Glasgow trepidation melts into finest of times

BEWARE Sauchiehall Street. That was the warning I had been issued on three separate occasions. Awkward really. Glasgow doesn’t have a lot to brag about – and here was one of a select few of its bling features being trashed.

I had wandered off for a brief sojourn, away from living in London, and had discovered, like many traveller before me, that nothing could quite prepare you for the ornate magnificence of Edinburgh.

It is such an architectural spectacle that it seems more a perfectly replicated movie set than a grandly arranged collection of actual lived-in structures.

But it was in its simpler, more ordinary and somewhat neglectedlooking sibling that I was apparently on shaky ground. Glasgow – for the uninitiated – is a strangely haunting, shadowy, yet compelling assembly of the historic, industrial and modern. It has a Hogwarts School touch and is not afraid to proudly show off its blue-collar face.

Pleasant – even if a little too humdrum for some. “What’s the best thing to do in Glasgow?’’ goes a selfdeprecating tag. “Visit Edinburgh.’’

But it’s a bit rough in Sauchiehall Street, they said. In the same way that you might say Hillbrow is a little dodge. The only problem was, those cautionary observations about Scotland’s largest city’s famous and culturally diverse thoroughfare were being articulated only after I had checked into my budget-style but perfectly comfortable accommodation. My address? Half a block – say 20 metres – from Sauchiehall.

Ignorance, of course, is bliss. But can also prove a blessing. The pavements lined with a lucky dip of nicknack shops, gaming halls, ancient pubs and myriad bistros, had already qualified in my eyes the night before as the spot to be in Glasgow. Put simply: I had an absolute jol.

Issued at another time, those red flags would have probably stopped me from visiting Sauchiehall, and I would not have had the privilege of experiencing its undisputed Scottish and cosmopolitan charm.

It’s about the perplexity of pre-laid perceptions, something tourists around the globe are familiar with. Just when is a no-go area in any of the great cities really a no-go area?

Tour operators have to grapple with the question endlessly.

For instance, there are loads of alleyways in London that look as though they harbour the most appalling criminals; ready to slit your throat for your mobile. Until you see a young mother laden with shopping bags breezily pushing a pram down the sidewalk, utterly unperturbed.

Just one month ago, Sauchiehall featured in a controversial BBC documentary which provided a grim catalogue of violence, racist attacks, drug-dealing and the menacing behaviour of drunken yobs. No doubt those in City Hall and Glaswegians who weren’t in favour of independence for Scotland were now having a re-think about their allegiance to Great Britain and tolerance of its media.

It just goes to show – no matter where you are in the world, one place can have many faces.

Perhaps the programme prompted some record-breaking clean-up, but I doubt it. Any sign of social disintegration in Sauchiehall was limited to a few 2am screams. The type that are the direct by-product of Scotland’s most famous export.