Figure 11.2 The hard side of GlasgowPrior to its currently projected image of dynamism, Glasgow was regarded as the place which best illustrated all that was wrong with the modern industrial city: ‘Once called the “second city of the British Empire” because of its size and industrial might, Glasgow had sunk so low that even the locals disdained it’ (Bryson, 1989).
Figure 2
Figure 2(Based on the cover of the exhibition catalogue for ‘Clydebuilt: The River, its Ships and its People’, organised by the Clyde Maritime Trust Ltd.) Riveter based on the cover of the exhibition catalogue for ‘Clydebuilt: The River, its Ships and its People’, organised by the Clyde Maritime Trust Ltd.Glasgow's industrial base was laid during the latter half of the nineteenth century when the city became a prominent industrial centre. The idea of ‘Clydebuilt’ serves to illustrate the importance of the city in equipping not only Britain itself, but also the far-flung reaches of the Empire with the ships, locomotives and heavy engineering commodities necessary to fuel economic expansion. Crucially, then, Glasgow's (‘local’) economic fortunes, as with those of many of the other ‘older’ industrial centres of Britain such as Tyneside and Belfast, were integrally tied to the (‘global’) fortunes of the British Empire. The saying ‘Glasgow made the Clyde and the Clyde made Glasgow’ highlights the importance of shipbuilding and, behind that, of trade for Glasgow's industrial growth in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It also illustrates the theme of interdependence. Industrial and economic decline in the period following the First World War, combined with growing problems of inadequate housing, rising unemployment and industrial agitation and militancy, gave rise to the image which arguably has dominated reportage of Glasgow for most of this century. For example:There is something deeply wrong with the Clyde, … that sends in repeated menace, to every successive Parliament, the same bitter group of extreme left members, irrespective of the changing political mood of the rest of the country, to kill with their fierce interruptions any restful optimism of the remainder of the House.(Bolitho, 1924)This image, then, was a product of political agitation and conflict which had gripped much of Clydeside in the early part of this century. The period from around 1914 to the early 1920s, now known as ‘The Red Clyde’, was characterised by large-scale industrial conflict in the shipyards and factories. Community-based agitation over housing conditions gave rise to the 1915 rent strike which was organised mainly by women and received widespread support on Clydeside. Glasgow was regarded as a ‘melting-pot’ during the First World War when the government was increasingly concerned that a potentially revolutionary situation might develop. Glasgow during this period, then, was a very political place and this aspect of its history has also been reflected in many of the images and representations of the city over the decades.Another image which developed during this period was that Glasgow was a very violent place. This is reflected in the novel No Mean City, written when the city was gripped by the inter-war slump and depression. This image and representation of Glasgow has dominated much of the discussion of the city ever since.
Figure 3 Glasgow's image as ‘a very political place’ – the Rent Strike of 1915 brought women into the local political arena
Figure 3(Glasgow Herald/Caledonian Newspapers Limited) Glasgow Herald/Caledonian Newspapers LimitedIt was reflected in the significant number of novels, dramas, documentaries and television plays which highlighted Glasgow's ‘hard side’. The work of Peter McDougall in the 1970s – an excerpt from which is included in the programme – serves to illustrate much of this negative image. But it is also claimed that this negative image of violence was constructed from outside the city by, among others, media based far away in London/England; it was essentially what others said about Glasgow. Glaswegians knew about these negative characteristics – and that they existed elsewhere as well – but they also knew other things about Glasgow which were never portrayed back to the outside world – that is, until the ‘Glasgow's miles better’ campaign was launched.1.3 Constructing a new imageThe image ‘Glasgow's miles better’ was deliberately constructed by the City Council, avowedly to make Glaswegians feel better about Glasgow but in fact largely on behalf of business. But it begged a question – ‘miles better for whom?’ Certainly, the city centre was better for shoppers and visitors and the new roads were literally ‘miles better’ for motorists, but the spiralling problems of the housing schemes provided stark counter-images. In other words, as with all images, the image of ‘miles better’ was partial and selective. It was a particular, preferred representation. It excluded other aspects of the city. It was not promoting housing estates like Drumchapel, and they benefited either little or not at all.
