HEARD the one about the striking electricians, the women protesters and the Maori dancers?
Local authority electricians, seeking wage parity with private-sector colleagues, had been picketing Glasgow City Chambers for 10 weeks by the time this photograph was taken, on April 7, 1975 (Princess Margaret, visiting the chambers on April 1, had been whisked to a rear entrance in order to avoid them). The women, from Charles Street in Townhead, told a leading councillor that they were furious at the hardships they were suffering because the lifts in their multi-storey flats were not working; they alleged that fuses in the lifts had been removed, rending them inoperable. The councillor asked the electricians’ emergency strike committee if they would restore one lift per multi-storey flat to reduce hardship. Outside the chambers, there were angry exchanges between the women and the strikers. Some strikers left and the women jeered and shook their fists at those who remained. By chance, a group of Maori dancers also visited the chambers that day, to publicise a New Zealand film being screened at a city hotel. They sang a traditional Maori song, were presented with tartan stoles (for the women) and tartan ties (for the men), by Lady Gray, wife of the Lord Provost, and, for a while at least, entertained the Townhead women and the electricians, who cheered as the dancers performed the Haka.
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