Memories of tenement life bring neighbours together for chats at Partick Library

IT COULD be the old brass kettle, or the OXO cube, or even the strange-looking ceramic contraption which turns out to be a hot water bottle, that gets the conversation going.

Whatever sparks that first discussion, once the members of Partick Reminiscence Group get going, the memories come tumbling out.

Over tea and biscuits around the table in Partick Library, a bunch of local people – many of whom have lived in the area for 50 years and more – share their stories of Glasgow life.

Now the Evening Times wants you to join in. After a successful stop at Govanhill earlier in the year, our Thanks for the Memories tour continues to Partick this month, as we continue to capture old stories and photographs of the city’s fantastic past.

In every corner of Glasgow, there are storytellers who can recall the good old days in glorious colour.

It could be your granny or your next-door-neighbour, your great-uncle or the man who has run the local shop for 40 years.

We’ll be holding a drop-in session at Partick Library on Road from 10.30am until 12.30pm on Tuesday, August 28 and we would love to hear your stories and see your photographs of this part of the city.

Perhaps you remember the old shops which lined Dumbarton Road – Bayne and Duckett shoes, MacLeod grocer’s, McArthur’s the bakers and The Strand?

Were you a pupil at Anderson Street School? What were your teachers like? Do you still keep in touch with any of your classmates?

Maybe you swirled your loved one around the dance floor at F&F Palais de Danse (or tried out your skates in the building’s roller disco?)

This site, at 120 Dumbarton Road, was originally occupied by the Star Palace cinema, which opened in 1910 and closed in 1925. It was

‘‘ We included things like old tram tickets and evening gloves

acquired by entertainment entrepreneurs Fyfe & Fyfe who converted it into the combined roller skating rink and dance hall. In the 1960s, it was converted in to a bingo hall.

The Partick Reminiscence Group was the brainchild of Glasgow Life assistant Gemma Scott, who explains: “I thought we needed something like this in the library, a group that would bring older people together to share their memories.

“We run it once a month, on a different theme each time. We get a box of items from the Glasgow Museums Resource Centre to encourage discussion but it doesn’t take much, usually, to get the conversation flowing!”

Recent themes have included the high jinks people remember getting up to in childhood, a Glasgow night out, and the joys and challenges of tenement life.

“We get some real characters, with fantastic stories,” smiles Gemma.

The first session prompted one resident to recall having to go to hospital to have a pearl removed from his ear, only to stick it up his nose several years later; another remembers her sons selling ice lollies from her kitchen after she had bought a lollymaker mould for her new gas fridge.

Gemma adds: “For the tenement life discussion, we had all kinds of unusual household objects in the box – my favourite was something called the potato beetle which it turns out was a wooden potato-masher!

“For a Glasgow night out, we included things like old tram tickets and evening gloves, which was lovely.”

For Gemma, watching older residents of Partick come together to share their experiences has been a