Figure 4 The work of image-builders in constructing a new sense of place
Figure 5 Contrasting images of Glasgow as European City of Culture in 1990: the official slogan, re-interpreted to highlight marginalised interests and concern over spending
Figure 5(Left: City of Glasgow; middle: Courtesy The Citizen; right: source unknown) (left) City of Glasgow; (middle) Courtesy: The Citizen; (right) source unknownThe economy of Glasgow has undergone a major transformation since the inter-war period. In common with many other ‘old’ industrial centres, the majority of the city's workforce is now engaged in service sector employment, a far cry from its image as an industrial city par excellence. In part this transition reflects Glasgow's changing position in both the national and international economies. In the 1980s substantial inward investment in the form of business services and tourist-related activities has further altered its traditional economic base. Public and private sector agencies have been to the fore in promoting the city as a place in which to invest and the dominant image of Glasgow is a much more ‘positive’ one. From being a city characterised by violence and conflict, Glasgow is now marketed by the Glasgow Development Agency's Business Location Service as ‘no mean city’ in which to do business. This demonstrates that the same image can provide different interpretations, in this case one negative and one positive. It also serves to reinforce the point that images are built up over time, providing layers of representations. Contrasting images also illustrate the point that at any one time, more than one image or representation will be available. These alternative images frequently conflict with each other and, in different ways, refer to particular readings of previous histories to portray their messages, some of which may be hidden.Today's competing images, then, not only compete in relation to contemporary developments and future plans, but also compete in the interpretations of the past of a city such as Glasgow. In Glasgow today, images of a vibrant, modern place, as reflected in the idea of Merchant City, clearly invoke a particular sense of the past. In this respect Merchant City is a particular representation of Glasgow today and one that serves to exclude other images and representations. These contrast strongly with the images of the city's large peripheral housing estates, typified by Drumchapel, which are clearly the product of a very different social and historical context. We can see in this, examples of different ‘envelopes of space-time’, different geographical imaginations. While people in Glasgow often identify with the city itself, different localities within, and competing images of, the city will give rise to different ideas or ‘senses’ of place. Identifying with Drumchapel as opposed to Merchant City or with the city as a whole reinforces the point that senses of place operate at a number of different levels and spatial scales, which may contradict or compete with each other. While spatial or geographical scale clearly refers to identification with particular geographical entities, by ‘different levels’ we refer to the very different class and power relations involved in identifying with a place. It is clear that ‘place’ means different things to different social groups. There are different representations of place at work at any given time, giving rise to competing or contradictory identities with the same place. These, in turn, give rise to counter-claims that the ‘real’ Glasgow is not reflected in Merchant City but in places like the peripheral estates. One of the dominant images to emerge from Glasgow in recent years, then, is the notion of a ‘dual city’: two cities experiencing very different social and economic fortunes in recent decades.
Figure 6 Turning an image around – new use for an old slogan, confronting Glasgow's reputation as a violent place
Figure 6(Courtesy of Corporate Location Magazine) Courtesy of Corporate Location MagazineClick here for a larger image.
Figure 7 ‘Dual City’ – different ways of imagining Glasgow (Drumchapel above, and Merchant City, below)
Woman: Nothing to beat Glasgow. Woman: Certainly very friendly, happy. Aye. Nice place to live really. Man: Great place, not as hard as everybody thinks it is. Man: Great place to live and work. Woman: Lot of violence in it. Lot of drugs in this area. Man: Glasgow? Ah, think it's alright, Glasgow. Woman: Great! Great place!! COMMENTARY: The identity of a city is complex. To try to find the real identity of a city like Glasgow, we need to sift through the many images and historical layers that represent that place. So what do people mean when they say 'I belong to Glasgow'? PAT JESS: But in fact I don't belong to Glasgow. I'm from Belfast, a city which like Glasgow has part of its identity bound up with a river and with ship building. COMMENTARY: But there are other aspects to its image which Glasgow doesn't share. So to explore these ideas of image and identity, I'm going to talk to people around Glasgow and learn from their experience. Pat Jess and Gordon Borthwick: Morning Gordon. (Morning Pat, our only passenger today). Yes indeed. (Come aboard.) COMMENTARY: Maybe the Clyde is the best place to start. Many of the ships that sailed the international trade routes were built on this stretch of water. Gordon Borthwick has a keen interest in Glasgow's maritime history. His father worked on Clydeside. Pat Jess: Gordon, can you tell me what is the significance of the Clyde to Glasgow? Gordon Borthwick: Well there's an old saying that's been much quoted and even misquoted that Glasgow made the Clyde and the Clyde made Glasgow, and it's very true because here we have a