THERE’S a lot of people walking about with wheelbarrows. I wonder, could you just push a wheelbarrow all day and no one would stop to ask what you were doing?
Nice class divide as the workies are wearing caps and the management are in hats.
No hard hats in those days either as this is May1939, when the extension to the Mitchell Library at Glasgow’s Charing Cross is being built. That pesky Second World War got in the way as work was later suspended, and the actual extension was not officially opened until 1953. Now that’s what I call a leisurely pace of building.
But to be fair, the work did not resume after the war until 1949.
The Earl of Rosebery performed the official opening ceremony and presented the library with copies of two books his father had written. Awfully nice of him. And The Herald reported that the new shelving system installed was so light that “a woman could move it with one hand”. The newspaper did not clarify how many hands a man would need.
Lord Rosebery decided to be a little bit controversial, saying he feared the growth of television could lead to a reduction in book reading. As he said: “It is a great pity that from the moment you go into some houses the television is switched on and you find that books are hardly read in those homes.”
Thank goodness he did not know about a future of cat videos and selfies on mobile phones.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here