I GREW UP IN GLASGOW ‘Duncan Macrae taught my mother at school...’

Earliest memory of Glasgow?

I was born and grew up in a tenement room and kitchen one up, in Anderston, with my mum and dad, three brothers and two sisters. I have many memories from wartime, from age four to 10.

One evening the siren sounded and we headed for our air raid shelter below the tenements. A couple of hours later, there was an almighty bang. Enemy planes had dropped a landmine on the munitions factory on Finnieston Street which made bullet cases for rifles.

These empty cases were strewn all over Finnieston and Anderston for months on end. My pals and I used to stuff our pockets full of them.

They were useful for so many games (using for cash when playing cards, for example, or lining up on a wall to see who could knock down the most.) Describe your house: My parents slept in a recess bed in the kitchen and we slept in two double beds head to toe…my father also bred canaries, who lived in four cages screwed to the wall of our bedroom.

What school did you go to? Our windows faced the boys’ gate of Finnieston Primary, which all of us kids and my mum attended.

My mum’s first teacher was Duncan Macrae, famous for Whisky Galore. A famous pupil was Gordon Jackson who starred in many films and TV series I remember one day after school being sent to the chemist by my mother for some ‘Ipecacuanha Wine’ – an old tonic.

I couldn’t pronounce so the chemist sent me home to ask my mother to write it down, and by the time I got back, after stopping to blether to my pals on the way, he had shut for the night. That was one slap on the lugs I did deserve… Happiest childhood memory: My uncle Freddy was a horse and cart driver, working all over Glasgow. I remember once, when I was about six years old, he took me on a Govan trip via the ‘Clyde Tunnel’ – but not the one we know today. Back then we had to go down a huge lift to a road built under the Clyde, and on the other side, came up again in another lift. The stations for the lift are now, of course, The Rotundas.