Glasgow Gallivanting: October 2024

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Margaret and Becky enjoying lunch in Bath

Those of you who know Becky, aka The Queen of Squares (The Life of B) and / or Margaret (From Pyrenees to Pennines) will have gathered that the three of us spent a few October days together in Bradford-on-Avon, Becky’s new home town. A grand time was had by all, as evidenced by the smiles in the photo above, and I can report that Becky is definitely the hostess-with-the mostest! As an added bonus, we also had a Zoom call with Sue (Words Visual) while we were there. A full post of our adventures up hill and down dale will follow (eventually).

After that highlight, here is the rest of the month!

Back in 2020, when I had used lockdown to catch up with my travel diaries, I cast around for something to write about and came up with a short series on Glasgow graveyards. Almost as an afterthought I included the burial ground of the long-demolished Maryhill Old Parish Church. Inaccessible, derelict, and overgrown, it had little to recommend itself but some interesting history.

Graveyards of Glasgow: Maryhill Old Parish Church

Fast forward four years, and a lot has changed. A Friends of Maryhill Road Graveyard group has been set up and members have done wonders. On the first Sunday of October they had an open day to display their progress.

Looking onto Maryhill Rd
Fallen Celtic cross
Fallen stone with tribute
Seating area
Monument of Rev Robery MacNair Wilson
Monument of Rev Robery MacNair Wilson
Martyr’s Memorial

The monument of which I have included a close up of the inscription is to Rev Robert MacNair Wilson (1799-1874), the first minister of the church. The story of how he got the job through the actions of a determined woman is in my original post, above. The newly painted pillar is the Martyr’s Memorial, erected around 1835 to a Trade Union Martyr, George Millar, who was “mortally stabbed on the 24th February 1834 by one of those put to the Calico Printing Trade for the purpose of destroying a Union of the regular workman “. We had an interesting chat with the two committee members on duty and I shall definitely be keeping an eye open for more developments.

Glasgow University’s new buildings continue to provide interest. In the ARC (Advanced Research Centre) we came across a hard-hitting exhibition Victorious Voices, part of the Scottish Mental Health Arts Festival, which explored the resilience of survivors of child sexual abuse. The larger part of the display comprised portraits of the survivors along with attached cards telling their stories.

Exhibition information board
General view of portraits

There was also a section on art as a therapeutic tool. All exhibits were labelled with the age of the person when abused, some of them very young. It was distressing to read.

Victorious Voices artwork
Art work label

After ARC we walked through the Clarice Pears Building, hone to the School of Health and Wellbeing, where we found something more cheerful: a mosaic of a Glasgow street scene made up entirely of tiny photographs of staff members. People Make Glasgow is the city’s current marketing slogan.

Staff members make Glasgow!
Explanation section

Also at Glasgow University, I wanted to re-examine the Quincentennial Gates, covered with the initials of the great and the good associated with the university over five centuries. We stop here on the Women’s Library West End Walk to point out that there is only one woman named, Isabella Elder, but now I have a new fact to add. From 1563 until 1736 witchcraft was a capital offence in Scotland. Per capita, this country executed more “witches”, mainly but not all women, than anywhere else in Europe during this period. At a talk on places in Glasgow connected with the witch-hunts I learnt that the Maxwell prominently named on the gates is Sir John Maxwell of Pollok who was Rector of the University between 1691 and 1718 and took part in the prosecution of alleged witches. So not only is there only one woman named on the gates, but some of the men were actually harmful to women.

Tribute to Sir John Maxwell
Diagram of the pin

The other image above is from the court records involving Witch Pricker John Kincaid, clearly showing his diagram of the pin that he used to find the tell-tale witch’s mark that would not bleed. This is from an exhibition of Fine Art photography graduates at Street Level Gallery. One photographer had done a project on witchcraft, but stupidly I forgot to record the person’s name.

On a lighter note, the Glasgow penguins are out and about again.

Trump is a carp
Halloween
Knitting a scarf
Octopus

And a few random things that have caught my eye.

  • Another Edward VIII post box for my collection. Although quite rare, because Edward reigned for less than a year, Glasgow had 26 installed of which at least 11 remain.
  • A few items from the annual GlasGLOW light show in the Botanic Gardens (spotted during daylight hours – I haven’t been to the event). I liked the campsite rules, and initially I thought they had stolen our front door which is also red and Number 1! The Bone Yard and the terrible jokes on some of the headstones also appealed.
  • A mountain view on a shop shutter.
  • A new section of tiling on Bella the Beithir at Stockingfield Bridge. The mosaic pod is made by St Mary’s Primary School and shows a large fish made of many fish. Each fish represents one class and contains a collection of artworks from all the children in that class.
  • A playbill for Spectres of the Cinema by the Auchterarder Players, one of the best pieces of “am dram” I have ever seen. And I’m not just saying that because my cousin and his wife had roles! A great multi-media experience with ghosts walking among us. The aim is to raise money to refurbish and reopen the town’s old Picturehouse and this should be a very good start.
A rare Edward VIII postbox
Botanic Gardens Campsite
No 1 red door
Bone Yard
Bone Yard
Glasgow shop shutters
Mosaic pod by St Mary’s Primary School
Playbill

To end with, a few views from the cyclist who keeps on pedalling.

Maid of the Loch at Balloch
Crossing from Kilcreggan to Gourock
Loch Eck
Glen Finglas Reservoir
In the Trossachs
Jaw Reservoir

And that’s another month over as the year hurtles to a close. What will November bring? I hope yours is a good one!

Scotland, UK , , , ,

68 Comments »

  1. Love the opening image, so nice to put faces to (blog) names. And in an increasingly complicated world, I love that the penguins are still cheerfully going about their business. They are a bit random but I do like them!

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    • The penguins aren’t as active as they were, but it’s always good to see them. I have met Becky a few times so I knew what she looked like, but I had no idea what Margaret looked like till we met! It’s good when online friendships tip over into real life.

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  2. You had a busy October. I love the mosaic of a Glasgow street scene with people’s faces making up the larger picture. John’s photos of his cycling are always beautiful. And the exhibits about child abuse and the witch persecution were interesting as well.

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  3. Looks like you had another jam-packed and mostly fun month of October, Anabel! And, pretty photos to show for it. I keep being amazed at all the cultural events, innovation, creativity, and inspiration in your city!

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  4. Hi Anabel – what a great range of topics … some I’d have definitely loved to have seen … especially the fish one, the graveyard, and art projects. I’m so pleased you had those few days away with friends/blogging ones and included the missing one via zoom. Also John – love the views … but what excellent info and photos … thanks – November – ah yes … we shall see shortly. Cheers Hilary

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  5. You’ve had quite the month meeting up with bloggers and Glasgow of course has so much to see. Bet you got a shock when you saw the red door then. 😁

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  8. Anabel, That is a lovely image of your lunch with Margaret and Becky. I look forward to reading your full post of your adventures. I love the red postbox, the fish mosaic pod and the views from John’s cycling adventures.

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  13. The Friends of Maryhill Road Graveyard look like they’ve done a wonderful job clearing the cemetery, it looks completely different to the overgrown graveyard in your original post. It’s lovely you had the opportunity to meet up with some of your blogging friends, I drove through Bradford-on-Avon over the summer and it looked a charming place to spend a few days. Good to see the penguins out and about, and having lots of adventures!

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  14. As always I enjoyed seeing your penguins and hearing about the various art exhibitions you’ve been to. It’s also great to see Margaret and Becky having such an obviously lovely time 🙂 And if your front door is as handsome and cheering as that one, your house must look very smart indeed!

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  15. Throughout history there’s always been frequent power grabs by men to keep women firmly in their place from relegating the female followers of Jesus to bit parts ( a fallen women not a rich benefactor) to the Witchcraft Trials and even today many still not offered equal pay to men for doing the exact same job. Why do they fear women so much I wonder? Well, maybe with far less money The England’s Woman’s Football Team are currently champions of Europe, almost at the first time of asking without any build up or fuss whereas the England men’s team are still banging on about winning in 1966 despite their countless millions over the decades trying to win anything else. ( I’ve been watching English female football teams over the last five years as they are free on TV. And very entertaining with big crowds and a lot of skill on show.) Also woman routinely perform miracles… walking casually around on stilettos every day despite being an intended torture device invented by a man… and then bringing forth little creatures into the world without John Hurt’s over the top hysterics. Bob. BSS.

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  18. Another magnificent post. Most enjoyable to read. I went and made a coffee in the middle so could relax and enjoy it all and follow upo on many of the links. Thank you so much.

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  22. Another good month for you and John. We had a wonderful October as the weather was unusually sunny and warm so we did a lot of walking around when we weren’t trying to finish processing our pictures from our last trip before we leave for the next one… (Suzanne)

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  24. You haven’t featured the penguins for a while so it’s nice to see them, especially the Halloween group. I love the bone yard, the post box and the red door, favourite view is the one of Jaw Reservoir.

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  26. Another busy month. And how lovely that the ladies wore matching outfits for the photoshoot. And how lovely they look too. Great news on the Maryhill Road Graveyard, but I would avoid the very sad exhibition at ARC. Nice to see the Edward VIII post box (which reminds me I have some more to post) and of course the penguins. 🐧🐧🐧

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    • They do look lovely, and they are lovely! I did not have a grey jumper to match, but we all had rain jackets in various shades of clashing red / pink. We’ve had survivor’s exhibitions at the women’s library before and I think more than anything the participants want to be seen so although it’s sad I feel it’s important to read their stories. As for the penguins, little scamps, they are hardly ever there when I look!

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  29. Well. I’ve never been part of a Page One Story before! But didn’t we have a great time? I’ll be reporting back soon too. As ever, plenty else to enjoy here (I’ll be back later for a proper read) but the graveyard tale looks like a success story. Excellent. Take a bow.

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