More Garrowhill Reminiscences

From: Steve

The Garrowhill burn must be nearly all under ground. It was all downhill from the church and Garrowhill School; the contours suggesting that at the junction of Glasgow Rd. and Hillsborough Rd ., where McAdam's used to be, there should have been a burn leading into the Scott Maxwell Estate. In fact I do remember a wee burn but it had a small flow. I remember the bing that formed a dam into this burn and when it rained heavily it formed Garrow Loch, as we kids called it.

Where does the boundary of Garrowhill and Baillieston meet south of Glasgow Rd.? When I was a child, there were no houses south of Glasgow Road, from Beech Ave. all the way to Sandyhills, except for Mc.Adam's shop and Robertsons' shop in Barrachnie and of course the Savation Army homes in Barrachnie.

The teachers at Garrowhill when I left for Hutchy in 1948, were, starting at Grade one, or whatever they call it these days, Miss Mitchell (who we all loved), Miss Ferrier, Miss Dow, Miss Grey, Miss Reid, Mr. Trevora (spelling?), Mr Dalziel and Miss Wilson (the dragon). Where did we play sport? In the playground. We had sprints, three legged races, football with a tennis ball or the ilk. There were lots of skinned knees! The big area of ground to the south of the main building was just a paddock.

I don't ever remember a phone box in Garrowhill. I remember our home phone number, Baillieston 229. I remember how we used to pick up the phone at the bottom of my Grandmother's street in Shettleston and ask for Baillieston tick tick tick. The operator would say Baillieston tick tick tick what? We would answer "tick tick tick it up yer bum ! "

I joined the Garrowhill Junior Tennis Club in 1948 for 12/6d. They were great tennis courts and were well patronised every evening in summer. It is also where all the Garrowhill kids met in the summer evenings.

Garrowhill Park was used for football, headers, skid kids on bikes and cricket in summer and rounders. On the hill we loved to sledge at every opportunity. The swings were where we met the girls!

Sure there were characters in my days in Garrowhill. I mentioned them in my wee story on Garrowhill. There were lots more. Dirty wee Billy McKnight from Baillieston was also well known. I can't repeat here what he used to do to shock the Garrowhill kids.

The lanes were great. We could sneek into the back gardens an' pinch apples an' pears. We even pinched grapes an' tomatoes from the greenhouses. You only had to carefully remove a pane of glass!

Garrowhill house was used for providing hot lunches for the Garrowhill school kids. Whale meat and black looking spuds with cabbage an' gravy was the order of the day. Followed by a brown bit of dumpling an' custard. Sometimes semolina an' tapioca. It also was used as a library. It had a beautiful stairwell but terrible wallpaper peeling off at the joins, in every room, an' it smelled real musty. It had a caretaker's cottage and the son was called Garry and he had built a tree house in one of the tall beech trees. He was a good pal.

From: Lizzie

The shops at the roundabout, what were they all originally?
 
I remember my Mum telling me she used to go to Garrowhill Co. during the war, and later I think there was a Galbraiths there later, in the 60's.

From: Doug

........Brought back lots of memories of the Park - which obviously others share - sitting  in the swingpark sherricking the tennis players, football in the long summer evenings, sledging down the Big Hill,  dreeping off the the wall at the top of the stairs up to the Lesser Hall (before they did the extensions), being in the vicinity of the "stone through the church window during evensong" incident and running like buggery but having to face the consequences of being tall, red-haired and recognisable at a distance.
 
Like Steve I remember Garrowhill House with the gravel path which circled it and served as a great speedway track. The library there introduced me to Just William, Biggles, the Hardy Boys etc.
 
I recall that before they built the annexes at the school overflow classes were held in the British Legion Hall (Miss Dow) and we had to clear out early each morning so they could set up for school dinners (we didn't call it lunch). Presumably this venue took over from Garrowhill House where Steve so enjoyed his meals but the menu remained fairly similar. What could you expect for a fourpenny dinner ticket? Mrs Downie was in charge, very definitely. School meals for the whole area were prepared in a complex next door to St Bridget's School.
 
Adding to Steve's list of GPS teachers (in the period 1945-51): Hammy the headmaster ("Good morning Mr Hamilton"), Young Miss Stewart (I remember her cuddling Billy Gray. I was consumed with envy), Old Miss Stewart, Miss Chalmers the singing teacher who taught us "Lavender blue, diddle, diddle, lavender green.  I'll be your king, diddle, diddle, if you'll be my queen.", Mr Frame who never taught me, much to my chagrin, he seemed to be more fun than most, Mr Ogg who took "drill" (He used to award a weekly coloured sash, not to the best gymnast but to the person who he said tried hardest. Everyone got it eventually, even me).

On Saturday mornings we went to the pictures. The Odeon Club programme started with the singalong. A slide would appear on the screen with the words printed along the bottom. The bouncing ball kept us in time and the manager tried to keep us under control. I remember particularly "Two Lovely Black Eyes" and "I'm Forever Blowing Bubbles". I could sing them today.
 
After much shouting, whistling (what was the secret of that piercing sound some boys could make by sticking two fingers in their mouths?) and stamping of feet the show proper would start with several cartoons, then a short comedy such as The Three Stooges or Laurel and Hardy, followed by the cliff-hanger serial (I still recall how cheated I felt when Kit Carson got a knife in the back at the end of episode 12, but at the start of episode 13 he saw the bad guy reflected in a mirror and ducked in time).
 
Finally came the main feature, always a cowboy picture - Roy Rogers, Hopalong Cassidy etc. We preferred Hoppy to Roy because he wasn't interested in girls. His sidekick, Lucky, did that stuff while Gabby Hayes tut-tutted in the background.

