Free Articles on Destinations and many other topics
Another free Destinations article for you by William Meikle
Titled: Glasgow - A City of Contradictions Get the Destinations category RSS Feed

Glasgow - A City of Contradictions

Article Summary: Glasgow is a city of contradictions. It is the place in Scotland where you’re most likely to get into a fight with a total stranger for no apparent reason. It is also the place where you’re most likely to meet with random acts of altruistic kindness.

Glasgow is a city of contradictions. It is the place in Scotland where you’re most likely to get into a fight with a total stranger for no apparent reason. It is also the place where you’re most likely to meet with random acts of altruistic kindness.

When I was a lad, back in the early 1960s, we lived in a town 20 miles south of Glasgow, and it was an adventure to the big city when I went with my family on shopping trips. Back then the city was a Victorian giant going slowly to seed. It is often said that the British Empire was built in Glasgow on the banks of the river Clyde. Back when I was young, the shipyards were still going strong, and the city centre itself still held on to some of its past glories. It was a warren of tall sandstone buildings and narrow streets, with Edwardian trams still running through them. The big stores still had pneumatic delivery systems for billing, every man wore a hat, collar and tie, and steam trains ran into grand vaulted railway stations filled with smoke. To a young boy from the sticks it seemed like a grand place. It was only later that I learned about the knife gangs that terrorized the dance halls, and the serial killer, Bible John, who frequented the same dance floors, quoting scripture as he lured teenage girls to a violent end.

Fast forward fifteen years, and I was at University in the city, and getting an education into the real heart of the place. I learned about bars, and religious divides. Glasgow is split along tribal royalties. Back in the Victorian era, shiploads of Irishmen came to Glasgow for work. The protestants went to one side of the city, the catholics to the other. There they set up homes… and football teams. Now these teams are the biggest sporting giants in Scotland, two behemoths that attract bigots like bees to a honey pot. As a student I soon learned how to avoid giving away my religion in bars, and which ones to stay out of on match days.

Also by the time I was a student, a lot of the tall sandstone buildings had been pulled down to make way for tower blocks. Back then they were the new shiny future, taking the people out of the Victorian ghettos and into the present day.

Fast forward to the present day and there are all new ghettos. The tower blocks are ruled by drug gangs and pimps. Meanwhile there have been many attempts to gentrify the city centre, with designer shops being built in old warehouses, with docklands developments building expensive apartments where sailors used to get services from hard faced girls, and with shiny, trendy bars full of glossy expensively dressed bankers.

And underneath it all, the old Glasgow still lies, slumbering, a dreaming god waiting for the stars to be right again.

Article Source: http://www.upublish.info

About the Author:
William Meikle
The Midnight Eye, William Meikle, knows the ways of the old city. And, if truth be told, he prefers them to the new. He has written two novels set in the dear green place. Find out more at http://ww.williammeikle.com