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| Athole Gardens |
I arrived in Glasgow to start a new job after leaving my job in Oxford the previous afternoon. I had driven up the M6 in the evening to Preston with all my worldly possessions in my 1956 split windscreen Morris Minor. After dumping the stuff I did not immediately need at my parent's house, I travelled up to Glasgow the next morning. It was a Friday and in those days a four and a half hour journey before the M74 from Carlisle to Glasgow had been built.
I drove into Glasgow along Edinburgh Road, a dual-carriageway. I had been overtaken by dozens of cars and assumed the speed limit was 40mph. I was stopped after overtaking a police car that had just turned onto the road at traffic lights. I was doing 42mph and I felt that I had been discriminated against for passing a police car. Welcome to Glasgow they said as I explained that I was just moving to a new job in Glasgow. I decided to appeal and appeared in court a couple of months later. The judge, who also owned a Morris Minor, was sympathetic to my story and dismissed the fine.
I arrived in the city centre at 1:30 p.m. and parked just off Buchanan Street next to my new office in Gordon Street. I met some of my new work colleagues and asked what was the best way to find a flat to rent. I was directed to a newsagent's shop on Byres Road. By 3pm I was taking telephone numbers from the cards in the window and eventually made contact with someone who was renting a bedsit in Athole Gardens. He agreed to meet me there at 5pm and I had moved in by 6pm. I sorted out my few possessions and found the Curler's bar by 8 p.m. After a couple of pints in the crowded young people's bar and before last orders at 9:50pm I went in search of some food and found the Ubiquitous Chip down Ruthven Lane. I thought it was a chippy but no such luck, it was a small restaurant that had yet to become one of the most celebrated in Glasgow. It seemed a bit pricey so I carried on my search for some food. Without any knowledge, I headed towards the city centre and happened upon the Shish Mahal on Gibson Street, undoubtedly the best Indian restaurant at the time. I was surrounded by people with carry-outs for parties but resisted the invitations and made it back to the flat by midnight. Things had moved fast since arriving in Glasgow.
Athole Gardens was a perfect location, handy for the underground to Buchanan Street, lots of eating places and pubs but the bedsit was a large cold north-facing room. It was cheaper to go out every night than to find cash for the electric fire. After two months I was ready to move on and I spotted an advert in the same shop for a fourth person to share a top-floor flat in a splendid stone villa at the end of Kirklees Terrace. I phoned and spoke to the person who was moving out. He showed me around the flat and the large master bedroom facing south that would become my room. The room was larger than the average new house being built in the 1970s and adorned with fine timber, plaster cornices and decorative features that gave it an elegance that I had never previously witnessed.
What was the catch? Well, I was told it was the other flatmates. An IBM management trainee from Gourock who was a keen yachtsman, an educational psychologist and an insurance salesman who was a notorious Glasgow playboy with a Marcos car, fleet of girlfriends and a serious gambling habit. This included late-night sessions in the flat and Fred, the person moving out, had built up heavy debts to the others. I took the risk and after winning a few hands of whist explained that I would not be playing cards for money. I greatly enjoyed the flat for the next six months until we were told by the owners that the whole house had been sold and we would have to move. I had avoided gambling but had to intervene on several occasions to console the one-night stands of the playboy and then to deck one of the other housemates after he hit his girlfriend, a Scottish Ballet ballerina when he had had too much to drink. He never returned to the flat, his girlfriend wisely left him and moved to London. I declined the offer to share another flat with the other two.
As it happened one of my work colleagues had recently become a father and was living in a large ground-floor flat in Victoria Circus. His wife had decided to return to her parents in England with their young baby as he was working long hours to complete his contract. He had a spare room and it was an ideal arrangement for both of us. He was a keen rally driver and I became his navigator in his souped-up mini-cooper. We both worked late and went rallying or to football matches at the weekends. We even made a drive down to Liverpool from work late one afternoon to watch a European game and then drove back to Glasgow overnight arriving at the office at 7:00 a.m. His wife came up every few weekends and I was able to babysit to give them some time together. A couple of months later he finished his contract and I had to search for another flat.
This time it was a tenement flat in Clouston Street with some civil engineers who had been at university together and a lawyer friend of one of them. It was a typical Glasgow flat of young professionals. We ate badly and played squash together and there was a trickle of girlfriends. After a couple of months, the lawyer moved out and was replaced by another civil engineer friend. Ian had been travelling abroad and we established an immediate rapport, he became a lifelong friend. We both were keen skiers and had a similar attitude to seeking adventures and living for the moment. I stayed in the flat for about eight months before moving on again.
The next house was a run-down farm on the outskirts of Coatbridge. An acquaintance of my father had bought it as a commercial investment and asked if I would like to live there at no cost to prevent the farmhouse and related buildings from getting vandalised. It had five bedrooms and two large barns as well as a courtyard and a garage. I persuaded friends Ian and Donald together with Rona, a nurse who was Donald's flatmate, to join me in the house. The rent-free living was the initial attraction but it became a fun place to live and the four of us stayed there for two years. We bought a job lot of furniture at an auction, including a piano for £2, a three-piece suite and some beds. I cobbled together some shelves, cupboards and a coffee table with stuff from a nearby tip and we were ready to roll. We created a games room to play darts and ran the farm as an open house for friends and people passing through.
