Read Glasgow Online

Authors: Alan Taylor

Glasgow (40 page)

Sunday was our day to be Indian. After a week of mundane Scottish life, my mother would wrangle her three sons into smart clothes and assault us with a facecloth before tramping us off with our dad to experience the delights of
gurdwara
, the Sikh temple. I never understood why we had to be smartly dressed to visit the temple. If God (who was the omnipotent and omniscient and all other words beginning with
omni-
) judged who we were rather than how we appeared, then why did we need to ensure that our trousers were freshly pressed and our shirts free of ketchup? This philosophical musing of an eight-year-old was often met with the counter-argument of a skelp across the back of the thighs.

Temple was great. The religious component of praying and being holy was simply one of a myriad of activities that took place in what was no more than a rundown, near-derelict house on Nithsdale Drive
in the Southside of Glasgow. As kids we mostly ran around at breakneck speed in our ironed trousers and ketchup-free shirts, trying our best to crumple our trousers and mark our shirts with ketchup.
Gurdwara
was where the entire community gathered; it was our parents' single chance to re-engage with Sikhism and Sikh people. It must have been a blessed relief for them to feel relaxed amongst their ‘ain folk', for at least one day of the week. When I think about the hard time I used to get as a small brown boy in Glasgow, I forget that my parents had to deal with yet more abuse in a more sinister, less forgiving world.

There were two good things about the
gurdwara
, apart from the fact that about a hundred kids were at liberty to play and laugh and generally have a great time. At the end of the religious service, after the hordes had prayed collectively, the holy men would wander amongst the congregation who were sat cross-legged in the floor, handing out
prasad
.
Prasad
is a truly amazing thing. If you ever needed convincing that the universe has some higher power at its helm, then
prasad
would be the single substance to convert you. It's a semolina- and sugar-based concoction bound together with ghee. It is bereft of nutritional value, but it is hot and sweet and lovely. And it's holy. What more could you want?

After
prasad
the congregation would filter downstairs to enjoy
langar
. I believe the Sikh religion to be the grooviest, most forward-thinking of all the world religions. Obviously, I have a vested interest, but given the fact that as an organised belief system Sikhism is little over 300 years old, one begins to understand the antecedents of its grooviness. It is a young, vibrant religion that is not bogged down with ancient scripture and dogma. Sikhs were able to experience the other great religions of the subcontinent and construct a new belief system that accentuated the positives whilst attempting to eradicate the negatives. And no more is this innovation exemplified than with the beautifully egalitarian concept of
langar
. Every temple is compelled to offer any comer a free hot meal. In India this happens on a daily basis, but when I was growing up in Glasgow, Sunday was the day of the largest communion. You can be the wealthiest man in Punjab or the lowliest cowherd, but together you sit and share the same modest yet delicious meal, cooked in the temple by devotees. This is
langar
.

Our bellies full, we would drive a few miles from the temple into the centre of Glasgow, to the Odeon on Renfield Street. In the seventies and early eighties, cinemas were closed on Sundays, a fact utilised by the Indian community the length and breadth of Britain. For six days of the week, cinemas were bastions of British and American film, but on Sunday the sweeping strings and sensuous sari blouses of Bollywood
took over. And it felt like every brown person in Glasgow was there. From three o'clock in the afternoon we had a double bill of beautiful women dancing for handsome moustachioed men; of gun fights and fist fights; of love and betrayal. These films were in Hindi, a language lost on us boys; we barely spoke any Punjabi. But the images were bold and strong and most importantly Indian. And guess what? There was also food involved. Hot mince and pea samosas were handed round and occasionally the cinema would fill with the sound of old men blowing cooling air into their hot triangular snacks. Pakoras would be illicitly eaten with spicy chutney. There would be the inevitable spillage and some fruity Punjabi cursing, involving an adult blaming the nearest innocent kid for their own inability to pour cardamom tea from a thermos whilst balancing an onion bhaji on their knee. It was only some years later that I discovered that eating food in the cinema was banned.

‘THE BARGAIN', 1977
Liz Lochhead

The Barrows or, as it is more commonly known, The Barras, is a legendary Glasgow institution. Its origins can be traced to the 1920s, when there was a market in Clyde Street on which cheap goods were displayed on handbarrows. When this was closed in the 1920s, Mrs Margaret McIvor and her husband, who had hired barrows to traders, bought land in the Calton and invited their former clients to set up shop. It expanded rapidly, selling mainly second-hand clothes. In the 1970s and 1980s, The Barras fell into disrepair and disrepute, but with the formation of the Barrows Enterprise Trust it enjoyed a revival, becoming one of Europe's largest street markets. Liz Lochhead (1947–), poet and playwright, is a national treasure who from 2011–16 was Scots Makar, Scotland's national poet
.

The river in January is fast and high.

You and I

are off to the Barrows.

Gathering police-horses twitch and fret

at the Tron end of London Road and Gallowgate.

