West Nile Street... Alfredo's...

Alfredo's, when I knew it.

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

My favourite time to be in a pub is around 3 in the afternoon. At that time, during the week, the pubs are not busy. It’s best to find a pub that’s not empty either – somewhere neither full nor empty. It’s pleasant to sit and watch people come and go while having a drink with a friend. If your time is your own, is ours was, no one is in a rush and you have the whole day ahead of you. The drinking is leisurely and the conversation convivial. Alfredo’s is like that at eight in the morning.

The pub is deceptive from the front. The street-entrance and window looks no bigger than a newsagent’s but, when you walk past the front tables to the bar, the building opens up. That morning, there was about a dozen customers; a group of four who looked like they had been at it all night, a few old men having their first of the day and a couple of hardened drinkers, in for a steadier. We were joined by some students, looking very young, very innocent and with a nervous gleam in their eye as if this was a great adventure for them. They had their ID cards at the ready and they needed them. One of the hardened drinkers was an old acquaintance. He had a leathered and weathered face, lined by scars, lumps and bumps from numerous falls and fights. He was the same age as my friend but looked ten years older... at least. It was the kind of face that I imagine you’d like to photograph if you were a photographer. It spoke eloquently of his life. Strangely enough, there was a handsomeness to it, or rather, it was divinely-ugly, like the wood of gnarly and knotted old trees. It brought to mind the film-director John Huston and the Swiss-French writer Blaise Cendrars, whose faces, which were ugly in their youth, never looked better than when they were old.

John Huston

Blaise Cendrars

I caught up with my friend, talking of where we had been and what we had done. By the time we left it was early afternoon and I was ready for the sleep I’d missed the night before.

Alfredo’s sits at the base of a very typical – and typically non-descript – Victorian red-sandstone building, sturdy but unremarkable. Further down West Nile Street is a building by Alexander Thompson but enough has been said and written about Thompson for me to add anything here. At the corner of West Nile Street and West George Street is a Category B listed building designed by Frank Burnet and his assistant who became his partner, William James Boston. I mentioned Burnet’s work earlier. He designed St. George’s Mansions at Charing Cross. The building on West Nile Street was originally known as the Royal Exchange Assurance Building and was begun and completed in 1911 - 1913. The entrance is on 93 West George Street. The Royal Exchange Assurance Company was founded in 1720 and took its name from the Royal Exchange in London and lasted until 1968 when it merged with the Guardian Assurance Company which was then acquired by Axa of France in 1999. 

The former Royal Exchange Assurance Building at the corner of West Nile Street and West George Street,

Speaking of France, West Nile Street takes its name, like many British streets incorporating the name of the famous river, from the Battle of the Nile fought between the British Royal Navy and Napoleon’s Navy of the French Republic in 1798. The battle was the culmination of a three-month campaign across the Mediterranean. The British fleet was led by Nelson and decisively defeated the French. Napoleon had planned the invasion of Egypt as a first step towards invading India. Nelson trapped the French in a crossfire and only two damaged ships of the line and two frigates escaped from the total French force of 17 ships leaving the Royal Navy as the dominant force in the Mediterranean, a position they then held throughout the war. Bonaparte’s army was trapped in Egypt and other European countries which had vacillated in their support turned against France. Nelson became a national hero and the victory entered popular consciousness with numerous poems, plays, paintings, songs, public memorials (Cleopatra’s Needle in London is one) and the naming of streets commemorating the event. It is true to say, as it has been said, that this victory changed the course of history.

Battle of the Nile; Tomas Whitcombe 1799

And speaking of the Nile, when Nelson defeated Napoleon's Navy the source of the Nile was still unknown and remained unknown for a number of decades. More than a few famous names tried to discover the source – Sir Richard Burton, John Hanning Speke, Florence and Samuel Baker, James Grant, David Livingstone and Henry Morton Stanley. Journeying through unmapped territory, they discovered lake Tanganyika and lake Victoria, navigated the upper Nile and the Congo and suffered flesh-eating ulcers, malaria, attacks by natives and, out of an arguments that developed between Burton and Speke, Speke shot himself.

