Glasgow memories: Baths and laughs in the old tenements through the decades

Betty McCrail recalls a funny moment from her first home after she got married.

“We had a room and kitchen with a toilet on the outside stair landing,” she says.

“We had no bath, so I bought a big tin one. I offered it to my neighbour one night and word got around. Soon everyone in the close had had a turn. My bath became the close bath.”

She adds: “The most amusing thing was that when the boys took it between the houses through the back court they would carry it over their heads, so all you saw were four legs under a big bath and the price - fifty five and three - written on the bottom.

“Many of those neighbours, even long after the building was pulled down, would thank me for the loan of that bath.

“I am now 90 and have outlived most of them, but I shall always remember them.”

Betty’s husband worked in the butcher’s shop in Clydebank.

“One day a customer handed him a poem which I have kept to this day,” she says. “It could equally apply to Glasgow.”

Betty’s poem is sure to strike a chord with many Times Past readers.

It reads:

“Oh where is the Clydebank where I used to stay?/The white wally closes done wi pipe clay/where ye knew every neighbour fae first floor tae third/and tae keep your door shut was considered absurd.

“Where are the wars that once played in the street?/Wi’ a jorrie, a peerie. a gird wi’ a cleek/can they still cadge a hudgie or dreep aff a dyke/play hunch cuddy hunch, kick the can and the like?

“And where is the wee shoap where I used tae buy/ a quarter o’ tatties, a tuppeny pie/a bag o’ broken biscuits, a wee sodie scone/ an the wummin aye asked ‘how’s your maw getting on?’

“And where is the cludgie? The cosy wee cell/ the string fae the cistern, I remember it well/Where I sat wi a caulne and studied the rags/ a win for the Auld Firm, a loss for the Jags.

“Where is the tramcar that once done a ton/doon Great Western Road on the auld Yoker run?/ The conductress aye knew how to deal wi’ the nyaff/If ye’re gaun, well c’moan, if ye’re no, well gittaff.

“I think o’ the days o’ ma tenement hame/we’ve got fancy hooses but they’re no the same/ I’ll swap your gizunder, flyovers and jams/ for a tuppeny ride on the auld Partick trams.

“Gone is the Clydebank I used tae know/big Wullie, wee Shooie, the steamie, the Co/the shilpit, wee bachle, the glaikit big dreep/ yer ba’s on the slates an yer gas in a peep.

“These days wur nae rosy and money was tight/the wages all finished by Setterday night/but still we came through it and weathered the ruts/ the reason is simple, our parents had guts.”

READ MORE: The Partick dentist who became a World War Two superspy

Like Betty, Frank Montague has many happy memories of a Glasgow childhood.

“I was born and bred in Govan and life was hard but good,” he says. “You had to make the best of it. In the tenements, three families shared a landing and a toilet and neighbours were good to each other.

“I worked from about the age of 10, delivering milk in the morning and newspapers at night, working for the butchers delivering parcels and going for sawdust for the floors.

“School holidays were great – I remember going to Lunderston Bay, near Gourock, or getting the Govan Ferry across to see the art galleries – magic. There were never enough hours in the day.”

He adds: “And tattie-picking with the school – the first time many of us had seen the countryside.”