Couple serve up a true vintage experience in West End tea room
Grand opening of building in 1947 is fondly remembered by avid reader
WHEN someone first steps into Samantha and Tony Newell’s kitchen, they might believe they’ve travelled back in time.
The walls are decorated with posters of rock-and-roll stars Elvis Presley and Gene Vincent. A radio on an art deco mantle plays oldies from the 1940s. Samantha, whose pin-curled hair is fastened with a pink flower to match her ankle-length skirt, bakes every kind of homemade good from Victorian sponge cakes to fresh scones.
Visitors won’t find internet for their electronics, but they will regularly see patrons from elderly couples enjoying tea to busy students working on assignments. That is because the dated tile floors and mismatched vintage furniture isn’t inside the Newell’s home – it’s their family business nestled cosily in an upstairs apartment on Ashton Lane.
“I want this to take them back to grandma’s house,” Samantha said. “When serving people things, I don’t do dainty. I give what I would like to have myself, so if I serve a piece of cake… it’s going to be a whole piece of cake.”
The Cup and Saucer Vintage was born out of the couple’s love for all things vintage. When Tony was 13-years-old, he came across a Gene Vincent record, and since then began styling himself as a Teddy Boy, complete with a greased quiff hairdo and tight jeans.
“Back then when I used to wear my leather jacket old ladies would walk across the road to avoid me,” Tony said. “But in Glasgow no one bats an eye. Most people react with a smile.”
While it took several years for the tea room to become the local staple it is today, the Newell’s partnership was love at first sight. The couple met on a school bus in 1982 when they were 15-years-old and married five years later. Samantha said she was initially into the hard rock of the 70s and 80s, but Tony’s passion for vintage slowly changed her aestheticism. She began by making her own circle skirts, and now exclusively wears vintage clothing like her husband.
Samantha said dressing in vintage makes her feel classy and smart; like she is part of an era where people cared about style and how they were presented. Sometimes patrons think the couple’s dress is a uniform, and that they go home and put on ‘normal clothes’ at the end of the day.
“It’s like a kind of uniform but it’s not,” Samantha said. “It’s just us. It’s not for the tearoom. It’s us every day.”
The business began when Samantha wanted to share her baking with the community. She initially ran it alone with Tony and their two children helping on weekends.
When Tony concluded his service in the Royal Navy after a 33-year career, he came to work full-time.
Most of the furniture comes from their home, as they try to live as authentic a vintage lifestyle they can. Any electronics they do use such as a microwave and CD player are hidden in cabinets. Some items are also donated by regulars to the café, such as a cabinet from a grandmother’s garage that now holds old saucers.
The Cup and Saucer is coming upon its eight-year anniversary, and the couple says its mission still stands: to give people living in the busy city of Glasgow a place to relax. Their advertisement is exclusively by word-of-mouth, and they are proud that the tearoom is not on the main street.
Tony said they don’t want to put more tables in so people are sat on top of each other because it would ruin the homey feel. However, even with no advertisement there is still a queue to get in on weekends, which he said is a testament to his wife’s baking.
Leslie Watson, a woman in her 60s returning to school to study climate justice, has become a regular patron to the Cup and Saucer because of its relaxing atmosphere.
“I feel like I’m at my grandparents’ house; like everything’s okay in the world,” Leslie said.
The couple – who call each other their best friend – have no plans to change the shop anytime soon. In their spare time Samantha said she has dreams to be on the British Bake Off, and Tony DJs local rockabilly shows as ‘DJ Sailor Tony.’
Both say that they aren’t trying to be pretentious by their vintage lifestyle, but that they want to create a little home in Glasgow for those who need it.
“We hope that they leave full of the happy memories that we’ve taken them back to,” Samantha said.
The Cup and Saucer is open every day except Thursday – Samantha’s ‘big baking day’ – until 5pm.
ON A chilly autumn morning in 1947, Cardonald got its first library – and Ina McKeown was there to see it.
“I remember standing outside at the official opening, when I just a wee girl,” she recalls. “And I’ve been coming here once a week since then…”
The library, which moved location to its current building in 1970 and last year enjoyed a fantastic refurbishment, inspired a lifelong love of books in Ina and her family.
Her daughter Mary Gillespie, niece Margaret Tweedle and great-niece Heather Tweedle, who came along to our recent Thanks for the Memories event, are all avid readers.
“I was sent to the library with my mum’s shopping trolley, taking back the books for my gran, grandpa and my mother,” says Mary. “It was always three each for them, and three for me. I can still recall the day my mum said it was okay for me to get a book that wasn’t from the children’s section.”
She laughs: “I was 13 and it was a Stephen King horror – it terrified me completely and kept me awake that night, but I still love his books and read them to this day.”
Heather has transformed her spare room into a mini-library.
“I love books, and that library is inspired by Ina and my gran and grandpa,” she smiles. “I remember when I was little, sitting on the scratchy carpet in the kids’ corner and choosing my own books. I love coming here.”
Ina moved to Cardonald from the East End, the third youngest in a family of nine children.
“I had never seen so much green,” she marvels. “We told everyone we were moving to the countryside. It was a wonderful place to live. I remember the old picture halls – no-one had a TV in those days, so you went to the cinema for your entertainment.
“You could get into the Westway for a penny ha’penny, there was the Aldwych, and the Mosspark, which was a fleapit.
“When we did get a telly, just in time for the Queen’s coronation, everyone in the street came in to watch it.”
Ina’s memories of old Cardonald delighted the fantastic group of residents who came along to the library to share their stories of the area.
“In the 50s, I actually left Cardonald for California,” she explains. “We’d had a big family argument about my dog getting put down, so I stormed off and went to America..Most teenagers go to their room and slam the door – I left the country.”
“My friend was out there already, so it seemed like a good time to go,” explains Ina. “I loved it. I worked as a typist for an insurance company in LA.
“When I went in for my interview, they gave me a typewriter to use, but it was electric – I had only ever worked on manual ones before, and as soon as I touched it, it whooshed away from me. I got the job and started the next day.”
Ina laughs: “We stayed there for three years, moving around the country, and if we got fed up of the American boys chatting us up, we’d just talk really broad Glaswegian and they wouldn’t have a clue what we were saying.”
We would love to hear more of your Glasgow memories – where did you grow up? Where did you work? What are your favourite memories of your old neighbourhood? Can you remember the old theatres, dance halls and shops? Which ones stick in your mind?
Through our regular 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, all dedicated to the city we love.
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.