Sir Richard Burton

And while we’re speaking of that which we’re speaking, let’s speak of navigation. A number of methods of navigation have been employed over the millennia, most famously, of course, navigation by the stars, particularly the north star, fixed, as it appeared to be, in the firmament while the other stars circumnavigated around it. But anyone who has read the chronicles of the old navigators, particularly the Portuguese, will have noticed another form of navigation regularly employed, that of scent. The records of the travels of the great age of discovery are minutely detailed in particular scents noted at particular zones. All areas of the oceans, it seemed, had distinctive perfumes which informed the experienced mariner of where he was in relation to land and distance yet to be travelled. In the animal world there are other forms of navigation such as the bat’s sonar pulse, also known as echolocation, which infallibly informs them of obstacles in their path to be avoided despite the speed of their manoeuvrings. Jacques Cousteau was the first to suggest, in 1953, that porpoises had some sort of sonar ability to judge by their manoeuvrability. Dolphins, killer whales and sperm whales also have a form of sonar navigation. Compared to the sophisticated echolocation of bats and dolphins, oilbirds, a nocturnal fruit-eating bird, and some species of swifts have a crude form of echolocation. There is also evidence that blinded rats – laboratory rats, of course, blinded for the purpose of the experiment, or perhaps just for entertainment - can use echolocation to navigate through mazes. Blind people also use a form of echolocation to determine their environment, most commonly by tapping their canes, but also by snapping their fingers and, in some instances, making a clicking sound with their tongues. In certain individuals who have become particularly adept at this form of navigation, studies have discovered an activation of the primary visual cortex not normally present in sighted individuals. This mechanism of brain change, which is a region remapping phenomenon, is known as neuroplasticity – something Philip K. Dick almost certainly experienced after numerous minor strokes (see the entry on the Burrell and Borge Mogenosn’s chair). Radio navigation was also devised for finding direction to a radio source pulse, and the OMEGA Navigation System, operated by the United States and six partner countries, became the first global radio navigation system for aircraft. Then came radar navigation where the navigator can take distances and angular bearings to charted objects and use these to establish arcs of position and lines of position on a chart. Satellite navigation systems provide positioning with global coverage. A Global Navigational Satellite System allows small electronic receivers to determine their longitude, latitude, and altitude to within a few metres using time signals transmitted along a line of sight by radio from satellites. Receivers on the ground with a fixed position can also be used to calculate the precise time as a reference for scientific experiments. Research on magnetoreception has focused on the directional information that can be extracted from the Earth`s geomagnetic field. The field varies predictably across the surface of the globe, meaning that it also provides a potential source of positional information. This ability to use positional information derived from the Earth's geomagnetic field is known to be important in long distance migrations of a number of birds. The Pied flycatcher is one example of a migratory bird which potentially uses this information to change direction to avoid ecological barriers. Despite numerous efforts at detection and speculation on various navigational methods, a number of animals and birds still manage to find their way accurately over great distances by means unknown.

'Are you sure this is the way?'

'Aye. Ah can smell the chips!'

I bring this up because my friend – the one I had a drink with in Alfredo’s - had a method of navigation which I once thought unique but which I have since discovered is used by a number of people of my acquaintance. He could navigate his way around Glasgow by pubs. He was as infallible as a homing pigeon, and speaking of homing pigeons, there is at present a great deal of debate and argument – as only things of this sort can be argued about – that homing pigeons find their way home through their sense of smell. I’ll leave that to the experts to ponder.

I first discovered my friend’s talent when I was lost one miserable morning. I had been in the Garage the night before – a nightclub on Sauchiehall Street, for the uninitiated. I woke the next morning with no idea where I was. For a moment I thought I was dead. If it wasn’t for the fact that I felt as if a cat had shit in my mouth, I might even have imagined that I was in heaven as there was an ethereal glow about everything. The glow was from the early morning sunlight being filtered through thin white curtains and reflected off white walls. Even the bare floorboards of the room I was in had been painted white. The only thing which wasn’t white was the fingernails on the hand that reached around my waist. The fingernails were long and black. I had no idea who was behind me and for a few minutes I was afraid to look. But, when I finally turned, I got a surprise. The face that squinted back at me was pretty, despite the fact that her hair was tangled and dishevelled from sleep and that she was still wearing make-up that had been smudged in places by the pillow. When I asked her how I’d got there she told me she’d met me outside the Garage. I told her I must have been very drunk. She said I was, but I could still talk coherently and wasn’t falling abut all over the place – it’s a talent I have. I had promised a relative from Germany that I would take them to the Burrell that day so I had to leave. I never did find out the name of the girl with the black nails If she ever reads this, which I doubt, I’d like to thank her for looking after me.

Once outside I had no idea where I was or how to get home, nor could I see a street name. What I did see was a pay-phone at the corner - this was in the mid-90s before I had a mobile. I phoned my friend and he asked me if I could see a pub anywhere. I stepped out of the phone-box and, just discernible in the distance, I could make out a pub. Land ho! I told him its name and he gave me directions to get home.

I have another friend who provided his own map for a relative. I’ve mentioned him already. He was the one who sat with me in the University café telling me of his madness and his suspicions concerning the general public. He handed me a sheet of paper one day.

‘What is it?’ I asked.

‘A map,’ he said.

‘A map of where?’

‘Here.’

He had drawn a map of Glasgow. It bore no resemblance to Glasgow.

‘What do you think?’ he asked.

‘Who’s it for?’ I wondered.

‘My cousin,’ he said. ‘He’s coming to visit. He wanted directions from the station.’

I told him the only person who’d be able to find their way with the map was himself.

He looked confused. ‘Why?’ he wondered.

‘Look at it,’ I said.

The map was mostly blank except for areas of interest to him - where he lived, where he shopped, pubs he knew, a health-centre he attended for his medication, my flat and those of a few other people he visited. The map followed the routes he took, ignoring main roads and major landmarks. He was in the habit of avoiding certain areas because he believed they had a malign influence over him due to some ethereal residue of their previous history, as though the areas, over the centuries, had developed a personality due to events which had taken place there. For instance, Blythswood Square had been a favourite haunt of prostitutes. Whenever he passed by or even near the area he felt his head about to explode with images of a sexual nature – a violent sexual nature. He feared that if he spent too much time in Blythswood Square he might lose his mind completely and, at best, resort to the services of a prostitute. At worst, he worried he might become a modern-day Jack the Ripper. (He also wondered if particular rooms in particular buildings might have the same influence. If you lived in the room of a former pickpocket might you suddenly find your hand wandering on a crowded train or bus?) His map was designed to avoid such eventualities.

