know the name of this publication?

[@weesue]

paul owens Hi Paul I am /aka /Susan C It's more of an old Photographic book called "The Gorbals in the 70's" by Peter Mortimer & Duncan McCallum... You're welcome Paul...

[@pt14930]

You should check out the ‘Multi Stories’ at the U of Glasgow too, where many folk from the Gorbals were moved.

[@texscot50]

They're Pulling Doon the Buildin' Next Tae Oors

[@glesgapal]

kzbin.info/www/bejne/bX7Tpaajg6dkpZo

[@angiepanjie]

Might have been squalid on the outside but guaranteed so clean inside you could probably eat dinner off their kitchen floors😁

[@weesue]

There were very many of those people who took pride in their homes... My mum being one of them... 🥰❤❤

[@angiepanjie]

@@weesue yes, my gran and all her sisters/brothers too. Everything was spick and span🥰

[@glesgapal]

Ya got that right @Angela Krause . And the mithers each took a turn weekly whitewashing the main stair ( and the close.. 🙄).

[@glesgapal]

kzbin.info/www/bejne/bX7Tpaajg6dkpZo

[@christinejackson3922]

Don’t know about that my grandma’s house was filthy and came from there

[@Joe_Peroni]

I lived in the old Gorbals, at 167 Caledonia Road, until the age of 6, when we moved to Pollok. Our old tenement building was demolished soon after. I moved to Australia in the 80s.The narrator of this video made me cringe. A stuck-up, posh-voiced, smug, patronising pommie bastard. Enduring HIM was bad enough until his obscene anachronistic English Royals made an appearance, just to "rub it in".

[@caitgems1]

Where's ma buntin

[@engelberthumperdinck7366]

READ THE REAL GORBALS STORY NEXT BRILLIANT

[@williamf4544]

Its a shame the never bulldozed Allison Street while they were at it - what a rat infested midden it is - you would think you were back in the Gorbals - the run doon part

[@sean367]

They just built new slums that are stil no-go areas today.

[@weesue]

I think you are still living in the past... It's not like that at all...

[@Gerbbo1]

I would’ve so loved to have come face to face with that condescending poor excuse for a narrator. 🤬

[@greenmagoos]

Gorbals Clearances. m.kzbin.info/www/bejne/jKKlqayYq5afprc

[@jackmcnally9237]

What an absolutely awesome, overwhelmingly wilful wanker this English narrator truly is !

[@neilmaclean294]

This guy is awful.