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Posted by: GG 20th Apr 2009, 07:56pm

I just found a great collection of photos from the LIFE photo archive hosted by Google. I hadn't seen a lot of them. The best one IMO are taken in the slums – the early and latter pages of the ten pages of Glasgow images.

Here's some of my favourites:

(The descriptive words referring to 'slums' are from the collection, not me!) See all the Glasgow pix here:

GG.

Posted by: Java 20th Apr 2009, 08:06pm

Aw, those are brilliant, thanks for the link. I love the Rainy Day street scene...

Posted by: Melody 20th Apr 2009, 08:19pm

Well that's me away intae dreamland looking at those brilliant photos. Thank you. Your right often what is referred to as slums held the best loved of hard working people. Ah'd rather have those folk than the ones living in the posh houses any day.

Posted by: Melody 20th Apr 2009, 08:26pm

They are absolutely priceless.

Posted by: murn 20th Apr 2009, 08:28pm

I've saw quite a few of them but lots more I haven,t Great stuff. But it really astounded me the first time I saw kids running around with no shoes. I really did not know that until I saw some of the old pictures.

Posted by: Lennox 20th Apr 2009, 08:35pm

Murn , These are Brilliant , I could swear that is me by the middens in the back court

Posted by: Heather 20th Apr 2009, 08:53pm

The photographer seems to be fascinated with alleys and lanes, as there are a lot of those kind of picture's and a lot of duplicates.

There were also a lot of old buildings in wide streets, but the photographer preferred to show Glasgow at it's worse.

Big change's in Glasgow now, but I wonder if any of these old slums still exist in other parts of Glasgow.
I do know that just off Baillieston Main Street, there is a building with the stairs running up the side of the building as shown in some of the picture's of Old Glasgow.

Posted by: murn 20th Apr 2009, 09:26pm

Heather I think a lot of them are taken from the Thomas Annan's 'Old Closes and Streets of Glasgow.

It would be nice if they told you the name of the streets recognized some of the Gorbals and Trongate

Posted by: Heather 20th Apr 2009, 09:42pm

Murn, I did not recognise any of the place's in the picture's.

I didn't know the Gorbals and was only there once when I went to visit an Aunt and I was married by then.

Posted by: Rab 20th Apr 2009, 09:55pm

I have a big lump in my throat! What memories these photos recall.

Posted by: Melody 21st Apr 2009, 06:36am

Ah'm wi' you Rab on this one, I put my hands up to romanticising the old housing and streets right enough, it wasn't much fun I don't expect living in some of them but the wonderful memories of people who lived there at that time, how I loved them. The excitement of those Gorbals streets, the wee shops that had a thousand exciting smells. Ah'm so glad I have those memories. Priceless.

Posted by: Rabbie 21st Apr 2009, 09:29am

Same here, at least there people had the time of day for each other.!

Posted by: Elma 21st Apr 2009, 07:30pm

These photos ae fascinating, like Heather I was only in the Gorbals once and coulldn't believe what I saw. Did people really live in these conditions like in the pictures? It must have been a really hard life. I know - I lived a very sheltered life both in the Borders and then in Glasgow.

Posted by: Paul Kelly 21st Apr 2009, 10:17pm

The photographs are fantastic. Unmistakably old Glasgow. The slum photographs on the early pages certainly look like the photographs of Thomas Annan of the wynds and closes around High Street, Trongate, Saltmarket, Bridgegate, Gallowgate and Gorbals Main Street from 1868.

I particularly enjoyed the photographs of the Gorbals taken by Mark Kauffman in 1948 on pages 9 and 10 which include the photos of the Labour Party candidate Alice Cullen campaigning in the Glasgow Gorbals Parliamentary Constituency during the famous by-election of 1948.

Posted by: glasgow lass 21st Apr 2009, 10:31pm

As much as I love these photies I hate them at the same time, its horrible to think that people lived in such dire straights

Posted by: Rabbie 21st Apr 2009, 10:52pm

Yes, looking back it was appalling conditions, but we somehow managed and had a great time doing so.

My fave out that collection is the one with the wee girl holding the babi with the dirty face, there is just something so haunting about both of them, I cant put my finger on what. Its like someone walking over yer grave.

This the next fave

I bet a few of us can see ourselves as wee boys and lassies in that one! Puddle splashing in oor wellies!

Thank you for pointing us to the collection. It's a wonderful collection that I had not seen many of the images before.

I am sure it will bring joy and many happy memories to many.

Posted by: murn 21st Apr 2009, 11:01pm

although some of these show some bad living conditions I am sure there were many more spotlessly clean little homes within those so called slums. The media has not changed much they tend to show the bad and ignore the good.
Many a child came home with a dirty face but went to bed clean and loved.

