We is all there is

Two colourful paintings side by side: a woman sitting on grass in a backcourt, another woman sitting indoors drinking tea

It’s me and you Govanhill, like it or not.

Stuck with each other like a pair of cranky old buzzards arguing over a dead mouse.

We’re too much alike, and too different for words, but there’s nothing else to talk about, so what can I say.

We is all there is.

Wonder what it’s like in other places. Open space, ocean views, tumbleweed? Dysfunctional homes, hidden violence, addiction? Aye, here too.

But at least Govanhill is a weird moveable feast, like a train station concourse spread over a few square miles.

Everyone’s leaving or everyone’s arriving or halfway between the two.

This overworked, undersized constant crowd of limbs and masks and bikes and prams and fireworks being let off in the street, ffs.

Lorry drivers, dog walkers, shelf stackers. Trans activists, trade unionists, migrant workers. And those young minds who entitle themselves and whose main entitle is themselves.

What a main road we have too.

Charismatic wee Romanian deli, new Italian bistro, hardware store with floors and aisles invisible from outside.

Silversmiths, tattooists, Asian outfitters, organic grocery and community food bank.

Primary schools, building sites, pubs sometimes open but mostly closed, and right at the top is the best one of Glasgow’s ninety three parks, dear green place and that.

The supermarket chains, the global fast-food brands that gie ye the dry boak.

Great institutions like the library and the swimming pool yet to reopen.

The start-ups, closed downs and gone for evers.

Miles and miles automatic, recent rain now rising.

Dry afternoons and wet evenings becoming drier, wetter too.

So it’s me and you Govanhill, like it or not, in it together, together as one.

Not walking on air, soaring over the rooftops or flying through the heavens but down here, swimming on the pavement.

It’s our nature, and everything has to be true to its nature.

Cheers.

Go.

Van.

Hill.

Lovely couple flee Govanhill in a bathtub

a tidy row of rubbish bins outside a block of flats

This flat used to be a great place to live but it went downhill after I moved in.

A lovely young couple were here before me. She worked in newspapers, he was a university librarian.

But they fled Govanhill in a bathtub one night and are now seeking asylum in a three-bed semi just outside the city with good transport links and excellent schools.

Lovely couple would never have let things deteriorate the way I did. They were always too busy holding hands and sailing through life having fulfilling careers and beautiful kids.

And then I arrived, from just around the corner, and brought the tone of the place right down.

House prices began to fall, estate agents started rebranding Govanhill as south central Polmadie, wider Crosshill north, western Bathstrungo.

It was a different time. More chaotic, much less chaotic. A time when you could get to the game, go for a swally, visit a restaurant, catch a movie, go to the hairdressers all on your way home. I mean, I haven’t been to a soft play area in ages.

But don’t worry, lovely couple. Things have changed since your day. My poor performance meant the flat was placed in special measures, with a new management structure, co-opted board members, an interim chief exec. Now it’s an area on the up.

Check out what I’ve done with the crib.

The windows were washed just three years ago. An avocado might have been in the fridge last June. There’s even a pot plant somewhere.

I made other improvements too.

Stole the flag pole from the top of the hill in Queens Park and put it in the hallway and now I have great views over the city and beyond.

Applied for planning permission to rebuild the old Cladda club in the back bedroom.

And I recently decreed that every pub in the area closed because of the pandemic shall reopen in my kitchen, free of charge.

So nae luck, lovely couple.

And fingers crossed, Govanhill.

A piece and Jamieson Street

Fireworks at night, with brightly-lit window of a tenement at bottom left

A wee spell in Govanhill should be on everyone’s to-do list, bucket list, shopping list.

Living round here should be on the syllabus in schools, legally prescribed by doctors.

Think about it. Your five a day could be Butterbiggins, Inglefield, Torrisdale, Hollybrook and Carfin.

I mean, Govanhill already gets great reviews on Amazon, tripadvisor and we buy any car dot com too. It should be a compulsory purchase.

Folk could stay here for a six-month stretch, on a rotating basis, in alphabetical order.

Hello, is that Aaron fae Ardbeg Street?