At various times we had a Doctor friend of Ian's, some Chilean refugees including a real Princess whom I had met at a party, a couple of unemployed friends and numerous others staying for a few days or weeks. We held a party/dance every couple of months for a diverse bunch of friends and acquaintances. One of our friends was a lawyer and a wannabe DJ provided the music for a hundred or so people who turned up. The highlight of the sessions was Life is a Minestrone which had everyone abandoning the straw bales that we had lined the barn with. We held collections for the local children's home and some of the care staff used to come along. The house had our fair share of break-ins with the local youth taking tape recorders and record players but we chased and caught them one day and things improved thereafter.
Athole Gardens was a perfect location, handy for the underground to Buchanan Street, lots of eating places and pubs but the bedsit was a large cold north-facing room. It was cheaper to go out every night than to find cash for the electric fire. After two months I was ready to move on and I spotted an advert in the same shop for a fourth person to share a top-floor flat in a splendid stone villa at the end of Kirklees Terrace. I phoned and spoke to the person who was moving out. He showed me around the flat and the large master bedroom facing south that would become my room. The room was larger than the average new house being built in the 1970s and adorned with fine timber, plaster cornices and decorative features that gave it an elegance that I had never previously witnessed.
What was the catch? Well, I was told it was the other flatmates. An IBM management trainee from Gourock who was a keen yachtsman, an educational psychologist and an insurance salesman who was a notorious Glasgow playboy with a Marcos car, fleet of girlfriends and a serious gambling habit. This included late-night sessions in the flat and Fred, the person moving out, had built up heavy debts to the others. I took the risk and after winning a few hands of whist explained that I would not be playing cards for money. I greatly enjoyed the flat for the next six months until we were told by the owners that the whole house had been sold and we would have to move. I had avoided gambling but had to intervene on several occasions to console the one-night stands of the playboy and then to deck one of the other housemates after he hit his girlfriend, a Scottish Ballet ballerina when he had had too much to drink. He never returned to the flat, his girlfriend wisely left him and moved to London. I declined the offer to share another flat with the other two.
As it happened one of my work colleagues had recently become a father and was living in a large ground-floor flat in Victoria Circus. His wife had decided to return to her parents in England with their young baby as he was working long hours to complete his contract. He had a spare room and it was an ideal arrangement for both of us. He was a keen rally driver and I became his navigator in his souped-up mini-cooper. We both worked late and went rallying or to football matches at the weekends. We even made a drive down to Liverpool from work late one afternoon to watch a European game and then drove back to Glasgow overnight arriving at the office at 7:00 a.m. His wife came up every few weekends and I was able to babysit to give them some time together. A couple of months later he finished his contract and I had to search for another flat.
This time it was a tenement flat in Clouston Street with some civil engineers who had been at university together and a lawyer friend of one of them. It was a typical Glasgow flat of young professionals. We ate badly and played squash together and there was a trickle of girlfriends. After a couple of months, the lawyer moved out and was replaced by another civil engineer friend. Ian had been travelling abroad and we established an immediate rapport, he became a lifelong friend. We both were keen skiers and had a similar attitude to seeking adventures and living for the moment. I stayed in the flat for about eight months before moving on again.
The next house was a run-down farm on the outskirts of Coatbridge. An acquaintance of my father had bought it as a commercial investment and asked if I would like to live there at no cost to prevent the farmhouse and related buildings from getting vandalised. It had five bedrooms and two large barns as well as a courtyard and a garage. I persuaded friends Ian and Donald together with Rona, a nurse who was Donald's flatmate, to join me in the house. The rent-free living was the initial attraction but it became a fun place to live and the four of us stayed there for two years. We bought a job lot of furniture at an auction, including a piano for £2, a three-piece suite and some beds. I cobbled together some shelves, cupboards and a coffee table with stuff from a nearby tip and we were ready to roll. We created a games room to play darts and ran the farm as an open house for friends and people passing through.
At various times we had a Doctor friend of Ian's, some Chilean refugees including a real Princess whom I had met at a party, a couple of unemployed friends and numerous others staying for a few days or weeks. We held a party/dance every couple of months for a diverse bunch of friends and acquaintances. One of our friends was a lawyer and a wannabe DJ provided the music for a hundred or so people who turned up. The highlight of the sessions was Life is a Minestrone which had everyone abandoning the straw bales that we had lined the barn with. We held collections for the local children's home and some of the care staff used to come along. The house had our fair share of break-ins with the local youth taking tape recorders and record players but we chased and caught them one day and things improved thereafter.
After two years we were given notice to quit and it probably suited us all. Ian had got a job in Aberdeen, Donald was to get married and Rona moved in with her boyfriend, Bernie, who ran a pub and an aerial erection company and had a yacht on the Clyde that I crewed on for two seasons. After we left, I bought a flat in Kirkintilloch but spent a lot of my time in Glasgow in Aileen's flat in Great George Street. After we got married and started a family we moved to our first family home in Langside, Glasgow.
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| Kirklee Terrace, my room at the top |
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| Victoria Circus |
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| Clouston Street |
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| Great George Street |
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| Millbrae, the family home |
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