Helping power
IT was built in 1900 to provide power to Glasgow’s trams and when its cooling tower was added in 1954, it was the tallest in Europe.
For Rita Henderson, Pinkston Power Station was a local landmark, inextricably linked to the social history of Port Dundas and her own family’s past.
“We have a long connection with the station,” explains Rita. “My father, Robert Kennedy, was a tram driver after the war and eventually worked at Pinkston where he met his future wife, my mum Margaret Luke.
“She worked in the canteen. Her father, my grandfather Henry Luke worked there for many years as a labourer – in this photograph of all the male workers at Pinkston, taken some time in the 1930s, you can see him, seated second right in the second row. “It is a stern-faced assemblage. Note also, the well-dressed, superiorlooking chap at front centre, the foreman, wearing his badge of authority, a bowler hat.”
Rita adds: “The station was built at the beginning of the last century to provide electricity for tram cars and later, trolley buses. “As a wee girl, I used to see it every day when visiting my gran and grandpa at their house on Pinkston Road. I now live in Craigend but still have many happy memories of the area where I grew up.”
Rita has a fantastic collection of photographs of her family – her grandparents, Henry and Margaret pictured in the mid20s, just after they married; her parents, Robert and Margaret Kennedy, on their wedding day in June 1948; and a great shot