Lamplighters, coalmen and selling flowers on the street - memories of Glasgow's long lost jobs

Did you buy a bunch of blooms from the flower seller on the street corner, or rush to the rag-and-bone man when he turned up outside your tenement?

Times Past is looking for your memories of Glasgow’s long-lost occupations – what jobs did your parents or grandparents or even great-grandparents do that are no longer around?

Author John Keeman, who has published his city childhood memoir, In the Shadow of the Crane, recalls his first job, aged around nine, working for the coalman.

“It was my first paid job, working for Sanny Lang, a coalman who stayed up a close in Argyle Street near the Buttery Restaurant, and stabled his horses in a lane off Hydepark Street,” says John.

READ MORE: Poverty, peevers and eggs in a tin: memories of a Finnieston childhood

“I got this job by hanging around the Minerva Street coal depot during the summer holidays and pestering the coalmen to let me look after the horses.

“One day, on our way to the stables after work, we were heading up Washington Street toward Anderston Cross when he handed me the reins.

“Prince, a massive black and white Clydesdale, was ambling along quietly enough when we reached the top of the street. The traffic policeman on duty, as was his normal routine when he saw horses coming up the street, stopped the traffic coming through the Cross to give the horses an uninterrupted run over the brow of the hill.

A rag and bone man trading balloons for rags in Finnieston in July 1964. Pic: Herald and Times

“This particular day, he was wearing a white arm band and when he raised his arm it spooked Prince who took off like a bat out of hell,” he says. “He charged through the cross and headed west up Argyle street with me screaming and pulling as hard as I could on the reins.”

John laughs: “My grandfather’s reaction was to laugh and yell at me to hang on, shouting Prince would run out of steam at the top of the street. Sure enough, he did. My grandfather told me to go into the Prince of Wales pub and get the ‘silly *******’ a pail of water, whilst he lit up a Woodbine…..”

Don McDonald, who grew up in Govanhill and now lives in Canada, remembers his first job, aged 13, delivering messages for the Polmadie Co-op.

“I had an oak, two-wheel cart, just like the railway porters used, with cast iron wheels and it weighed a ton,” he recalls.

“I wheeled that thing all over Polmadie and the east side of Govanhill. I would leave the barra at the close mouth and carry the boxes up the stairs and in two years I never had anybody steal anything from the cart. I got good tips, too.

“That was back in the day when people shopped ‘sustainably,’ by reusing a string bag (a bit like an old string vest) for potatoes and vegetables and another for the messages.

“They were way ahead of their time. A string bag could last ten years....”

Lamplighter. Picture: Herald and Times

Our photographers have captured all sorts of interesting jobs over the decades, like this rag and bone man from 1955. The chimney sweep was a common sight on city streets - this photograph from Glasgow City Archives is a fantastic shot.

Send us your stories and photographs about the long-lost occupations which once dominated Glasgow.

Email ann.fotheringham@glasgowtimes.co.uk or write to Ann Fotheringham, 125 Fullarton Drive, Glasgow East Investment Park, Glasgow G32 8FG.