People might learn a few things living round here.

Tolerance, humility, a new language every day, how to drink communion wine laced with caffeine without getting the jail.

You’d soon start to appreciate the innate beauty of a bin bag, I tell thee.

Free your mind. Come live round here and hang with our punk poets, queens and queers, free radicals and earth mothers.

Tickle your tartars with our dive bombers and gable enders, our weirdo wackos, sleekit wee bastards and glaikit downing outs.

A wee spell in Govanhill would do you good, people.

Send your CV on a postage stamp to the usual address: Cheers Govanhill, Govanhill Street, Govanhill.

Please include relevant experience, qualifications, career highs, career lows, career goals, goal of the season, and ideas on how to fix a football team which is in danger of falling apart in the most important year in its history.

Cheers in a row.

Why Govanhill looks like you and looks nothing like you

photo of a pool table outside in an alleyway

I thought Govanhill was expanding but turns out it’s collapsing.

By collapsing, I don’t mean the buildings and by expanding, I don’t mean more buildings.

I mean Govanhill is shrinking and Govanhill is also taking over.

It’s everywhere. When I’m outside I’m in and when I’m inside I’m out and vice versa.

My flat is Govanhill, a tiny Govanhill, with the same unruly parts, raggedy bins, boarded-up corners and fresh layers of dust.

Fewer funky places to snack, right enough, and no real evidence of recent renovation.

It’s not just Govanhill either. Bet it’s the same where you are too. Balornock all over the shoap, Kelvindale round every corner, universal Provanmill.

I mean, we’d like to get away, away from home, this never-ending home. A wee holiday, trip up north, a weekend break, take care, see you soon, bye bye.

But the travel’s not essential so there’s nowhere to go and we cannot escape, inside or out.

Stuck in yer ain midden, it’s not funny. You know what it’s like, claustrophobia, climbing the walls, walking the same floors day after never-ending day.

That’s why we’re all meditatifying, practising emptyheadness, learning empty’s good, empty’s your friend.

Anyway. There are worse places to be, I suppose. And always reasons to be cheersful.

I’m lucky Govanhill is always there when I open the door and still there when I close it again.

I’m grateful it’s nowhere else and it’s all there is, inside and out, the place that won’t leave me alone.

So aye, cheers Govanhill for keeping going and keeping me going. For staying the same by always surprising. For the constant reminders it’s not all shapeless shapes and vegan brunch. (Nae offence, calcium-fortified plant milks.)

Cheers for looking like me and looking nothing like me.

Cheers for not being neutralised or gently-fried.

Not yet, so far, let you know, Govanhill.

I love the smell of Neeson’s in the morning

nice tenement block in the sunshine, stoops at the front of the building

So I was with my brother but we weren’t in the pub and we weren’t at the game, we were walking down Victoria Road instead.

Uncertain twilight, unsure of the time but knowing very well exactly where we were.

Does Govanhill always smell like this?

Like what?

Like a barbecue or a festival.

Aye, sounds about right.

We were right at the top of the road, near the gates of Queen’s Park, on pavements so wide it could be a boulevard, an avenue, even a thoroughfare. Like an old photo from the past, with a horse and cart, a tramcar, or a wee barra boy back in the day.

Places like Strathbungo – hiya – always have such narrow pavements because everyone drives there and no one walks.

But why would you drive a car in Govanhill? Ye just wouldnae. You might cycle a bike but even then, bikes and cars are almost the same. They’re not legs, which have feet and shoes which drive you forward, push you along, onward then upward on pavements this wide.

Is that grilled lamb?

Might be the vegan and veg café. Could be Anarkali, everyone’s favourite curry house. Maybe smoked sausage or black pudding from the chippy next door. A roll and fritter, a haggis supper, or chicken taco from the place across the road.

Grand tenements up here, bourgeois views over the park, stoops that could double for Brooklyn, aye right. Flowers in a basket, fragrant wee plants from a scratched patch of land in a damp backcourt. Cake box over there, kebab shoap round the corner, spearmint ice cream from the Italian down by. I could feel my brother trying to take it all in.

