FULL FORCE GALE

REMEMBERING THE GREAT STORM OF GLASGOW

IT took shape in the Bahamas, powered its way over the Azores, and was forecast to rush past the west coast of Scotland, leaving merely a few gusts of wind as its calling card. But the mundanelynamed Hurricane Low Q suddenly locked horns with another weather front, abruptly changed direction, and thundered up the River Clyde, gathering record speeds of over 125 mph as it hungrily tore through the black sky, 50 years ago on the night of January 14, 1968.

Glasgow bore the brunt of it, mercifully at four in the morning when few people were about on the streets, as slates, bricks and debris ripped through the air like deadly ordnance. But the late hour did not save those cowering in their beds, the wind keening outside as windows bulged, and teetering chimney stacks collapsed through tenement roofs like the bombs of the Blitz only two decades earlier.

There had been no warning, and when a grey dawn finally raised its sickly head in Scotland, 20 people were dead, nine of them in Glasgow.

The worst loss of life was in a tenement on Dumbarton Road in Partick. Two mothers and their two daughters died as a chimney stack from the adjoining tenement plunged through their roof, with their bodies found by rescuers the following day after a 12-hour search in the debris-strewn basement. One of the mothers was from Swindon in southwest England and was only in Glasgow to attend the funeral of her mother, who had died in a fire. Seemingly slight decisions taken that night decided whether people lived or died. A nine-year-old girl who had been playing with one of the Dumbarton Road victims had wanted a sleepover with them. Her parents said no, a decision which saved her life.

A pregnant nurse from Malaysia died in Maryhill from a similar chimney collapse. In Bonhill, Dunbartonshire, a motorist was killed when a tree hit his car while he was driving his wife to hospital to give birth. His wife and future child survived. Meanwhile in Govan a father took his pregnant wife to hospital – and went home the next day to find his flat had collapsed while his family were at the maternity hospital.

Many people have graphic memories of that night. As one Glaswegian recalled: “I remember my wee maw hugging me and my sister in the scullery as the lino flapped up and down like Ali Baba’s magic carpet. I thought it was brilliant till I looked at my mother’s horrified face and then I knew it was really serious.”

There was even some humour amid the devastation. Herald reader David McKenzie, living in the west end, remembers a neighbour worrying about his new car. Said David: “His wife persuaded him to dig out his old air raid warden tin hat and wear it for protection when he went out to check. He got to his car and satisfied it was undamaged turned to go home when the wind caught the edge of his tin hat which flew off his head and straight into the windscreen of his new car.”

All night the rescue services were deluged with calls. Two reception centres were set up in Govan and Shettleston to take in those who had escaped tumbling walls.

In Springburn, this parked car was mangled by a falling chimney stack. Wind speeds of more than 125mph were recorded on January 14, 1968