Category: memory

67 Lisbon Street

Govanhill has cathedrals and temples and synagogues and mosques, and McNeill’s bar on Torrisdale Street.

The original address here was 67 Lisbon Street, though I might have just made that up.

Might not look like much from outside, but worshippers across the world know Billy McNeill.

Captain of the most charismatic football team in Europe, revered across the continent for their immortal manager and the verve and skill of the players.

Cesar and his mates, our greatest heroes, old men forever young.

The European glory nights. Your Duklas of Prague, your Partizans of Tirana, your Red Stars of Belgrade.

The singing and the floodlights and the stadium so crowded your feet don’t touch the ground.

St Etienne, Grasshoppers, Benfica-ca-ca.

And Internazionale, the best night of our lives, though we weren’t even born.

The players singing in the tunnel, the captain leading out the team, the goalie’s false teeth.

The swashbuckling midfielders, the dazzling wee winger, the left back who scored in two European Cup finals.

And that green and white outfit. Historical masterpiece, timeless classic.

Bet you wish your side dressed like that.

You think back to those old TV pictures.

Every game you watch takes you back there.

Your mothers and fathers and ancestors are all there too. The collective memory, a past you can believe in, the love of the people, summoned from inside and coursing through you to those players on that pitch.

So cheers, Billy. And one for yourself, please.

Do we really need that many plums, mate?

photo of different coloured plums in a crate outside a fruit shop

People sometimes ask me what it’s like living in such a vibrant neighbourhood and I’m like it’s okay mate but sometimes you need a change of scene, know what I mean?

Think I need a break from the city, the stress of the city, with the post-industrialism and the low life expectancy.

Must you be so animated, so noisy, so up-and-coming all the time?

The Govanhill-ness of you and the Glasgow-ness of me.

Me and my seen-it-all-before-ness, my shitty-food-ness, my isn’t-it-funny-ness. Me and my ashtrays that always overflow.

You and your tenements and grey skies and trousers above the ankles. And people, everywhere, outside pubs, on street corners and at the mouth of my close, even the Christian evangelicals at the supermarket. Don’t you people have homes to go to? Don’t I?

And the fruit, Jeez, it’s everywhere. Can’t get away from it. Do we really need that many plums, mate? I mean, I don’t even know what a guava is.

My Govanhill flat could do with a few more mod cons too. Front and back door, a garden.

A spa, maybe three more bedrooms, a marble staircase. Spiral, probably.

Anyway, let’s go to the game, few pints after, grab a kebab, go home, sit in the dark, fall asleep, forget everything, wake up, remember it again, job done, endae story.

A better home, a better life, a better Govanhill.

Cheers.

Pishing on a copper’s shoe

photo of a city street at night

People think Govanhill is just about vegan food and Irish dancing, but it’s not.

It’s not all central Europe and gentrification either.

Living here is about your work. How you’re not paid enough and how fewer and fewer of you have more and more to do.

It’s about your flat. How your landlord still hasn’t fixed the boiler and there’s that leak in the kitchen and the rent’s going up again, isn’t it.

It’s also about the football, following your team, how the midfield is rubbish and we need a new striker and should we sack the manager as well?

It’s about Brexit and Supertrump and the rise of nationalism and the mobilisation of the far right and, you know, historical materialism and the inevitable overthrow of the bourgeois mode of production.

Then there’s the weather round here, Jeez, I mean, why does it have to rain all the time?

And you’ve been having those headaches lately too, haven’t you. It’s fine, like, no need to go to the doctor or anything, although you did fall over twice last week.

It’s about the movies you watch, books you read, music you listen to, the global corporations which have eaten you.

You know, brand names as hinterland.

And it’s about being blootered in the city centre on a Saturday afternoon and getting lifted because you pished on a copper’s shoe.

Sorry, what were we talking about again?  

Aye. Govanhill. Cheers.

Crossing the frozen Arctic tundra on foot

Photo of a sign with cartoons of kids being active outside a primary school in Govanhill

People sometimes ask me why I don’t move out of Govanhill and I say I can’t and I won’t.

I know there are other places I could be, other things I could be doing.

