People make Glasgow

‘People Make Glasgow’. 

That’s the offi­cial slo­gan of the Glas­gow City Council’s tour­ism pro­mo­tion campaign. 

And it’s true.

While Glas­gow has the Vic­tori­an archi­tec­ture befit­ting the former ‘second city of the empire’, it doesn’t have the majest­ic visu­al beauty of Edin­burgh. (Damn that castle.) But what Glas­gow lacks in dra­mat­ic city­scapes, it more than makes up for with attitude. 

It’s true. People do make Glasgow.

The inside track

Glas­gow nat­ive Ken Scott lived in Thai­l­and for 28 years work­ing in travel journ­al­ism, and then with the Pacific Asia Travel Asso­ci­ation. In 2006, he set up Scot­tAs­ia Com­mu­nic­a­tions to serve tour­ism and hos­pit­al­ity cli­ents from offices in Bangkok and Glas­gow. Ken helped set up the World­wide Travel Alli­ance.

The former indus­tri­al power house of the Brit­ish empire made ships and steam engines for the world, powered by abund­ant loc­al coal and water, and labour from Ire­land and the High­lands. Hard indus­tri­al­isa­tion, poverty, and cramped hous­ing gave birth to rad­ic­al­ism, which runs deep in Glasgow.

Polit­ics, industry, archi­tec­ture, cre­ativ­ity, sec­tari­an­ism, poverty, alco­hol, immig­ra­tion, music, and foot­ball define Glas­gow to this day. Des­pite the bruises and grit — or because of it — it’s the friend­li­est, most ver­nacu­lar city in the UK.

I still get a buzz get­ting off the train at Cent­ral Sta­tion; a beau­ti­ful hive of energy where any­thing might hap­pen. In the 1930s-50s tens of thou­sands of Glaswe­gi­ans would amass in the atri­um of the sta­tion to get a glimpse of Hol­ly­wood movie stars such as Laurel and Hardy, or Danny Kaye wav­ing from the bal­cony of the Cent­ral Hotel.

Walk out of Cent­ral Sta­tion and you that real­ise down­town Glas­gow is, des­pite lapses here and there, a Vic­tori­an-Geor­gi­an splend­our. Although the city has been eco­nom­ic­ally hol­lowed since the 1960s, and bru­tal­ised in places by mis­taken town plan­ning, it still has plenty to be proud of. There’s more than a hint of Chica­go or New York about it.

From Cent­ral Sta­tion, walk up Hope Street to see the crenel­lated Vic­tori­an office build­ings. Check out the Pot Still pub near the top of the hill. Double back and take a pint in The Horse­shoe in Drury Street before walk­ing to Buchanan Street to see the most expens­ive retail strip in the UK (by com­mer­cial rent) after Lon­don’s West End.

Then walk through Exchange Place to George Square, the city centre. I recom­mend step­ping into the City Cham­bers to see the ornate marble entrance, stair­case, and mosa­ic ceil­ing. The nearby Cor­inthi­ans Club and bar in Ingram Street in Glasgow’s Mer­chant City is anoth­er won­der­ful exem­plar of con­fid­ent Vic­tori­an-era interi­or decor. The ornate former high court and bank reminds us of a time when Glas­gow was awash with money from ship­ping, tobacco, lin­en, cot­ton, tea, and sug­ar; all part of a rich Atlantic trad­ing history.

Glas­gow has been settled since pre­his­tor­ic times. As the low­est ford­able cross­ing of the River Clyde, the set­tle­ment owed much to Saint Mungo who estab­lished Glas­gu (the ‘dear green place’) as a reli­gious com­munity in the 6th Cen­tury. The crown­ing glory of that eccle­si­ast­ic­al expres­sion today is still Glas­gow Cathed­ral, foun­ded in the 12th Cen­tury and a 20-minute walk east from George Square. It is as impress­ive as any­thing you may see in Winchester or Salis­bury. Maybe more so. It’s free to get in.

