Govanhill is home to the displaced, it's an endlessly fascinating area

Scotland’s most cosmopolitan neighbourhood, the parliamentary constituency of ex-First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, was the most demonised area in the country.

Back then no one wanted to live here. Homes wouldn’t sell, estate agents re-branded Govanhill as Southside Central or Greater Queens Park, even taxi drivers would refuse to drop off or pick up in this place.

Just look at us now. From the worst streets in Scotland to the hipster apocalypse of fonts and coffee and artisan bakeries.

Dying businesses taken over. Cafes, bars and shops transformed. Craft beer, sourdough, Himalayan pink salt. Vegan operatives, bike pedallers and regularly inclusion in top ten coolest neighbourhood lists in Conde Nast Traveller or Time Out.

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But does that mean Govanhill has been gentrified? I’m not so sure.

My new book – Cheers, Govanhill, which includes a foreword by acclaimed photographer Simon Murphy – is a humorous, semi-fictional love letter celebrating Glasgow’s unruliest neighbourhood.

An endlessly fascinating place which also has me slapping my forehead and gnashing my teeth.

That coffee shop used to be an old man’s pub but no one ever called it a community resource. There was a wee café nearby too selling square slice and mugs of tea, but we didn’t know it was a magical safe space where like-minded people could gather, share tables and break bread.

Govanhill has always been home to the displaced, immigrant and refugee, a gateway to the city and the country as a whole for Jewish, Irish, South Asian, Romanian and more.

I mean, I’ve had neighbours from Slovakia, Lebanon, New Zealand, even Garthamlock.

The latest arrivals with their exotic customs and distinctive languages were from Edinburgh, London, or Brighton. They came here for a better life too.

But while Govanhill is now home to artists’ collectives and gallery co-operatives there are always enough muppets and rockets and midgie rakers keeping it real.

For every Rufus and Harriet there’s a Rab fae Torrisdale Street and mad Tracy who torched her flat that time.

Cosmopolitan Glasgow used to mean Finnieston, west end, Merchant City. Finnieston, with its cornucopia of curated utopia and Michelin stars, is the birthplace of the Glasgow hipster, according to scientists.

The carnival in Govanhill (Image: Colin Mearns/Herald)

But Govanhill is far too weird to be Finnieston-ised. Weird and a half, odds-on.

A man having a wash in the street with a bottle of water. Tap aff, splish splash, job done.

A hearse parked outside Transylvania deli, a cup of coffin from Dracucab.

Maybe a drunk guy arguing with a wall.

One reason Govanhill has retained its Glasgow-ness is the extent of social housing in the area, with affordable homes provided by social landlords keeping prices down and ultimately preventing people on low incomes from being driven out.

Govanhill is also one of the great villages of Glasgow, with their grand thoroughfares, art deco cinemas, municipal parks, public libraries and burgh halls. Think Dennistoun, Govan, Partick or Springburn.

Buildings in Govanhill also face the same sun and the same rain as in Possilpark, the Gorbals and Carntyne. Same tenements, same nuggets, same Fenians and billy boys. Sharing a room with four sisters, long hours and low wages, dying before you reach sixty-five.

Govanhill has also mostly avoided the cooncil’s historic fetish for demolition, unlike Maryhill or Dalmarnock or Anderston, so nowhere else in the city has so many traditional tenements still standing.

I try to remember how lucky I am to live in this thriving, colourful place while some parts of the city – Castlemilk, Milton or Sandyhills, for instance – are like deserts, with a lack of amenities, decent transport links, shops, pubs or restaurants.

As well as Victoria Road we have Pollokshaws Road and Cathcart Road, plus Glasgow’s finest park, the best fruit shops in the city and a dizzying array of restaurants and takeaways.

Vietnamese dumplings, Errol and his hot pizzas, eggless Turkish pastries, or mushroom paratha, fish pakora, chicken on the bone from Yadgar, priceless, secret Yadgar, the lowest-profile legendary restaurant in Glasgow.

Then there’s Ranjit’s Kitchen, Kurdish shawarma, maybe smoked sausage from the chippy next door, spearmint ice cream from the Italian down by or a wee fish taco from that place across the road.

Govanhill has that big-city feeling too, the only part of Scotland that looks like London with the brown faces and unusual clothes.

This diversity and colour is almost a caricature, like some nauseating marketing campaign, United Colours of Polmadie, some ruthless global conglomerate trying to wash its terrible face in our sinks. But in Govanhill it’s diversity with an edge, a working-class edge Glaswegian to its core.

A summer evening on the wide pavements of Victoria Road with a clear view all the way to the city centre and Campsie hills beyond, might be Govanhill at its best.

Loop & Scoop in Govanhill (Image: Colin Mearns/Herald)

There’s always something in the air, something unusual you’ll see nowhere else.

Tables and chairs outside pubs and cafes, colourful shop fronts, glass-fronted emporiums selling shiny baubles and fancy goods like a middle Eastern bazaar or an Indian market stall. The long flowing clothes, henna beards, a bloke in a Bayern Munich top.

The smell of grilled lamb from Anarkali, everyone’s favourite curry house.

Kids from Kurdistan and Somalia playing keepie-uppie in the street.

Flowers in a basket, fragrant wee plants from a scratched patch of land in a damp backcourt.

The man in cowboy boots drinking tea and smoking a cigar on the pavement outside the bookies.

Photographer Simon Murphy is renowned for his fascinating portraits of people in Govanhill. I would suggest there is something unique and indefinable about this place which Simon captures beautifully in his photographs.

A place that’s constantly changing and is always the better for it.

Govanhill had Kurdish barbers, African grocers, halal butchers and Irish boozers, magazin Romanesc and Polski sklep long before the white middle class decided we were up-and-coming.

So cheers Govanhill, for staying the same by always surprising, for looking like me and looking nothing like me, for not being neutralised or gently-fried.

Not yet, so far, let you know.

Cheers, Govanhill is available to buy here.