Sipping tequila on a houseboat in New Orleans. Winching some brunette art teacher against a wall in Krakow. Playing the bongos in an all-night shebeen in Sierra Leone. Watching daytime TV in a temporary furnished flat in Cambuslang.

But I’m not. I’m here, spinning through the city of Govanhill and its inner streets, hanging about, walking around, meeting people, buying things.

I could be a respected commentator, local influencer, distinguished blogger. A regular at book festivals, music festivals, night clubs, gallery openings, degree shows and record launches. You name it, I’d be at it.

I might even be addressing the United Nations on the grand delusions of late capitalism.

But it’s not that, it’s this. You and me both, Govanhill. Isn’t it?

I know I leave you to go to work or see other people or watch my team but I’m back most nights because I don’t know anywhere else that would have me.

So it’s not that, it’s this. Like the flat, love the city, I am where I am, I come from this place.

Big world out there, I know.

Even bigger one in here.

Cheers, Govanhill.

All that’s left is what never was

photo of graffiti on a wall in Govanhill

Wee Florin scrawled his name on the wall of a tenement.

We’ve all been there. I was here, wasn’t I? Tongs ya bass, isn’t it? Kinty, Linty and wee Malky McGinty.

So well done, wee Florin. It’s your street, not mine or the council’s or your landlord’s. Nor homeowners or shopkeepers or uniformed cops.

I remember when I was a kid, proud that my older brother helped me scratch our names with a key into a wall in an alleyway.

Close to the primary school, down by the bowling club, next to the garage.

I remember going back to that wall years later, looking for those names and not seeing them and thinking about things lost and never retrieved.

Words left unsaid. Silenced voices. What could have happened, should have happened, but didn’t.

So leave your mark, Florin. Have your say, wee barra.

Maybe this is your first family home. Maybe, in the future, as a grown man or an old man, you’ll come back to visit what might have been.

You might look for your name and it might not be there and all that’s left is what never was.

Maybe it will remind you of a simpler time, before Brexit, before ten in a row, before world war four.

So aye, cheers Florin. Good luck and that.

Dust is a must

In the seventies Glasgow washed its face and sandblasted its tenements.

Scaffolding everywhere, people decanted, and when the covers came off it was all glowing blond sandstone in west of Scotland light.

The smoke and the soot from the factories and the yards, the thick fog it caused too.

It was hard for us back then. Dirty faces, covered in snotters, dressed in rags.

And that was just me and my brother last weekend.

We’d been out drinking, propping each other up, finishing each other’s sentences, roving from boozer to boozer in Govanhill, Queens Park Café, Paddy Neesons, the Vicky Bar. The golden triangle, as nobody calls it. We had our passports with us so we even made it across Pollokshaws Road to the Allison Arms, until finally he fell asleep at the bar in Heraghty’s and I helped him outside and into a taxi and back to the Gorbals because that’s where he lives.

Sorry, what were we talking about again?

Aye. Sandblasting tenements. Before then, every building in the city was as black as this.

The owners in this close may have decided not to pay at the time, so it was left undone. Looks good now though, eh. Faded glory and that.

See, dirt is good, grime is fine, dust is a must, thank goodness for that.

Come ahead, mice.

A Nightmare on Calder Street

close up of a red flower, with green leaves in the background

Strolling along Victoria Road one morning, whistling a tune, kicking a stone, looking for fun and feeling groovy.

Behold, a young fellow sitting at a table outside a grocery store strumming a guitar, bringing chords to the masses, us shivering rat-infested hordes. It’s like that round my house anyway.

I see his socks, odd socks, one yellow, one red. My feet almost cross the road towards him but they don’t, they keep walking instead.

Mind your own business, why get annoyed, just a daft kid, what harm is he doing?

But I feel something rising inside. You know, like that infinite wasteland of pain and disease, unbearable torment and uncontrollable fear? It’s like that round my house anyway.

What if he’s only here because it’s cheap and what if it’s only cheap because we’re poor?

I start thinking about imperialism, cultural imperialism, people coming to our shores to enlighten us with their better ways.

How will our children look back on us and what if our grandparents could see us now?

I think of my own clothes. Terry towelling socks, three for a pound, gents sports socks.

Then I remember out of date men shouting at clouds.