‘I think you’d better meet your cousin at the station,’ I told him.

I once had a map of an island, an island of the mind. It had been drawn by the Mercator of madmen. He had been a patient in the same ward at Gartnavel as my friend. The man endlessly drew maps of imaginary islands, detailed to every contour, road, river, and field demarcation. These schizo-maps had a compelling beauty about them as well as a strange fascination. They had every detail that an actual terrain might present. For a man familiar with maps he might even imagine himself walking these islands, tasting the sea-spray on his lips and feeling himself buffeted by the coastal winds. I wonder what happened to the man who drew it? He might very well still be there, still drawing his endless succession of maps of imaginary islands. I wished I had collected more of the maps. It would have been a great delight to have put on an exhibition of them in some gallery.

Native habitat and wildlife... animals an' at, know...

Loch Lomond

            Since 1948, a Field Research Station had been established on the shores of Loch Lomond by the Zoology Department of the University of Glasgow. The loch is the largest body of freshwater in Britain. The fertility of any body of natural water – whether salt or fresh – depends on the interaction of certain factors; the amount of energy gained by the body of water from solar radiation; the physical and chemical characteristics of the water itself, notably its content in solution of certain nutrient salts; and the nature of the substratum on which the body of water lies, and its configuration. All these factors are affected by the topographical setting, not only by the landforms which surround the waters but also by the underwater continuations of these forms. There are certain characteristics of the numerous sea locks and freshwater lochs which surround Glasgow making them the particular environment they are for plants and animals.

Clyde Sea Area

            The body of sea water which has long been known as the Clyde Sea Area is separated from the Atlantic on the west by the long protecting arm of the Kintyre peninsula and on the south by the shallower waters of the submarine plateau which stretches from the Mull of Kintyre to south Ayrshire. The northern landward part of the Clyde Sea Area consists, beside the Clyde estuary itself, of long narrow fiords, cutting deep into a land mass which is largely highland in character. These fiords, the sea lochs, run northwards from the Firth of Clyde and are generally regarded as submerged land valleys, over deepened by ice erosion. As a result of the glacial origin, these sea lochs share certain features. They are usually U-shaped in cross-section, having the greatest depth where the valley is narrowest. There may be several distinct deep basins in each loch separated by bars of shallow water and similar shallow bars occur at the mouths of the lochs. This typical depth restriction of the mouths is of significance in relation to the valleys not submerged to form sea lochs but where the great freshwater lochs of the region have formed - Loch Eck, Loch Lomond and Loch Awe. A rise of sea-level by thirty feet would covert Loch Eck and Loch Lomond to sea lochs. It is estimated that if the ice covering Antarctica were to melt, sea levels would rise by 230 feet. But, if that ever happens, we’ll have a lot more on our minds than losing our lochs. The deep lock basins of Loch Lomond and Loch Eck lie far below present Mean Sea Level. Much of the northern part of Loch Lomond has water depths of over 525 feet and one extensive depression which reaches 620 feet. The tallest of the Red Road flats was 292 feet. The tallest structure in Glasgow, and Scotland, is the Glasgow Tower on the south side of the Clyde at the Science Museum which, including its antenna, is 417 feet. The sea lochs share the same characteristic of a deep basin contained within a shoaling bar making them, in a sense, a natural harbour.

            The greatest part of the basic pasturage in the sea lochs is one species of planktonic diatom – Skeletonema costatum. Like all green plants, to live, grow and multiply, it requires light, water, carbon dioxide and certain mineral salts in solution, such as phosphates, nitrates and silicates. The numbers of diatoms vary greatly through the season. In the sea lochs surrounding Glasgow the greatest numbers occur in late March or early April. The pasturage provided by the planktonic diatoms is primarily grazed by the animals of the plankton of which the most important are only a few millimetres in length. The most important of these is Calanus finmarchicus. These provide the main food for Herring and Mackerel, and for the young of many other fishes, such as the largest true fish in European waters, the Basking Shark, one of only three plankton eating shark species.

            Not only fish which feed directly on the Calanus benefit from the plankton production of the surface waters of the sea, all fish and other animals living on the sea bed are provided with food by the dead or dying planktonic organisms sinking down to them. The factors affecting plankton production in the sea lochs are essentially similar to those of the fresh water locks like Loch Lomond, but the productivity of fresh water lochs vary  enormously due to physical and chemical factors. For instance, the fresh water lochs, because of their shape, receive less sunlight for the plants of the plankton. Also, the depths of the lochs in the deeper areas results in lower temperatures while the water, flowing as it does into Loch Lomond through metamorphic rocks largely covered with peat, has a different chemical nature low in nutrient salts. The fishes which are found in Loch Lomond include Sea and Brown Trout, Pike, Perch, Loach, Roach and Flounder. If you are interested in fish, perhaps the most interesting fish in Lock Lomond is the Powan, sometimes called the Freshwater Herring. The Powan is found elsewhere only in Loch Eck. Incidentally, the Loch Lomond Angling Improvement Association has been in existence since 1860.