river that was only fourteen inches deep and very sluggish and this was the river into which we were eventually to launch some of the largest liners and ships ever built. And over a period of about two or three hundred years, men dragging chains, barges; dredgers, they eventually deepened the river. So in a sense the city made the river and in return of course the river eventually made the city's fortunes. The image of Glasgow is a strange thing, I mean only two or three centuries ago when Glasgow was a university city; small, quiet, described by Daniel Defoe who was well travelled, as "The beautifulest little city in all Europe", and suddenly all hell was let loose, the industrial revolution hit it and it became big, dirty brash Glasgow, the Chicago of Europe perhaps, and completely unfairly I think. I personally have been around in many cities throughout the world and I have never seen violence in Glasgow as I've seen it in other cities abroad, I've never seen a gang fight, I've never seen any razor attacks, but you give a dog a bad name and it sticks. COMMENTARY: Gerry Mooney grew up in Pollock, a working class estate on the south side of Glasgow. Gerry Mooney: Yes, I would say certainly over the last hundred years it was very much the shock city of Britain. Now nothing sort of illustrates that better than a book that was produced in the inter-war period called 'No Mean City'. Which tried to highlight the Glasgow wars, the sort of violent city portrayed by gangs, conflict, struggle, agitation etc. Another image is one coming out of the period of what's now known as the Red Clydeside, which is a period characterised by conflict, class struggle, the potential revolutionary situation that developed in 1919. Now in the seventies there was a number of television programmes, dramas and documentaries, that were shown nationally which depicted Glasgow yet again as a city full of seething hoodlums and gangsters. If you take the films of the likes of Peter McDougall, for example 'Just Another Saturday', then that was film that actually portrayed Glasgow and Glaswegians in a very negative light. MAN: I'm no joking son. I'm gonna damage you. MAN: These people are animals. MAN: Oh is that right? Well you'd better save up your Embassy coupons for a Daktari gun, 'cos that's the only way you're gonna get near 'em! Gerry Mooney: Now I wouldn't say that was a wrong image, it was certainly only a partial image of what Glasgow represented at that time. But certainly that was the image that was, you know, exported outwith the city, and it was the image that many people would associate with the city at that time. Click to watch Part 2 of the TV programme. (10 minutes)
Part 2
COMMENTARY: There's a different image of Glasgow today. The old image was constructed and represented through books and the media. Now there are shopping centres and wine bars in the city centre, and the Greater Glasgow Tourist Board actively promotes these and other images. Linda Whiteford: I have to say that I was surprised when I came here how friendly the place was, how welcoming it was. And it wasn't the dirty grimy place, it's er it has changed remarkably over the past ten to fifteen years anyway. Nowadays I would think of the beautiful architecture. It's a really wonderful city for Victorian architecture, and er over the past sort of twenty years the buildings have been cleaned up and you can see them as they were, as they were built and the Victorians really went to town in Glasgow. My image of Glasgow has to incorporate the fact that in Gaelic, Glasgow means 'a dear green place', and we've got over seventy public parks and gardens, um that really are outstanding, and you would never think of that initially, you know, if you thought of Glasgow, ok, you've got the buildings, you've got the shops, it's a big city, it's sprawling, it's got a river, but you'd never think of it as being a green place. COMMENTARY: The change of image was quite deliberate. There were campaigns and events, some of which quite literally changed the face of the city. Jean Forbes lives in Milngavie, a middle-class suburb on the north side of Glasgow. Jean Forbes: It really all began in the middle 1980s. It was a very active Lord Provost, Mr Michael Kelly, in the 1980s, early 1980s, who decided as a, that he would take the definite step of trying to change this image. Michael Kelly: ...so the Glasgow's Miles Better campaign is all about convincing people that Glasgow's improved, and we've really got to take it to London beacuse these are... Jean Forbes: And this was when our famous Mr Happy first appeared, the little, the little round sun-like figure with a big smile and it said 'Glasgow's Miles Better'. Linda Whiteford: I think the Miles Better campaign really got to the heart, it did the job it was supposed to do, in that it really got to the heart of the people. The people of Glasgow loved the character Mr Happy, they loved the fact that the people around the world were picking up on that logo, 'Glasgow's Miles Better', and they did begin to smile a bit better. Gerry Mooney: I don't think that you would have to say to Glaswegians that Glasgow was miles better, I mean they would all have known that anyway and certainly would have argued that. But really what they were trying to do was say to people outwith Glasgow that Glasgow was miles better than perhaps they had thought of, and perhaps was miles better than what the films of Peter McDougall had portrayed it as. Nicholas Witche/1: The Prince of Wales tried his hand at a Glasgow accent today and he and the Princess went for a ride in an open topped tram. They were in Glasgow for the city's biggest public event in fifty years, the opening of its Garden Festival. Jean Forbes: It was