The early kick-off we forgot

has us, three-thirty, rubbing the wrong way

against all the ugly losers

getting ready to let fly

where the two rivers meet.

  January, and we're

  looking back, looking forward

  don't know which way

  but the boy

  with three beautiful Bakelite

  Bush radios for sale in Meadow's minimarket is

  buttonpopping stationhopping he

  doesn't miss a beat sings along it's easy

  to every changing tune,

  Yes today we're in love aren't we?

  with the whole splintering city

  its big quick river wintry bridges

  its brazen black Victorian heart.

  So what if every other tenement

wears its hearth on its gable end?

All I want

is my glad eye to catch

a glint in your flinty Northern face again

just once. Oh I know it's cold

and coming down

and no we never lingered long among

the Shipbank traders.

Paddy's Market underneath the arches

stank too much today

the usual wetdog reek rising

from piles of old damp clothes.

Somebody absolutely steamboats he says on

sweet warm wine

swigging plaincover from a paper bag

squats in a puddle with nothing to sell

but three bent forks a torn

calendar (last year's)

and a broken plastic sandal.

So we hadn't the stomach for it today.

We don't deserve a bargain then!

No connoisseur can afford to be too scrupulous

about keeping his hands clean.

There was no doubt the rare the beautiful

and bugle-beaded the real antique dirt cheap

among the rags and drunks

you could easily take to the cleaners.

At the Barrows everything has its price

no haggling believe me

this boy knows his radios.

Pure Utility

and what that's worth these days.

Suddenly the fifties are fashionable

and anything within a decade of art deco

a rarity you'll pay through the nose for.

The man with the patter and all these curtain lengths

in fibreglass is flabbergasted at the bargain

and says so in so many words.

Jesus, every other

arcade around here's

a ‘Fire Surround Boutique' –

and we watch the struggling families;

father carrying hearth home

mother wound up with kids.

All the couples we know fall apart

or have kids.

Oh we've never shouldered much.

We'll stick to small ikons for our home –

as long as they're portable –

a dartboard a peacock feather

a stucco photoframe.

We queue in a blue haze of hot fat

for Danny's Do-Nuts that grit

our teeth with granulated sugar.

I keep

losing you and finding you –

two stalls away you thumb

through a complete set of manuals for

primary teachers in the thirties

I rub my sleeve

on a dusty Chinese saucer

till the gilt shows through.

Oh come on we promised

we'd not let our affection for the slightly cracked

trap us into such expenditure again.

Oh even if it is a bargain

we won't buy.

The stallholder says we'll be the death of her.

She says see January

it's been the doldrums the day.

And it's packing up time

with the dark coming early

and as cold as the river.

At the bus-stop I show you

the beady bag and the maybe rosewood box

with the inlaid butterfly and the broken catch.

You've bought a record by the Shangri-las

a pin-stripe waistcoat that needs a stitch

it just won't get and a book called ‘Enquire

Within – Upon Everything'.

The raw cold gets colder.

There doesn't seem to be a lot to say.

I wish we could either mend things

or learn to throw them away.

LATIN OR FRENCH? 1981
Alasdair Gray

In this extract from his novel
, Lanark
(1981), Alasdair Gray describes an experience familiar to many Scots of his era. Few children today are offered Latin at school and even French is regarded as increasingly recherché
.

Whitehill Senior Secondary School was a tall gloomy red sandstone building with a playing field at the back and on each side a square playground, one for each sex, enclosed and minimised by walls with spiked railings on top. It had been built like this in the eighteen-eighties but the growth of Glasgow had imposed additions. A structure, outwardly uniform with the old buildings but a warren of crooked stairs and small classrooms within, was stuck to the side at the turn of the century. After the first world war a long wooden annexe was added as temporary accommodation until a new school could be built, and after the second world war, as a further temporary measure, seven prefabricated huts holding two classrooms each were put up on the playing field. On a
grey morning some new boys stood in a lost-looking crowd near the entrance gate. In primary school they had been the playground giants. Now they were dwarfs among a mob of people up to eighteen inches taller than themselves. A furtive knot from Riddrie huddled together trying to seem blasé. One said to Thaw, ‘What are ye taking, Latin or French?'

‘French.'

‘I'm taking Latin. Ye need it tae go to university.'

‘But Latin's a dead language!' said Thaw. ‘My mother wants me to take Latin but I tell her there are more good books in French. And ye can use French tae travel.'

‘Aye, mibby, but ye need Latin tae get to university.'

An electric bell screeched and a fat bald man in a black gown appeared on the steps of the main entrance. He stood with his hands deep in his pockets and feet apart, contemplating the buttons of his waistcoat while the older pupils hurried into lines before several entrances. One or two lines kept up a vague chatter and shuffle; he looked sternly at these and they fell silent. He motioned each class to the entrances one after another with a finger of his right hand. Then he beckoned the little group by the gate to the foot of the steps, lined them up, read their names from a list and led them into the building. The gloom of the entrance steeped them, then the dim light of echoing hall, then the cold light of a classroom.

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