The animals found around the Clyde area reflect the topographical divisions into highland and lowland zones. Larger mammals such as Red Deer and Roe Deer are more common in the highland region, although Roe Deer are often seen around Glasgow, even at such a central location as the City Necropolis. Fallow Deer are an introduced species which occur in the Loch Lomond area, as are Japanese Sika Deer which can be found in Kintyre and elsewhere. Herds of feral goats can be found in the Loch Ard-Ben Lomond area and the Brown Hare is common all-around Glasgow. Also found are Otters, Stoat, Weasel and, of course, Fox. The Grey Squirrel has taken over from the Red and the closest area to Glasgow where you might see a Red Squirrel is Loch Katrine. Recordings of Pine Martin are rare but other mammals are common – Hedgehog, Mole, Common Shrew, Pipistrelle, Daubenton’s and Long-eared Bats, House Mouse, Short-tailed Vole, Bank Vole, Water Vole, Long-tailed Field Mouse and… rats, of both types, Rattus rattus and Rattus norvegicus. The bird varieties are too numerous to mention, as are the insects but three species of reptile occur in and around Glasgow – the Adder, the Common Lizard and the Slow-worm. Frogs and toads occur everywhere and all three species of newts occur and snails are abundant.

Head to head....

Biologists have, in recent decades, indulged in heated debated as to whether a new sub-species of nocturnal-hominoid has evolved in Glagow:

Kingdom: Animalia

Class: Mammalia

Order: Primates

Family: Hominidae

Tribe: Hominini

Genus: Hom

Species: Homo Sapiens

Subspecies: Homo Sapiens Nocturnum

After detailed study, this sub-species has been found to sleep generally around six in the morning, awaking sometime around two in the afternoon, only to become fully active at twilight. They have large night-seeing eyes that blink at the harshness of daylight but see far and wide as the sun sets. Their natural habit would appear to be the pub where they frequent regularly with others of their kind and have developed a separate language. It is said they exist mostly on crisps, chips, pizza and kebab. They are generally lethargic but can become violent under stress. Their mating habits are not yet fully understood. I have requested funds for participant observation but none so far has been forthcoming. 

Nocturnal sub-species shocked by daylight and close relative found in United States.

St. Vincent's Street... drunk firemen and Kafka...

                      

           Number 200 St. Vincent’s Street.

This building was formerly known as the North British and Mercantile Insurance Building and was designed, again, by J.J. Burnet. It is an imposing building, more like a fortress than an office which, I am sure, is no coincidence, the insurance company implying that you will be safe in their hands, protected. The windows are small and rectangular, set back from the façade. I have never been in the building but I imagine not much light filters through. The front of the building has two figures above and on either side of the doorway. One – the one above - is called the Seafarer, the other is the Seafarer’s Wife. They were designed and executed by Mortimer, Wilson & Graham. These figures were not added until 1953. Wilson had trained under the sculptor Archibald Dawson and the figures are a portrait of Dawson and his wife Isa. Archibald Dawson had been responsible for the first phase of sculpture on the building which is a figure of St. Andrew, high and central on the façade. The building was completed in 1929 and underwent extensive internal remodelling in 1987. It was Burnet’s last design in Scotland.

            I remember the first time I noticed the building over twenty-five years ago. The sun was low and the building was lit by a side-light that shadowed the windows and made them appear like black holes. With the figures looming down imposingly it looked to me like the sort of insurance office Kafka might have worked in. The North British and Mercantile Insurance Company was founded in Edinburgh in 1809 and was originally founded as a fire insurance company. I wonder if they were the insurers Dr Pritchard, the human crocodile, tried to con after he set fire to his house in Berkeley Street when he murdered Elizabeth McGirn? In the 1860s the company had offices all over the world including Asia and Africa, specifically insuring members if the Civil Service at preferential rates. In 1901 it extended its business to include all marine risk, which explains the seafarer and his wife on the façade. The first major fire in the company’s history occurred in Glasgow on June 4^th 1810, the King’s birthday. A firework, which was part of a display to celebrate the occasion, entered a window of Aitken & Company, a dry goods warehouse on Glassford Street. The fire caused serious damage which wasn’t helped by the fact that many of the firemen had been toasting the King: ‘The fire engines were soon on the spot, but, unfortunately, and to the great disgrace of the Glasgow Police, under whose management they were, they were in such a miserable state of disorder, and the firemen all drunk… that they were of no use, and the fire was literally allowed to burn and thereby occasion a loss of many thousands of pounds, which otherwise could have amounted to only a few hundreds.’ (Report to Directors)

            The building looks severe and cold with its windows like sightless eyes and yet the faces of the figures have an expression of gentleness and sympathy. There is something ecclesiastical about the figures and they are reminiscent of some of those on the ceiling of the Sistine chapel. It’s not surprising to discover that Mortimer, Wilson & Graham were also responsible for church statuary, including a figure at St Simon’s in Partick and statues, carvings and Stations of the Cross for churches by Jack Coia.

Tickets please!.... Right, come oan you, get aff...