Every time I come here there’s something new. A café, a pet shop, a record store.

I know, it’s always the same round here.

Then he said there’s so many places to eat no wonder you’re a fat bastard and I said shut it Gorbals and he said calm doon Govanhill what are you having and I said I’m having the lot.

Cheers.

Thou shalt talk tae strangers

mural on a wall showing a man laughing and a woman holding flower with the sun in the sky behind her

Be careful, non-Glaswegians.

All us lonely souls coming in and out of lockdown means there’s an epidemic of people talking to each other on the street. Watch yourselves.

Saturday morning on a pavement in Govanhill, strolling along as you do, shops a-bustling, cyclers a-pedalling, the smell of fresh bread from somewhere overhead.

There’s a girl in front and her wee pet dug is lying on the pavement panting in the sun and looking at her as if to say, there’s no way I’m getting up hen. She’s tugging on the lead and the dog’s like, no chance.

He’s going nowhere, eh?

That was me, walking past, piping up in that old Glaswegian way. Talking to strangers, friendly approach, salt of the earth, pain in the arse.

And she looked at me like I’d farted in her face.

So listen, Edinburghovians, Englandashians, Strathbun-go-gos or whatevers.

This is Glesga. It’s what we do. It’s not our fault.  

We know you middle class always socially distance from working class, service sector, lumpen proletariat.

You can never understand us for a start, with the glottal stop and weird dialect and all that terrible swearing.

What are we like, eh? Nuggets and jakesters and freakballs, all nicotine fingers and knives of Stanley.

But, you know, we built these streets through famine, immigration and poverty. And we have the teeth to prove it. 

So nae luck, strangers. There’s no one to talk to except you and us and all that’s in between.

Just don’t ever ask about Celtic or Rangers or football at all in fact, especially when we’re drunk, because we know too much and you’ll probably end up crying.

Then I kept on walking and passed other people but couldn’t think of anything to say.

So I made my way home and closed the door and got back to business as usual.

Sit down, drink cans, wake up.

That’s utopia right there.

Talk soon, strangers.

The Second Coming in Cathcart Road

statue of a woman with two children by her side

Turning and turning in the streets of Govanhill, I can hardly hear a thing.

Not Falcon Terrace in Maryhill, nor Falcon Court in Newton Mearns.

Things fall apart, the centre cannot hold, but if I fix the boiler and sort the floorboards I can worry about the plasterwork later.

New windows, new radiators, full re-wire too.

Surely some revelation is at hand.

Surely the Second Coming is at hand.

Keep walking, round and round, lacking conviction, passionate intensity. 

Mad Tracy with lion body and the head of a man.

Rab fae Torrisdale Street, gaze blank and pitiless as the sun.

Watch me go as I slouch towards Bowman Street to be born.

Apologies, Yeats.

Back to stony sleep.

Cheers.

Chrs Gvnhll

view of a tenement through blue and red coloured glass

Govanhill’s not that big but it feels big.

Other places may have crunchier cornflakes or rollerblading dogs but we punch above our weight, so we do.

We run faster, walk taller, drop lower.

Govanhill’s not that big – what, ten thousand mthrfkrs round here? – but it gets talked about too.

Myth-making and misinformation from child trafficking and vice rings to top ten coolest neighbourhood.

Squalor, filth and decay to Brooklyn, Kreuzberg, Shoreditch.

Watch out Blackhill, Possilpark, Whiteinch. We’re coming after you next.

Accessible green space, aching hip ass, tasty places to snack, plus cycles lanes which are almost finished after work started during the first Gulf war. (The Persian Gulf, not the Gulf of Garthamlock near Hogganfield loch.)

Govanhill’s not that big but it ain’t all dandelion blossom and orange blush juniper crush candy pale ale either.

This place groans, man. You know it and I know it. The bulk download on our streets, black bags, dead furniture.

Stop it, landlords. You too, tenants. It’s not that hard. Put your shit in the bin, not the pavement, ffs.

But don’t give up hope. Believe in yourself, believe in Govanhill, in Glasgow, maybe even Scotland.

