CHRISTMAS PAST

FROM SICK CHILDREN IN HOSPITAL TO A COUPLE’S LATE-NIGHT KISS, WE TAKE A FESTIVE DIP INTO THE HERALD PHOTOGRAPHIC ARCHIVES

A fond look back at how we used to celebrate the festive season

ON December 22, 1932, the Glasgow Herald carried a heartfelt letter from Robert Barclay, chairman of the city’s Royal Hospital for Sick Children. He wrote that, on Christmas Day, there would be some 350 children in the hospital and in the county branch in Dunbartonshire – a larger

Nurses and children at the Royal Hospital for Sick Children in Glasgow during the Christmas party in 1932

number, he added, than in any other UK hospital devoted to children.

“Why are they there?” he asked. “They seek those precious things – healing, health and happiness – and thereby a chance to make good in the world.”

Mr Barclay went on to ask people to donate to Yorkhill, and also to act as Santa Claus to the hospital’s children. They “naturally love toys and picture-books to while away the time … and they also thoroughly appreciate such gifts as jam, fruit, vegetables, rabbits, articles of clothing for use on leaving the hospital, etc. The nurses, too, who devote themselves untiringly to their labour of love, should surely be remembered.”

The photograph on the previous spread shows children and nurses at Yorkhill’s Christmas party. It’s tempting to wonder about the scale of the reader response to Mr Barclay’s appeal.

The photograph is a reminder that, while the staff photographers at The Herald and its sister paper the Evening Times routinely covered key news and sports events, they could also turn their hand to festive celebrations.

Pantos, of course, are a traditional part of Christmas. The next-oldest picture here is a well-known one from 1942: it was taken at the Alhambra Theatre panto, Jack and the Beanstalk, and shows Jack (played by

Hillary Allan) with Harry Gordon and Will Fyffe.

In December 1949 one of our staff photographers headed for Renfrew and the Christmas party for children of employees at the Scottish Cables company. Whatever is it these youngsters are eating, they were certainly enjoying it.

George Square has long been the focal point of Christmas in Glasgow, though one courting couple seemed to have other things on their mind as they waited for a late-night bus, as the city’s lighting department was trying out the square’s festive lights in 1975.

And George Square was again the venue, in 1991, when seven-year-old Sinead Gallagher switched on Glasgow’s Christmas lights – aided by Lord Provost Susan Baird and none other than Supercop, aka Rikki Fulton.

All of these photographs are among the dozens available to buy, framed or ready to frame, from the Herald Picture Store, which showcases the finest images from the archives of Newsquest Scotland.

The photographs in the Picture Store have been selected and captioned by Norry Wilson, a former Herald journalist who now runs the Lost Glasgow page on Facebook, which has more than 140,000 followers. Lost Glasgow is currently staging an exhibition, More Than Just Memories, at Maryhill Burgh Halls.

While the staff photographers at The Herald and its sister paper the Evening Times routinely covered key news and sports events, they could also turn their hand to festive celebrations

HERALD PICTURE STORE The online store allows you to browse our selection of photographs ranging from sport and politics to Glasgow street scenes, and purchase a range of framed or mounted prints from as little as £14.99. Take advantage of the special...

Clockwise from left: Jack and the Beanstalk at the Alhambra Theatre in Glasgow, 1942; a courting couple ignore the Christmas lights in the city’s George Square in 1975; the children of workers at the Scottish Cables company in Renfrew tuck into festive...