Wee Tam McSing

Before the relatively recent wave of new immigrants into Glasgow from the Eastern European nations there was, of course, a large group of immigrants from much further East; from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and from East African Asians who had left at threat of persecution from Idi Amin. The first Indian immigrant to Glasgow is said to be Mr Noor Muhammad Tanda who left Bombay in 1916 at the age of 19, and arrived in Glasgow via Liverpool, living in lodgings at the Broomielaw until he found work in Greenock at a shipyard. Mr Tanda had the wanderlust. After travelling extensively, he spent five years in Australia before returning to Glasgow to settle in the 1930s and setting up business in the Gorbals.

            The Indians immigrants, like the Highlanders, the Irish, the Jews, the Poles, left their homeland, more often than not, due to circumstance rather than through choice. The symptoms are always the same – famine, poverty, disease, persecution. Also, the British government encouraged them to take their labour and organisational skills to other colonies throughout the Empire.

            The British influence in India goes back a long way. In 1600, Queen Elizabeth I granted the East India Company a charter to trade with India. In 1668, when the East India Company rented Bombay ‘for ever’ from Charles II, a decree was passed making people born in Bombay ‘natural subjects’ of Britain. After the ‘The Great Revolt’ of 1857 – what the English refer to as ‘The Indian Mutiny’ – India was ruled from London and India’s population became subjects of the British crown. Many Indians found themselves as soldiers in the British army and as sailors in the British navy. Some of these found their way to Britain and some were seen on the docks of Glasgow as early as 1869.

            The 1914 Imperial Act, designed to utilise the man-power of Empire as soldiery in the First World War, had dictated that ‘everyone born within the allegiance of the crown in any part of the Empire was a British subject’, which meant they were free to live in any part of the Empire, including Britain. In 1937, the first Indian children – boys only, had come to join fathers already settled and entered Buchan Street Primary School in the Gorbals. By the beginning of the Second World War it is estimated that there were 50 members of the Glasgow Indian Community. By the end of the war this number had risen to around 100, most living in the Gorbals, and while most were Muslim some were Hindu and Sikhs. The first Sikh temple in Glasgow had been in existence since 1911. The first Muslim mosque was a billiard hall in Oxford Street hired for Friday prayers but by 1944 the Muslim community had bought the property and converted it – the first mosque in Scotland.

In 1947, a course of action was taken which has often been resorted to and which has always led to long-lasting trouble – partition of India into Pakistan and India. Ireland was partitioned in 1920; the partition of Palestine in 1947, proposed by the UN on the advice of the British mandate, resulted only in a Jewish independent state, while the Arab state was never formed; the partition of the Punjab took place in 1966; the partition of Cyprus in 1974. The partition of Yugoslavia in the 1990 led to the bitter ethnic wars which affected Bosnia, Herzegovina, Croatia and Kosovo. As Hindus and Sikhs migrated from Pakistan to India and millions of Muslims from India to Pakistan there were massive riots, mass murders and enormous loss of life on both sides. Many of the Asians who had lost homes, jobs and businesses were encouraged to come to Britain due to a labour shortage. This was aided by the passing of the British Nationality Act in 1948 which granted United Kingdom citizenship to people of Britain’s colonies and former colonies. Most of the jobs they took were jobs the native population did not want and which had remained vacant. Most of the jobs in Glasgow were with Glasgow Corporation Transport which was said to be desperately short of staff. The wages were relatively good for the time but due to the shift-work involved they were unpopular, especially as there was no shortage of other work in the city.

By 1960  the Asian population of Glasgow was around 3,000. As usual, the earliest wave of Asian immigrants moved to the Gorbals. By 1971, a survey estimated there was around 12,000 people of Asian origin in Glasgow. At that time the Gorbals was undergoing the slum clearances and many people, including the Asians, were moving out. The situation took a turn for the worse in the 70s and 80s with the rise in unemployment, especially youth unemployment, meant children of Asian immigrants who had been born and brought up in Glasgow, despite having good qualifications, found they were often passed-over in favour of white youths. In 1981, changes to the British Nationality Act made it difficult for further immigration from India and Pakistan unless family members were already settled in the UK. The 2011 census recorded 22,405 Pakistanis in Glasgow, with the largest Pakistani community being in Pollokshields. A Glasgow University survey found that the majority of Pakistanis in Glasgow support the SNP and Pakistanis feel more Scottish than English residents in Glasgow. In the same 2011 census the number of Hindus in the whole of Scotland was over 16,000, with 8,640 in Glasgow

There is a Hindu Mandir Temple in Glasgow facing Kelvingrove Park at 1 La Belle Place. The building was originally a Renaissance Hall known as the Queen’s Rooms and was designed by Glasgow architect Charles Wilson and has been a Category A listed building since 1966. Prior to becoming the Hindu Mandir Temple it was home to the First Church of Christ Scientist from 1948.

