Glasgow’s great soul is intact despite all the handwringing

People from around here like to paint pictures with their conversations.

This is my first proper visit to the Barras since my parents brought me here on rainy Sunday afternoons, looking for bargains with what they had left from a mortgage that was beginning to choke them. The place is buzzing and there are echoes of its post-war peak.

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Arnold, whose stall sells Scottish memorabilia both old and modern, agrees. “There’s been a bit of a revival, ma man. It’s really starting to pick up again.”

His friend agrees: “There’s a good vibe here, although maybe a bit different from what it used to be. There’s a lot of young hipsters mooching around now, but that’s brilliant too.

“We’re just trying to prepare for that cycle race next week. It’s going to cause chaos round here. We’re more concerned about that than what people think of a few empty shops in Sauchiehall Street.”

Glasgow’s famous weekend street market is the first stop on a walk that took me from London Road in the east end of the city to Byres Road in the west.

Glasgow has taken a battering in recent months, as dozens of commentators and political actors have suddenly become concerned at signs of decrepitude in the city centre.

So I wanted to walk through my city at street-level and listen to what the people who live and work here think about the fuss that’s being made about their neighbourhoods by “Concerned of Nuthatch Avenue, Bearsden”.

Glasgow is the largest and most important city in Scotland.

Almost half of the country’s population live within an hour’s drive of it. It’s been home to some of the UK’s most deprived neighbourhoods for more than a century. Yet, only now, it seems, have the country’s political and media elites decided that it needs their attention. Most of them would get a nose-bleed if they’d to venture beyond the High Street on the eastern approaches to Glasgow.

Kevin McKenna surveys Glasgow. Picture: Gordon Terris (Image: free)

The threatened withdrawal of late-night bus services and the introduction of the LEZ zone have stiffened the post-recovery challenges for Glasgow’s hospitality sector. The boarded-up shop-fronts of Sauchiehall Street, the city’s flagship boulevard, seem to channel a spirit of decay.

I’ve been critical of how this street has been brought to such a parlous state and so perhaps this makes me part of the hand-wringing pile-on to which Glasgow is being subjected right now. Maybe it’s time though, now to shut the f**k up and cease the narrative that the city has suddenly become a bomb-site.

In families, we’re allowed to criticise our own, but when outsiders dare to do, so it’s an entirely different matter.

Starting at Celtic Park, the walk back along London Road towards Bridgeton Cross brings you rewards if you’re prepared to look hard enough. Less than a generation ago, these streets were described in apocalyptic terms: the worst in this category; the ugliest in that.

Now, you’re greeted by rows of well-designed social and affordable homes not dissimilar to those which have transformed the Gorbals over the park and across the river. A group of volunteers are loading racks of school uniforms into the Kindness shop. This is a street team that supports homeless people in Glasgow and Laura McSorley, its founder, is driven by boundless optimism.

“The school uniforms are for families who find the shop prices too steep,” she tells me.

“People round here are so generous, even the ones who are facing their own challenges. You don’t have to look far to see big hearts in Glasgow. Sometimes I feel we’re too down on ourselves.”

Other treasures, previously unseen become apparent on the way down to Glasgow Cross.

I stop at a copper public artwork by Iain Kettles called Cut From the Factory Floor, which references the patterns used in the old Templeton Carpet Factory across the road.

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At an entrance to Glasgow Green, there’s another little landmark I’d previously missed. It’s a paved monument dedicated to Maggie McIver, who founded the Barras market. Just beyond it is the People’s Palace.

Have you seen what they’ve done with the landscaping at the People’s Palace recently? It’s magnificent. The old Doulton Fountain is in full spate, making it impossible to light up a cigarette on the benches beside it. Thomas and his family, down from Riddrie, is explaining its history to them: “Who needs to go to London when you’ve got this on your doorstep?” he says.

On through Glasgow Cross, where tall cranes – always a sign of vibrant economic activity – are busy constructing new retail developments which are already altering the skyline of this old street. Even at this late-afternoon hour, the streets around the Merchant City are beginning to shimmy with early arrivals for the saturnalia which will convulse them from now until dawn.

It’s here though, where you see the fault-lines between the fierce pride of the people and civic neglect. On a pedestrianised stretch of John Street, adjacent to the City Chambers, the buildings look smart and elegant and cafe bars, with outdoor seating channelling a sultry European ambience.

But at the point where the Council’s responsibility starts is where the problems are all too evident. Cigarette ends and fast food wrappers are scattered and it’s clear no effort has been made to clean it. Yet, as Kenny Fraser, a local shop-worker points out, “the place will be manicured for next week’s bike race”.

On the Buchanan Street steps, a loud Cockney agitator is transmitting conspiracy theories about 9/11, Covid and Big Government. “Am oi roit,” he shouts after each slogan. A wee Hare Krishna man pauses and asks me what’s going on. “We’re all going to hell,” I say. “Be at peace,” he says.

And now I’m at the start of Sauchiehall Street. Is it my imagination, or is this much-maligned, promenade looking busier than I’ve seen it in years? Yet you simply can’t escape the hollowed-out façade that disfigures almost the entire north side.

Here there used to be Greaves sports emporium, Victoria’s night-club, Marks & Spencer. Further up, 10 or so ghost properties, including the old ABC, tell of the damage caused by the Art School fires.

I start counting the empty spaces and arrive at 26 by the time I reach the motorway.

No unforeseen circumstances or natural disasters; no pandemic or adverse market forces can explain why Glasgow’s most venerated thoroughfare has been permitted to fester like this. It’s a slight on the character of those cheerful, optimistic, resourceful Glaswegians I met on a Saturday afternoon, who each day strive to make their city look its best.

At the mouth of Woodlands Road, signifying your official West End, there’s an immediate change, like crossing over from one country to another. The cars are newer and bigger; the coffees are artisan and the pavements are cleaner. Here be man-buns.

A stag party sidles by, not yet sparkled and offering apologies. There are art galleries. The smell of fried onions and kebab sauce has been replaced by that of scented candles and essential oils. The fruit comes in wooden boxes that sit outside shops and not at the bottom of Bacardis.

And I now know where Cail Bruach is.

On Byres Road, it looks like someone’s done a Boys From Brazil number on white dudes under the age of 30. They’ve all got beards shaped to the same, universal set of facial coordinates. They’re all called “bro”. But it’s still Glasgow. A little less jaggy, perhaps than the streets on the other side of the city, and with the confidence that money brings.

There’s a short story by F Scott Fitzgerald, called The Lost Decade. It tells of a man – once an alcoholic – beholding his city and its people with the clarity that comes from sobriety. On Saturday I walked through Glasgow and paid attention for a change. There’s a lot that needs repairing in my city, but its soul remains intact.