Readers help solve puzzles
SOLVING mysteries of Glasgow’s past is all in a day’s work for our readers.
Since the Evening Times launched its Thanks for the Memories series, we have been inundated with fantastic tales and wonderful photographs of life in the city over the decades.
Sometimes our readers turn detective to help those with puzzles to solve.
Jan Miller came along to our drop-in event at Partick Library, to share her memories of her much-loved mum Bella Cumberland who was a well-kent face in the area in the 50s and 60s.
“My mother never turned anyone away, she would always have a sandwich and a friendly word for every poor soul who appeared on her doorstep,” recalls Jan.
“Coming here today and looking at all the old photos I have of her just reminds me how kind she was.”
One picture in particular, however, had Jan stumped.
“I discovered this old photograph of my mother Bella and her sisters Frances and Annie, and their children,” she explains.
“But I don’t know where it was taken. We were brought up on Crawford Street, but it doesn’t look like it. The shop in the background isn’t familiar to me – it could be a fishmonger, or an ironmonger?
“I’d love to know if any old Partick residents can tell me the location?”
In fact, it wasn’t Partick at all, according to a reader who got in touch to tell us it was actually in Helensburgh.
She said it was taken on West Clyde Street at the junction of Colquhoun Street, opposite the pierhead. The building on the extreme right of the picture was her grandmother’s flat with a grain store on the ground floor.
The shop, she believes, WAS an ironmonger’s – Jan’s mystery was solved.
One of our Partick features prompted a few readers to ask where the ‘Tandragee’ tenement was, mentioned by Jean Mackie. Her father Tam Aird was the Partick coalman and she brought along albums of photographs to share, including one of her father and
his faithful horse outside the well-known building.
Reader Robert Masters came to the rescue.
“The Tandragee close was in Vine Street, roughly across from where Morrisons is now,” he told us. “I stayed at 100 Vine Street, down at the bridge at the bottom of the street and went to Rosevale Street School.”
We also ran a feature about the former British Linen Bank on Paisley Road West, now a shop with the original coat of arms still in place. The coat-of-arms of the bank, founded in Edinburgh in 1746, includes a lion, a horse and a Scottish saltire.
One of the most sensational crimes of twentieth century Scotland was committed at a British Linen Bank further along this road, in July 1955.
So keenly did it catch the imagination of the public that it became known as the “crime of the century”.
Planned by an organised carried out meticulously, to the second, and left a delivery man coshed, bound and gagged.
Reader James Fraser commented on the story: “I lived as a child at 19 Paisley Road West and my first savings account was at this bank. I remember well calling into this ‘palace’ to deposit my pennies.”
He added: “I also remember that next door to the bank was a pub called The Exhibition Bar, named after one of the great Glasgow Exhibitions in Bellahouston Park. Later it changed its name to The Quaich for many years, before closing.”
•We would love to hear more of your Glasgow memories. Through our library drop-in events, which have now taken place all over the city, and our letters page and email banks, we are compiling a fantastic archive of stories and pictures. Please write to Ann Fotheringham, Evening Times, 200 Renfield Street, Glasgow G2 3QB or email ann.fotheringham@heraldandtimes.co.uk with your stories and photos. Don’t forget to include a contact email address or telephone number.