The Odeon Club, Shettleston
First in got the best seats

When the happy days of rock and roll came along Saturday night dances in the Legion Hall attracted talent from miles around. The four piece band was magic and the highlight of their repertoire was "I found my thrill in old Garrowhill" featuring a very unlikely Fats Domino soundalike. We were in awe of a genuine teddy boy from Tollcross whom we tried to dub "Mississippi" but I don't think it stuck. He had the drape, whole back, velvet collared jacket down to his knees, the drainpipe trousers stopping three inches above the ankle to display luminous purple socks and side-buckled shoes with two inch thick crepe soles, the high collared shirt from Esquire of Cambridge Street, the Tony Curtis haircut from Fusco's, and, if rumour was to be believed, a tomahawk tucked into his belt. My Mum wouldn't let me dress like that but I did have a cutaway collar and a slim jim tie. In those days before disco, the in thing was the moondance, ("D'ye dae the moonie?" "Ye askin?"), male both hands on female waist (at least to start), female both hands on male shoulders, foreheads stuck together, shuffle. From there we graduated to the Denny Palais, the Locarno, the Majestic (the Eric Delaney Big Band played there sometimes) and, if you were looking for a better class of burd, the Albert (trouble with the Albert Ballroom was that you had to try to act sober on the way in or you got chucked out, as indeed I did but it wasn't my fault).

Regarding the Camp Road roundabout, I remember a large water tank in the centre during the war (that's the 39-45 one), mainly because my mother thumped me for climbing on it. It was replaced by a green and cream wooden bungalow used as consulting rooms by Dr Tanner. We never went to her because Dad didn't approve of lady doctors.
 
Lizzie, originally there was a single block of two shops - Scottish Co-operative Wholesale Society - a grocers and a dairy. Around 1950 several shops were built between Thornbridge Road and Maxwell Drive. The big one in the middle was, as you say, Galbraith's and on one end was Charlie Mitchell's newsagency. He had previously been employed by or in partnership with McLaughlin of Main Street, Baillieston. He paid me a pound a week (he was from Aberdeen) to deliver magazines and the Sunday papers. How I dreaded Radio Times day; everybody got one and they were heavy. On the plus side I got a free read of a variety of stuff including the fondly remembered Reveille with its page three girl on page one.

From: Junior

The first time I came upon this roundabout was when I was 11 (1977). I met a few of my school pals from doon the baux and we walked up to the Garrowhill train station so we could go to Glasgow and see the Queen on her silver jubilee. It was the 1st time I had been allowed to go in tae the toon on my own, so was feeling very grown up. We waited for hours in George's Square only to get a brief glimpse of her as she rode in her coach.

From: john h

This brings back memories. I used to pass the roundabout every day on my way to Garrowhill Primary. We used to go to the newsagents at dinner time for pickled onion crisps a buttered role and a quarter of cola cubes or soor plumes or pear drops. Those were the days. Later on there was a hairdresser there and I did the upholstery for them.

From: Steve

I remember the Odeon club, admission 4d, and a penny half in the tram. I also remember the State on a Saturday afternoon. We didn't have a matinee, so we paid full price, 10d for the back stalls. Every so often they had The Mummy, Frankenstein, The Wolfman (we were all fascinated by Lon Chaney changing into a wolfman, hair by hair and tooth by tooth). It was under 16 not admitted to these  'horror' movies but the theatre was full of kids, not one over fourteen.
There we were all sitting smoking cinnamon sticks.
Isn't it great; you went to the picture at night and all the adults smoked. It was bloody awful and a wunner we are all no deid wi ' lung cancer fae all that passive smokin'.!
We used to take our fathers' old beer bottles down to the Durtocher Inn so that we could go to the State, when we ran out of pocket money that is.
The films we all loved were Old Mother Reilly, The Bowery Boys, Blondie (with Dagwood Bumstead,) Tarzan, cowboy movies of any kind (and didn't we all love Gabby Hayes, a kind of early period Willy Nelson) and of course, Laurel & Hardy and Bud Abbott and Lou Costello. As an aside we have in our government here in Oz two ministers called Abbott and Costello. They are a laugh but for different reasons.
The very best film that I ever saw was at the Palaceum. It was The Thief Of Baghdad with Sabu. I have it on video and my kids and grandkids have all seen it and it won't be many years before my great greatkids will see it too!

From: Nancy

Steve, to add to your list of great GPS teachers, my all time favourite was Mr. Frame (Sandy) who was my qualifying teacher.  He was quite musically inclined and was a member of the Rutherglen Rep Theatre.  He composed the music for their revues and, as a member of the school choir, I was in a children's chorus of a play they did in the Atheneum in Glasgow when I was about 10 or 11.  I should hasten to add that that was the end of my "stage" career, so I definitely don't qualify as a "celebrity" -- ha! ha!
 
The Garrowhill House I do remember as being a library -- don't remember the school dinners as I always went home at lunch time.  We were married in the Mure Memorial Church by Rev. Kinnis -- and I remember being interviewed by him before the wedding and his stomach was rumbling and grumbling the whole time... what a memory to have of your minister, eh?  My memory of the British Legion hall was the Saturday night jazz club held there in the early 60's, before the age of disco.
 
As kids, we spent a lot of time playing at the swing park on Garrowhill Drive, next to the tennis courts, and also at the park on Mt. Vernon Avenue, behind the Church Army Houses, which was where the Shettleston Harriers trained.  When they built the running track, we were really in good shape, running the 3 laps for a mile.

A Christmas recollection fom Steve: