Old Glasgow Club

 Minutes of Club Members’ Night held at Adelaide’s, 209 Bath Street on Thursday 10 February 2011 at 7.30pm – “A Night at the Pictures”

Attendance

128  -  all duly issued with a 2d admission ticket.

Cinema Manager

Mr Gordon (President)

Welcome

As the music died away, Mr Gordon welcomed members to the Cinema Night, emphasising that there was to be “nae spitting”.

Apologies

There were apologies from Isabel Haddow, Brian Henderson

Minutes

The minutes of the last ordinary meeting held on 13 January would be tabled next month.

Pathe News

The evening started with a showing of Pathe News circa 1955, featuring a plane trip to the island of Barra, the Black Watch being honoured in Korea, the Billy Graham Crusade, Amateur Ballroom Dancing and the Scottish football cup semi final between Rangers and Aberdeen, with 100,000 spectators.

Secretary’s report

Mrs McNae advised members of the Glasgow Film Festival taking place from February 17 to 27 and the Aye Write event from March 4 to 12. There would be a Club  excursion to the former Fairfield yard on 16 April and the Summer Outing would be to Paxton House (built 1758) on 11 June.

Interlude

There followed a screening of Pearl and Dean advertisements and a “Tom and Jerry” style cartoon called “The Grasshopper and the Ant” (including a period piece Coke advert).

Glasgow Film

We then had a publicity film about Glasgow (circa 1963), showing the bank and insurance offices, and other commercial buildings which were sprouting up in the city, whose population was around 1,000,000.  The film told of Glasgow’s history of trade with America by the Tobacco Lords. Glasgow made the Clyde and the Clyde made Glasgow; 16 million tons shipping passed through Glasgow each year. There were 20 shipbuilding yards, now starting to face competition from Japan.  There was boilermaking, carpet making and the manufacture of radar equipment.  The population of Glasgow had increased between 1800 and 1900 from  76,000 to 760,000.  New houses were being built in Castlemilk and the Gorbals were being redeveloped; population overspill was going to Kirkintilloch and Cumbernauld.  In their leisure time Glaswegians enjoyed their 60 parks and we saw footage of football at Hampden, trips “doon the watter” and entertainment on Glasgow Green. 

Interval

We were then treated to choc ices and ice lollies served by glamorous usherettes charmingly attired in red and black.

Voices from the Barras

Director Alan Knight and Producer Abi Howkins then introduced their film, which had been funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund.  They had compiled the film partly from people’s memories and partly from archive footage, and noted that “quite a few” potential contributors did not want to get involved (!). The film showed pictures of the “Pre Barras” market which operated from 1900 to 1921 and depicted Bill’s Tool Store, characters such as Malky the Travel Man, and the trader who bought a Bakelite radio from one stall for £1 and sold it on for £1.50.  There was much patter, banter  and a carnival atmosphere. Someone reminisced about strong snake oil, which would “blow your head off”.  There were photos of people moving round the stalls; it was all a social event and not about making money. It was the place to be before there were supermarkets and The Forge.

In conclusion it was noted that there are still plenty of “characters” about the Barras, some certifiable!

Vote of thanks

In proposing the vote of thanks, the President thanked all who had worked so hard to make the evening so memorable, especially those who had made the hats and trays for the usherettes, and to Gavin McNae who had edited the programme and acted as  “projectionist” for the evening.

In time honoured tradition, the audience stood for the National Anthem and Mr Gordon wished all a safe journey home.

JN Gibson, Recording Secretary