Behind the Cathed­ral, take the small bridge up into the Nec­ro­pol­is, which is like a goth­ic movie set­ting. This is where many of the power­ful mer­chants made rich by the Atlantic trade in the 1800s were bur­ied in elab­or­ate gar­goyled mausoleums.

Also just east of the city centre — a 30-minute walk south from the Nec­ro­pol­is — is the Bar­ras; the city’s flea mar­ket. Amid the shanty retail there’s gentri­fic­a­tion hap­pen­ing. Drop into BAAD (Bar­ras Art & Design) in Calton Entry for craft beer, sea­food, and whatever is going on that day; retro mar­ket, live music, or themed movie screenings.

No trip to Glas­gow is com­plete without a saunter around the West End; the Great West­ern Road / Byres Road / Gib­son Street / Uni­ver­sity Aven­ue / Kelvin­grove Park area.

The West End is centred around Glas­gow Uni­ver­sity, with its Hog­warts cloisters that you can walk around for free. 

A large influx of Chinese, Korean, Malay­si­an, and Thai stu­dents in recent years have seen numer­ous Asi­an super­mar­kets and eat­er­ies pop up. One of my favour­ites is the tiny Kim­chi Cult just off Byres Road on Chan­cel­lor Street.

The high­light of Byres Road is Ashton Lane, a cobbled alley with theme pubs and a boutique cinema. Go upstairs at the Ubi­quit­ous Chip to see the wall mur­al by Alas­dair Gray, one of the city’s most cel­eb­rated artists and writers. His award-win­ning 1981 nov­el Lanark almost defies cat­egor­isa­tion. It’s a mas­ter­piece. An ersatz Glas­gow primer.

Stroll along nearby Ruthven Lane, home to The Bothy (upscale Scot­tish din­ing), Hanoi Bicycle Shop (Viet­namese), and an eclect­ic shabby-chic mix of out­lets focused on retro fash­ion and second-hand goods.

You shouldn’t leave Byres Road without hav­ing a drink at Oran Mor (a former church) or my favour­ite, The Tennent’s Bar, a no-non­sense Glas­gow beer hauf (house).

While you can walk between the city centre and the West End in about 40 minutes, you may want to take the Glas­gow Sub­way instead. It’s the third-old­est under­ground metro sys­tem in the world (after Lon­don and Bud­apest). Opened in 1896 and mod­ern­ised in 1980, its orange car­riages are small com­pared to oth­er metro sys­tems. It’s a big circle line affec­tion­ately dubbed “Clock­work Orange”.

You may also find your­self going round in circles under­stand­ing the Glas­gow dia­lect, a Quasimodo cous­in to the Queen’s Eng­lish. But as a nat­ive, I love the pat­ter, much of it lib­er­ally laced with explet­ives fly­ing every­where like autumn leaves.

Glas­gow weath­er is unfor­tu­nately a swear­ing mat­ter too. It is usu­ally cool, often wet, if it’s not ‘blow­ing a hooley’ or ‘pure Baltic’.

Billy Con­nolly says Glaswe­gi­ans’ skin is blue-purple, which tans to white in high summer.

If it’s cold and wet (dreich) out­side, nev­er mind. We’ll just have anoth­er swally (drink) here at the bar. Your round.

People make Glasgow.

Where is this?

Glas­gow is in the cent­ral west of Scot­land. As Ken noted, the Glas­gow City Coun­cil reck­ons ‘People Make Glas­gow’ and has built a web­site with that name. 

Ken’s sug­ges­ted walk through his home town starts at Glas­gow Cent­ral Sta­tion.

Dis­claim­er: If one were to imbibe an alco­hol­ic bever­age at every likely ven­ue along the recom­men­ded route, more than one walk may be required.

Fea­tured image (top of post): Glas­gow street art. By Cath­er­ine Alard (CC0) via Pixabay.

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