The world is watching. Polmadie is anyway, anxious to join in the fun, hang out with the cool kids from the other side of the tracks, the rough part of town.

Know what I mean, Strthbngo?

Cheerio.

Here be Castlemilks

Cherry blossom tree with white flowers in a small city park

Everyone’s world has shrunk. Now we’re either pacing the floor in the flat or circling the streets in early morning, early evening and sometimes in between.

Seeing more of the neighbourhood, at least, so Govanhill is expanding.

Walking around with these feet and shoes, we own these streets, we have to. Yours and mine, this public space, nae cooncil developer or private investor.

Bestride that path like a colossus, go on.

Maybe stray into Langside, Mount Florida, even the Bungo, though I need a disguise round there these days, a mask or a visor in case I get jumped by a vegan and punched in the kidneys.

Or Shawlands, I like Shawlands, even lived there for a while in a big wonky flat in a tenement block that was sinking into the ground.

Shawlands has pubs, shops, fishmongers, nightclubs, five-a-side pitches and Young’s Interesting Books.

But it’s too quiet, nothing happens and everyone walks around wearing earphones. 

No hundred languages, food you’ve never seen, flymen at the lights to tap you a fag.

So we keep walking, because we have to, through the streets of Govanhill.

Wee Betty with her mask and bag talking to Agnes and Mags at the bus stop. Kurdish guys outside the barber shop, crates of mangoes on the pavement, a crowd dropped off at the street corner after a day’s work labouring or crop picking.

Tiny Govanhill Park, a few streets away from Victoria Road and not a middle class changemaker in sight.

Romanian, Slovakian, Bangladesh, Pakistan. Kids on bikes or the swings or playing cricket, women in headscarves talking, laughing.

Nan’s famous hot and cold takeaway, backcourts that don’t have committees or websites. Over to Riccarton Street, maybe Bennan Square, four in a block with big gardens, space to grow.

And from there Polmadie, Myrtle Park, across to Toryglen, King’s Park and beyond, where there be Castlemilks.

Later, I’m turning down Allison Street and two young guys walk past, faces swelling with alcohol, and one of them asks in Russian I think if I know where the nearest bank is and I’m like yeah just down there at the corner mate and he says cheerski or nostrovia and salutes me.

So, aye. Stay weird, Govanhill.

Govanhill zen

close up of a model of a hare on plinth part of a shop front with tenements in the background

Govanhill goes on and on, it just won’t stop, and no one knows what’ll happen next.

You’d think you might run out of things to say, but there’s always something new. Neighbours, cycle lanes, weirdness.

You’d think you might want to spend more time with your family until you realise Govanhill is your family, the same way your work colleagues are, because that’s what you do with your time.

Out for a walk, stretch the legs, clear the head, the people you meet.

You might bump into the Asian dude from the supermarket, the Arsenal fan, on his way to the bookies to discuss in-game markets or Kieran Tierney or the odds in Govanhill on Bournemouth being relegated.

The boy downstairs who went home to Romania at the start of the pandemic and came back a foot taller, with voice broken and a beard. Kids grow up so fast these days.

Or the friendly chef outside the pizza joint who was fed up working long hours for terrible pay but who’s much happier here in Govanhill doing something he loves with good people.

Maybe you chat to the brothers from the best off sales around, Drinks. Clear messaging, easily communicated, easily understood. Does exactly what it says on the bottle. Malt whisky, craft ale, German lager, yum.

An old Sikh man on a bicycle, bright turban and long grey beard. Couple of bams drinking cans in a doorway, sounds of a barbecue from the backcourt.

Further along a game of cricket going on in the park, over there an outdoor boxing class for women, and if you head down Victoria Road you might grab a wee fish taco, or a chicken paratha, or a street food sausage supper.

And later that evening an outdoor cinema showing a French surrealist movie in a gap site on Westmoreland Street right where the famous Irish Cladda club used to be, beside street corners crowded with wide shoulder bruisers, a giggle of smokers dancing outside Neeson’s in their Saturday night finery, and you stand in the road and look up to the sky and summer darkness coming down and think, aye. Geez. Noo. Cheers Govanhill.