So I keep walking, stay calm, clear your mind, that’s it.

Must watch Apocalypse Now when I get home.

Been thinking about it for ages.

You is from around here

drawing of a building with lots of faces at lots of windows

We live in the city, an inner city, hundreds, thousands of us sitting on top of one another in tall buildings.

Tenement life, all colour and noise and constantly moving.

Tracey, daft bastard, arguing with her neighbours every day before she tried to torch her flat that time.

Or those two Romanian women in my street, screaming at each other up and down the pavement.

I’d love to mind my own business pal, but you won’t let me.

Can’t breathe, can’t concentrate, too many people, leave me alone.

But where else can you get Chinese food at 4am? Or visit the theatre, the opera, museums and galleries, concert halls, restaurants, nightclubs and cinemas, as we all do.

Sometimes the noise is reassuring. The sound of the traffic, an argument next door. It means I’m at home, means I belong.

The pubs where they know your name, if you’re going to the game at the weekend, or watching it in here, or round a mate’s house instead because at least there you can see what’s happening, can’t you, concentrate on the match without the jostling and the drunks.

Or the corner shop, where you pop in for milk or fresh rolls, and if it’s late in the day and they’re no longer so fresh then he’ll give you them for free because who’s going to buy yesterday’s rolls tomorrow?

So don’t worry, we know who you are, you have nothing to prove. 

Usual please cheers Govanhill.

Thou shalt buy thy round

Photo of the mural at the Clutha bar, with Glasgow people including Charles Rennie Mackintosh, Billy Connolly, Alex Harvey, Gerry Rafferty and Frankie Miller

What makes Govanhill unique is being part of Glasgow.

Same with Oatlands, Easterhouse and Blairdardie.

The best thing about them all is the city they’re attached to.

Glasgow’s like an independent city state and I’m like a partisan. Cheers, Ruchazie. Cheers, Barmulloch. Cheers, Partick Cross. You too, Govanhill.

The great villages of Glasgow and the grand thoroughfares that run through them.

Victoria Road, Alexandra Parade, Paisley Road West, Duke Street.

Unmissable day trips on your doorstep. 

The art deco cinemas and Victorian burgh halls, municipal parks and swimming baths. And public libraries too, havens for self-educated men and women, a place of silence away from the noise and the clutter of the house.

These great villages had their own football teams, Benburb, St Anthony’s, St Roch’s. Sometimes their own newspapers, Springburn Herald, Govan Press, Rutherglen Reformer.

The same rows of boutique shops, cafes and bars and diverse populations, just like Govanhill.

Indian and Pakistani in Ibrox and Pollokshields, Irish in the Gorbals and the Garngad, Italians in Dennistoun and Yoker, Chinese in Garnethill.

And the people. Salt of the earth, rough diamonds, cracking jokes singing songs, ready to pick a fight at a moment’s notice.

And our most important commandment.

Thou shalt buy thy round.

So cheers, mother Glasgow. And welcome home, Govanhill.

Coconut water will save us

Close-up photo of red apples outside a fruit shop

We knew nothing about food, until recently.

We didn’t grow up on porridge or lentil soup, or barley or butterbeans.

Or uncle Frank’s root vegetables from his allotment down by the old dry docks, you know, next to the motorway flyover.

We didn’t have delis or grocers which sold cereals and pulses and grains, or milk in bottles or bread in paper bags from the local bakery.

We cycled because it was cheaper than the bus, recycled because we couldn’t afford to buy new.

I mean, I wore my sister’s hand-me-down shoes for two years at primary school.

Of course I didn’t. But my brother did.

We didn’t even understand that roll-ups were just organic cigarettes.

We have no memory of the past. Job security, trade unions, collective bargaining, social contract, welfare state.

We didn’t know anything about radicalism either, so thanks for inventing that too.

Now we have vintage emporiums instead of tacky second hand shops. Thank goodness that old army coat is thirty quid instead of forty pence like it used to be.

And now we can pay six pounds for a schooner of piss-poor craft ale instead of three for a pint of foaming Czech lager.

Vinyl, video tapes, board games. Feels like we’ve been here before.

All we need now is a future we can survive.

Fingers crossed, Govanhill.