Queen's Rooms - Mandir Temple

Charles Wilson was born in 1810 and articled to the architect David Hamilton in 1827, whom he left in 1837. His later independent and classical work was known for its sophistication, or ‘feminine elegance’ as Thomas Gildard, another Glasgow architect named it (We’ll hear more of Gildard later when we come to the Brittania Music Hall of Argyle Street which he designed.) At the young age of 30, Wilson was commissioned to design the City Lunatic Asylum – Gartnavel Mental Hospital as it became known. As part of the commission he made a study-tour of similar facilities in England and France. It was while visiting one mental asylum in England that he was mistaken for a patient. The doctor assigned to guide him around the labyrinthine corridors had been called away suddenly and Wilson, left to his own devices, had wandered into a section of the hospital which was out of bounds. A guard, having no idea who this visitor was, mistook him for a well-to-do patient and attempted to lead him away. Wilson protested that he was an architect inspecting the facilities before designing a modern asylum in Glasgow. The guard took this as a symptom of delusion and attempted to detain Wilson. Wilson, understandably, cursed the man and became violent. The guard called for help and Wilson was retrained in a strait-jacket until the mistake was discovered two hours later. 

A great many of Wilson’s designs are still standing in Glasgow, especially in the West End surrounding Kelvingrove Park, Woodlands and Broomhill. He is also responsible for the layout of Kelvingrove Park itself, and, what is probably his most visible building, Free Church College, otherwise known as Trinity College which is perched high on the hill of Park Circus with its tower being one of the most visible points of Glasgow. Wilson won the commission for this building by competition in 1856 and the tower was completed in August 1859. The tower is included among the photographer's pictures but not as the main point of interest, it is merely in the background of some of them. I'm not a big fan of Wilson's work, I don't think there is anything special about the tower other than it's height and prominence on the Glasgow sky-line. The Queen's Hall is more distinctive for the bas-relief around its front than for the building itself and the bas-relief was designed by John Mossman. 

Mossman and his family - father William, brothers William and George - were English sculptors who moved to Glasgow. The family had originated in Scotland and a relative, James Mossman, was a supporter of Mary Queen of Scots. He was beheaded after the siege of Edinburgh Castle in 1572. The family firm dominated sculptural work in Glasgow in the mid 19th century. John Mossman's work has already been mentioned in this blog as he designed the statue of Robert Peel in George Square. The family produced a vast number of monuments for the Necropolis and other cemeteries in Glasgow. The were also responsible for the sculpting of the Stewart Memorial Fountain in Kelvingrove Park in 1872, which we have also already seen. The firm of J & G Mossman finally closed its Glasgow office and showroom on the 27th May, 2011.

Red 23... the Locarno, Tiffany's, the casino and Cooper & Co.

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

            Hong Kong had been a British Colony since 1841 following the Opium War, when Britain enforced concessions on China. Selling opium from India to China was a lucrative business and when the Chinese tried to end the trade the British acted like any other drug-dealer whose income is threated and used force – gun-boat diplomacy.

            The 1950s and 60s was a prosperous time for Britain. With more money to spend people began to treat themselves and the number of restaurants increased, including Chinese restaurants which became very popular and were usually staffed by migrants from Hong Kong. The popularity of Chinese food was such that Chinese families with less money to invest came to Britain to open take-away restaurants as these required less capital to operate. The Chinese, as the earliest Jews had done, established their community in Garnethill. By the early 1990s there was around 3000 Chinese in Glasgow. Their numbers increased due to variety of political events in China and also prior to the return of Hong Kong to China in 1997. In recent years the Chinese population of Glasgow has dramatically increased with the influx of students to the city, 1,500 studying at Glasgow University alone and living, mostly, within the west end. The resident Chinese population of Glasgow is now estimated to be around 10,000.

            Let’s talk about gambling. The Chinese have always been famous for a love of gambling. A Chinese man I once met at the horse-racing in South Korea told me there was a Chinese saying: If you don’t gamble, you don’t know how lucky you are. I watched him pass a stack of ten-thousand won notes the size and thickness of a brick to the woman behind the counter who used a machine to count them. As he watched the race he was perfectly placid and by the expression on his face I couldn’t tell if he had won or lost until I asked him. He had lost. He took another brick of notes out of his bag and went back to the counter. The Chinese have a strong and ancient belief in luck, fate, fortune and numerology, and, as a result, winning and losing can be seen as a reflection on the self – a person lucky in gambling is considered to be blessed by the gods. Just as important though, is the fact that in China gambling is seen as a social activity far more than it is in the west where gambling, unless it is around a card table, is a far more solitary and furtive affair as though there were something shameful and secretive about it – like wanking. I’ve been in a lot of bookmakers but very seldom had a conversation with anyone in there. They are there to gamble, not to talk. An Asian-American psychologist, Dr. Timothy Fong, is of the opinion that migrants are more likely to gamble than non-migrants because to move hundreds or thousands of miles from home is in itself one of the biggest gambles a person might make and any person willing to take such risks is more psychologically more predisposed to gambling than the stay-at-homes might be. He admits he can’t prove this and has no statistical backing to support his hunch but is convinced of his theory given the patients he has treated for problem gambling, who are predominantly Asian-American.

