Souvenirs help to relive festival magic
Workshops at city’s Mitchell Library give fans of 1988 event a chance to reminise
THERE are all sorts of weird and wonderful stories wrapped up in Glasgow Garden Festival memorabilia.
This year marks the 30th anniversary of the magical event, which turned the city riverside’s shades of grey a glorious green.
More than four million people visited and highlights included the Coca-Cola rollercoaster, Oor Wullie’s Garden and the innovative Homes for the Future.
The Mitchell Library is hosting a series of drop-in workshops next week for those who want to reminisce about the festival and share their recollections of it.
On display will be a fascinating selection of ephemera including a Royal souvenir brochure and site plans, including one annotated to show the map of the procession for the royal opening, as well as maps and menus, and brochures from the Beechgrove Garden who took up residence there for the duration of the event.
There are educational schools packs, car stickers, merchandise posters, comics and even Glasgow Garden Festival knitting patterns as well as news articles from the Evening Times and its sister newspaper The Herald.
The drop-in event – Mitchell Curious: Glasgow’s Garden Festival – will offer visitors the chance to view items from the collection and ask librarians questions about them.
The Mitchell’s Special Collections Librarian Ellen Sykes explains: “The festival still holds a special place in people’s hearts, 30 years on.
“Our collection is a lovely look back at some of the souvenirs and artefacts people could get at the time.
“There really isn’t too much remaining of the festival at all, so it’s great to have these snippets of it, donated by festival-goers and members of staff over the years.”
She smiles: “One of my favourites is the official cross stitch pattern which was donated by a staff member, and I love the jigsaw.
“The ashtray is an interesting one – I don’t think any festival would hand those out nowadays.”
One of the Mitchell’s own members of staff, Susan Crowall, had a season ticket for the festival and she donated many of the collection’s interesting souvenirs, including the whisky jug and the knitting pattern, complete with half-finished jumper.
“Susan started to make the jumper and then discovered she was pregnant, so it never got completed,” laughs Ellen. “She says she might finish it one day…”
beautifully The collection preserved includes a paper napkin, cheerful car stickers and lots of photographs.
“Through the collection and the workshops we ran earlier in the year, the stories we hear from people who visited the Garden Festival are all about how enjoyable it was – how they had a great day, and how proud they were of having such a huge, national event in their city,” explains Ellen.
“It changed the way people thought about Glasgow. A couple of years later, along came the City of Culture, and suddenly it seemed Glasgow was on the up.”
The newspaper clippings from the time tell a fascinating story of what was going on in and around the festival site.
There’s a story about the Duke of Edinburgh visiting before Prince Charles and Princess Diana made the official trip. Prince Philip got a sneak peek of the site from the top of a 1901 tram car. There’s a lovely tale of 12-year-old Jane Rafferty, a first year pupil at St Gerard’s Secondary, who had to act as a stand-in for Princess Di at the rehearsal, and a hilarious story, which may or may not be true, about Shakin’ Stevens buying some of the ‘homes for the future’ houses and transporting them down south to his estate.
Ellen was only four years old in 1988, but she recalls visiting the festival with her grandmother.
“I just remember the sights and sounds, and how enormous everything was – especially the Coca-Cola rollercoaster,” she smiles.
“Everyone remembers it as bright and colourful and sunny – there’s a lot of fondness for it, and the workshops are open to anyone who wants to come along and relive a little part of it. We’re hoping it will bring back a few memories.”
The Mitchell Curious events will be held on June 25 and 28 at 12.30pm, and on June 27 at 6.30pm, although customers are able to request to view items held in the Special Collections at any time. Call 0141 287 2999 for more information.
‘‘ Our collection is a lovely look back at some of the souvenirs
Do you have special memories of Glasgow’s Garden Festival? Email your stories and photos to ann,fotheringham@ heraldandtimes.co.uk