Posted by: glasgow lass 22nd Apr 2009, 12:17am

A remember these nights well murn when my mother would scrub us clean and put nice pj's on us, give us toasted cheese read us a lovely story and sitting at the big fire drying my hair. oh a feel like greetin noo.

Posted by: angel 22nd Apr 2009, 12:32am

I remember many years ago I was at home by myself one morning ,
when the Green Lady knocked on the door, in she came doing her usual rounds and after a few questions she said ....! my goodness your mother
keeps a little palace here!,,, I still smile when I remember that, as it was a single end...

Posted by: Rabbie 22nd Apr 2009, 02:17am

Stoap it, ye wil have us all bawling!

Posted by: Rabbie 22nd Apr 2009, 02:20am

Key words, too many kids lack the love element these days.

Posted by: Melody 22nd Apr 2009, 06:46am

Absolutely Rabbie, there are many types of poverty. Indeed it was horrendous that people had to live in such conditiions. It is also true to say that many were absolutely spotlessly clean inside though.Many very wonderful families came out of that type of housing and lived very successful and admirable lives. Yes there's a worse kind of poverty around these days sadly. Most of the folk who lived in these conditions were in full time employment, hard labour too. That is what should keep the fight in us all.

Posted by: TeeHeeHee 22nd Apr 2009, 02:28pm

As a kid I used to visit, with my mum, people she knew in the Gorbals, Brig'ton and the salt market. We were poor by any standards but they "seemed" poorer... Although as kids, I mean us and those we visited, we didn't seem to notice the poverty.
Getting us kids dressed up to visit friends in Glasgow was a joke.
" Aye, ok, go oot an' play...Bit Don't Get Durty Ah'm Telling Yees,"

Posted by: witshisname 22nd Apr 2009, 07:14pm

Thanks for that great Link Martin,I enjoyed seeing the Old Glasgow pics.
Luckily I have some family pics from back in those days,and perhaps from some of those old neighbourhoods.

Posted by: Wormy 24th Apr 2009, 12:39am

Fairly brings a lump to the throat, the link it just great I could spend hours looking at them all,
As weans then we never knew how bad off things were our mothers made sure of that. I don't ever remember any visitor coming to see my mother and be kept standing at the door, our hoose was always open and clean and anyone and everyone was offered a cup of tea.

Posted by: possilboy 25th Apr 2009, 12:00am

a close off the saltmarket 1868

Posted by: possilboy 25th Apr 2009, 12:02am

staircase nicholson st gorbals 1950

Posted by: possilboy 25th Apr 2009, 12:08am

bellahouston park

Posted by: murn 27th Apr 2009, 05:54pm

I think I put this on before but it is one of my favorites so here it is again

yee jist gotta luv the Dad

Posted by: witshisname 27th Apr 2009, 07:02pm

went through the photie album, and found this one of a boy & his mum in the Gorbals around 1936-'37.I think he was a friend of my Dad.

Posted by: glasgow lass 27th Apr 2009, 11:20pm

thats cute wits, a wonder what he's got up his jumper

Posted by: Rabbie 28th Apr 2009, 08:03pm

Jings!

He reminds me of Ron Mael, he is the plank spanker <keyboards> from Sparks, the wan that looks a cross between Hilter and Charlie Chaplin.

Posted by: possilboy 29th May 2009, 03:29am

this was taken in garscube rd i think mid fifties

Posted by: dizzybint 5th May 2019, 12:58pm

I agree with you.. but some wax lyrical..

Posted by: Scots Kiwi Lass 2nd Jun 2019, 11:23am

Most of us are guilty of looking back with rose-tinted glasses....... but at the same time, I only remember the happy times in our tenement. Three generations sharing a room and kitchen, one cold water tap and a toilet on the landing shared with two other families.

While I am sure it was hard at times for our parents, my sisters and I always had a wee holiday each year (usually in Arran) and we were warmly dressed and as well fed as possible in the circumstances. We also had many happy Christmas days too and lots of interaction with wider family, aunties, grannies, cousins, etc.

The only sorrow I have is that our mother passed away in 1953, aged 42, leaving our Dad and 3 daughters. I am sure she would have loved the new 2-bedroom flat we got about 2 years later in Cadder.

Life was hard then in comparison to today's standards but are people any happier now?

Posted by: Weeman 20th Jul 2019, 01:42am

I've got agree SKL, it's all relative isn't it? Youngsters these days have probably a much harder time than we had in the 40's/50's/60's simply because live was far more basic back then - not to mention much more fun.