In the 1980s, my father had a Chinese friend who owned the Amber restaurant on Byres Rd. One weekend, he no longer owned the restaurant. He had lost it in a game of cards. ‘Don’t worry,’ he told my father. ‘I’ll get it back soon.’ And he did. The head waiter in the restaurant was also a very heavy gambler… and I’ve known a few heavy gamblers. On occasions, he lost not only his money but his car and his home. He would win them back again only to lose them a few weeks later before winning them back again and… the cycle continued. In the early 90s I was in the habit of visiting a casino on Sauchiehall St. Given its proximity to Garnethill, it was popular with the Chinese community and probably still is. If you were to visit the place in the late afternoon or early evening you saw an odd sight. Any Chinese there were predominantly women. After the women left, the men came in. It seemed to be an arrangement they had between them. After the casino I’d often visit the Canton Express, a Chinese restaurant on Sauchiehall Street. Anyone who was a regular at the Canton was accustomed to it changing ownership on a regular basis, and often the staff changed with the owner, as did the quality of the food. A delicious dish you had the week before was entirely different under the new owner and cook. The Canton is now gone, converted into a bookmakers, appropriately enough, but the casino is still there and one of the croupiers told me it is very popular with Chinese students.

A couple of years ago, a Chinese journalist, named Yang Hu, wrote concerning the problems of Chinese students coming to Glasgow. They were, he said, unprepared for the culture-shock of arriving to study in a country thousands of miles from home. Their English lessons in China, while providing them with a qualification, was examination-orientated and did little to prepare them for conversational English. Chinese students, he wrote, not only had difficulty speaking English to other students but could barely follow their lecturers. As a consequence, the students found their studies far more demanding than they had expected and had difficulty socialising, all of which led to feelings of alienation and loneliness. The author quotes a Chinese sociology student: ‘We like to socialise in restaurants, at karaoke, or through late-night snacks, while Westerners mostly socialise in bars.’ Lacking the confidence and experience to visit a bar, and at a loose end, many students start gambling to fill a void in their lives. There is no language barrier in gambling. Casino gambling is illegal in mainland China and, typical of a forbidden fruit, is growing very popular with Chinese students in Britain. One student who lost £20,000 in a night said he just did not know what to do with his spare time. He went to the casino out of curiosity, not even intending to gamble, but after watching his friends he found it ‘wonderful’.

The bug had bitten.

"D'ye want a pickle wi' yer sandwich, Mr Bond?"

The casino on Sauchiehall Street has had a number of names over the years but the building it is located in was once the Charing Cross Electric Theatre, Glasgow's first purpose built cinema, opened in 1910 in what had previously been commercial premises. In 1926 it became the Locarno Ballroom. The Locarno remained a ballroom for many years, popular during the Second World War with American servicemen who were billeted at the nearby Beresford Hotel. In the 1960s it changed name to Tiffany's before being converted to a casino in the 1980s.

The building was constructed in 1898 and designed by Robert Duncan. It is now listed Category B. It is constructed of cast-iron with ashlar dressings and cladding, ashlar being finely worked stone. Duncan was born in 1840 and died in 1928. A number of tenements designed and co-designed by Duncan still stand in Pollokshields at Melville St, Kenmure St, and Albert Rd.


The Charing Cross Electric Theatre was converted to a ballroom in 1926 named the Locarno after a Swiss town in which the European powers had signed a peace treaty the year before, securing everlasting peace in Europe of course. It had a sprung Canadian maple dancefloor, balcony café, revolving stage, showgirls and live bands. Despite its popularity, it was closed between 1929 and 1934. I suspect this was due to the Wall Street crash of 1929 which led to the Great Depression. It was revived in 1934 and during the Second World War became very popular with American servicemen who were billeted in the nearby Beresford hotel. The GI’s, though, were not dancing the foxtrot or the waltzes that had been popular in the 20s. For them it was the Jitterbug and the Jive. An incidental piece of social history that you don’t often hear mentioned concerns why such incredibly fast dance music became popular at the time. The GIs, particularly airmen, were being handed out little white pills to give them energy and keep them alert - it also had the militarily-wonderful side-effect of making them aggressive. It was an early form of amphetamine. Many GIs saved up their rations for a night out and the music and dancing evolved in speed and style to reflect their manic mood. Much of the music of the Jitterbug period was faster in tempo than the dance music of the 80s and 90s ecstasy scene. You can’t beat Government Issue industrial strength speed. Also, the GIs noticed that the little white pills caused them to grind their teeth a lot so they all made sure they had a ready supply of gum, hence the stereotype of the gun-chewing GI.

'Are ye dancing'?'... 'Naw. Am aff ma tits oan speed!'

And you thought your granny had led a quiet life.


In the 60s, the Locarno was looking old and tired and underwent a major refurbishment to become Tiffany’s, a dance hall and a venue for bands such as U2. In the 80s it changed name yet again to the Zanzi-bar disco. That phase lasted a few years and it has been a casino ever since.

Another of his building's is Cooper's corner at the junction of Bank Street and Great Western Road. Cooper & Co. was Scotland's leading grocery shop and founded in 1871 by Thomas Bishop. The building was constructed in 1886 and noted for its French Renaissance façade and clock tower and its beautiful fixtures and fittings. It closed in the 1980s to be converted into a pub.

Not your average grocery shop.

The interior.

Are you a pole-vaulter?... No, I'm German... but how did you know my name was Walter?