a great day out for the family. And er any time I was there it was always full of Glasgow people themselves sort of wandering about and enjoying themselves and it was a nice protected kind of place because it was, you know, it was free of traffic and there were many, many things to see and to do. Gerry Mooney: No, I think a large number of Glaswegians did attend the Garden Festival. Certainly I would say the bulk were probably tourists and people from outwith Glasgow, but it was somethin·g that Glaswegians actually liked and enjoyed. And it was something that they wanted to be kept within the city, you know, the sort of parkland area. But unfortunately as we'll see, it hasn't happened that way. Unfortunately for most of the Glaswegians now, it's been left rather derelict, but there was a bit of a debate after the garden festival regarding the usefulness of the site, and certainly a number of people suggested that it should be kept as some sort of park or reminder of the garden festival itself. Which was a very popular event. As we see now, it's rather run down looking and doesn't appear to be serving much useful purpose. Well what we have here is some of the housing that was put up on the Garden Festival site itself. And basically this is all that remains of the site. This was the main entrance to the Garden Festival, and along the riverbank here, you see some of the shrubbery and other grassland area that was created. And if we look across the other side of the river, you see again some very upmarket housing that was you know, created in the last few years, out of old dock warehouses. COMMENTARY: Symbolic of the old Glasgow is the area known as the Gorbals, remembered for the slums which were pulled down in the 1950s. Gerry Mooney: These are the multi-storey flats that are part of the Gorbals area of the city, most of them dating from the 1960s and 1970s. The Gorbals area was the first area in the city to be picked up for what was called 'comprehensive redevelopment', and this is the result of it. Now the population of the area was reduced drastically in trying to lower the mass of housing densities that characterised the tenements, and many of the people were moved out to the outer housing estates of Castlemilk or Pollock or even to areas beyond the city. MAN: There's Glasgow. Forty thousand acres. And this small patch represents two thousand acres. And on that is crammed a hundred and fifty thousand of the city's dwellings. That is half the dwellings on a twentieth of the space. MAN 2: But that's ridiculous! MAN: Of course it is by any standards. MAN 2: What are you going to do about it? MAN: Knock them down! COMMENTARY: One of the outer estates of Glasgow is Drumchapel. Edward Stephenson lives in his father's flat on the estate, with his wife and their five children. Edward Stephenson: Our own house was gutted wi' a fire and we moved in with my dad. I'm not sure if it was an electrical fault, but obviously it went fire and we had to move in here. I don't know if it's been refurbished, but I mean they still got boards on the windows. COMMENTARY: Identity is not always linked to a country or a city. People often identify with an area or a street. The Stephensons identify strongly with the local area. Edward Stephenson: Definitely Drumchapel because I've more or less been brought up in Drumchapel. Pat Jess: Are you from Drumchapel or ... ? Helen Stephenson: Yes. Pat Jess: All your life? Helen Stephenson: Yes. Pat Jess: So you're a Drumchapel family? Helen Stephenson: Yes, thirty six year I'm up here. Pat Jess: Would you say more that you're from Drumchapel or more that you're from Glasgow? Edward Stephenson: Drum, Drumchapel. Pat Jess: Definitely? Edward Stephenson: Definitely. Pat Jess: What would you say is the image that Glasgow has now? Edward Stephenson: Oh, it has a better image. I mean the, the people are more friendly and everything. And we had that Garden Festival as well. We got tourists fe' all over the world that came and see that. Pat Jess: Did you experience the Garden Festival in any way? Did you go to it? Edward Stephenson: No. Well if me and my wife and children go, you're talking about what, ten pound there and back. Pat Jess: In bus fares? Edward Stephenson: Aye, in bus fares. Martin Lewis: The Queen has been to Glasgow to celebrate the city's new role as European City of Culture. Jacques Chirac, the Mayor of Paris, last year's Culture Capital, handed over the title. He spoke of the formidable renaissance of Scotland's largest city. Jean Forbes: It was a tremendous effort put into publicising the city as a place to come and visit during this particular year of 1990, and certain things the most particular being the construction of the new concert hall, they were tuned to arrive and be on the ground in 1990. Music programmes, drama, arts programmes, were all organised so that they would be there in that year, and it began on the first of January, and it just went like a fair until the 31st of December. It was a very busy year. Gerry Mooney: It certainly on an international level made Glasgow appear more attractive for inward investment, and I think that was the prime aim of the whole campaign anyway. But within the city itself it gave rise to a whole series of conflicts about where Glasgow was going, what was the new Glasgow about. Who was benefiting from this new Glasgow? But it was also a debate an argument about what was the old Glasgow like, because one of the attempts of the image makers in 1990 was in a sense sanitise the history of Glasgow, you know, undermine the old Red Clydeside image and create this new wonderful image in the 1990s and a number of people were very opposed to that. Click to watch Part 3 of the TV programme. (8 minutes)