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

St. Simon's

The Polish man’s father had come to Scotland at the beginning of the Second World War to serve with the Polish troops, as did many of the Poles who now live in Glasgow. Many of the Poles were Catholic and St Simon’s was their chapel and Father Marian Lekawa their priest. Father Marian was a great help to Father Patrick Tierney, the old Glasgow priest who would otherwise be alone at St Simon’s.

At that time, there was only one Polish mass but three English masses and Father Marian, although his English wasn’t great, would often conduct the evening mass to give Father Tierney a break. I was an alter-boy at the time and Father Marion would go through the readings with me having underlined any word he was uncertain of, asking me what it meant and how it was pronounced. He would rehearse it a few times and then write it phonetically in his missal. Those were different times and when Father Marion invited me and one of the other alter-boys to watch wrestling at the Kelvin Hall nobody would have been suspicious of his motives as they might these days. Father Marion’s intentions were pure. He only wanted to see the wrestling. He was disappointed. The wrestling we saw was of the fairground variety that was popular on TV at the time, with a good guy and a villain to be hissed at and booed by the audience who seemed to be made up mostly of crazy old woman who took it all very seriously. Every now and again Father Marion would shake his head and mutter, ‘This is not wrestling.’ He had expected something like the Greco-Roman variety he was familiar with back home. But he saw how much we were enjoying the show and stayed till the end. On the way home he was at pains to explain to us what real wrestling was.

St. Simon's, the third oldest Catholic church in Glasgow, was founded by Father Daniel Gallagher, a priest famous for having taught David Livingstone Latin which allowed Livingstone to qualify in medicine at Glasgow University. It was built in 1858 and originally called St. Peter's, and renovated in 1956 by architects Gillespie, Kidd and Coia, and again refurbished in 2005-2008 for its 150th anniversary. It is a listed Category B building. St Simon's is a small building and by 1903 it was too small for the ever-growing population of dockers and their families who were mostly Irish Catholic migrants and a new church was built on Highland St. From then on St. Simon's served as an extension known as the Bridge St Chapel until the Second World War when it was used as a church for the Polish serviceman stationed at Yorkhill Barracks. In 1945, with the increase in the city's population it became an official parish church and took the name St. Simon's. In 2004, the parish priest of St. Simon's became also the parish priest of St. Peter's, restoring, once again, the situation which had  existed between 1903 and 1945. The reason for the this was that St Simon's was too small to accommodate the large number of Polish migrants to the city following Poland's entry into the EU the year previously and services were provided for them at the Highland St church, which, of course, had been built originally to serve the increased number of Catholic migrants who were, at that time, Irish. This situation existed until 2011 when St. Anne's in Dennistoun was allocated to the Polish community and St Simon's became independent of St Peter's yet again. St. Simon's still has services in Polish.     

            Scotland’s connection with Poland goes back long before the Second World War. In the 14^th and 15^th centuries Scottish merchants and mercenary soldiers made their way to Poland and, of course, many stayed. In fact, a Scot named Andrew Chalmers was, during this period, appointed the Mayor of Warsaw, the Polish capital, three times. In the 17^th and 18^th centuries a great many Scots emigrated to Poland. At the beginning of the 17^th century 30,000 Scottish families were recorded as living in Poland, and that is families, not individuals. Modestly estimating a family at four to five individuals that would equate to a Scottish population in Poland of between 120,000 to 150,000. The situation changed in the 18^th century when Poland became the scene, as Norman Davies says, of ‘endless wars, risings, invasions, famines and epidemics.’ At the end of the Napoleonic Wars, Polish territory, including Warsaw, was ceded to Russia. In 1830 there was an uprising in the Polish army. It was crushed in 1831 and many involved had to flee for their lives and came to Scotland. The first Scottish-Polish Society was founded in the 1830s. Following another rising against Russia in 1863 which was, again, violently crushed, the name of Poland was abolished. Many in Scotland saw similarities in the plight of the Poles attempting to resist a far larger, stronger and belligerent neighbour with the situation between Scotland and England. In 1914 the country was divided and Poles found themselves fighting for Russia, Germany and Austria. When the Germans invaded Poland from the west in 1939, the Russians invaded from the east as part of the Soviet-Nazi pact. The Polish government-in-exile was set up in London while the Polish First Army Corps was set up in Scotland with 40,000 men. Following the war, when it was clear that Russia intended to occupy Poland, many Poles decided to stay in Scotland. As around 80 per cent were Roman Catholic they inevitably mixed with and married into the Catholic community of Scotland.

            Following Poland’s entry into the EU in 2003 and with the freedom of movement for workers in the EU, a number of Poles again made the move to Scotland. In 2015, it was estimated that 86,000 Polish born individuals were resident in Scotland, and were, in fact, the largest migrant group in Scotland. The Conservative government under Boris Johnson intends to end free movement ‘as soon as possible’ after Britain leaves the EU. Maybe Johnson forgets that his great-grandfather on his mother’s side was Turkish while his other great-grandfather on his mother’s side was a Russian-Jewish immigrant and his father’s family is German and French. But then, Boris only has objections to migrants who aren't as rich as his family were.

A shit in human form.

 Since writing this blog, St Simon's Chapel has been burnt down in an act of arson. A 24 year old has been arrested.