Glasgow Gallivanting: October 2026

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Scottish Association of Teachers of History Conference 3/10/26

At the beginning of the month I represented Glasgow Women’s Library at the Scottish Association of Teachers of History Conference with a stall and a workshop on Pioneering Women of the West End. My love of history was first inspired by the teacher I had when I was 14 so it was lovely to meet a new generation and hopefully give them some ideas to inspire others.

In other women’s history news I led two walks, one in glorious sunshine as part of a Women’s Library team, and the other, my Maryhill walk, in rain – though not as torrential as it was the last twice I did it. I also went to a talk with my friend Beverly about a nurse in World War One, from which I returned home during the height of Storm Austen and had to be rescued from a flood at the end of our road (it’s a cul-de-sac so no other way in). Fortunately John was at home and drove out very carefully to collect me.

Also in the rain – there’s a clear theme here – was the unveiling of a statue to Nelson Mandela. For some years the Scottish Nelson Mandela Memorial Campaign has been raising funds for this. Glasgow was the first place in the world to bestow Freedom of the City on Mandela in 1981 when he was still in prison. Eight other local authorities in the UK followed suit and in October 1993 he came to Glasgow to receive all the Freedoms in a joint ceremony. There is a Nelson Mandela Place in Glasgow, formerly known as St George’s Place. It was renamed in 1986, a gesture prompted by it being the location of the South African Consulate. How it must have galled them to use that address! This is where the statue has been placed. At the end of last year I viewed the shortlisted designs in the City Chambers and this would not have been my first choice, but it does look good.

Both the institutions where I volunteer have new exhibitions. Glasgow Women’s Library is celebrating its 35th birthday with a wall of significant items, one from each year of its history, and a display of banners from its collection.

At Maryhill Halls another birthday is celebrated in This is what community looks like: 25 years of Maryhill Integration Network. The Network has several objectives but, in a nutshell, it aims to support refugees and asylum seekers and to promote understanding and relationships between them and the host community. It’s a joyous exhibtion.

We also had a day out in Edinburgh where we visited three wonderful exhibitions. In the morning we went to Modern 2 for Gwen John: Strange Beauties. Mick of Down by the Dougie has written an excellent review of this should you be interested (it’s on till 4th January). I shall confine myself to three portraits – Gwen herself, and two girls with things I love: books and cats.

Self-portrait, c1902
The student, 1903-4
Girl with a cat, c1920

After lunch we hotfooted across town to the Dovecote. Elizabeth Blackadder: a Life in Colour closes soon which was the reason behind the timing of our visit to Edinburgh – she is one of our favourite artists and we own one of her flower prints. She is also a renowned cat lover as you can see below.

Cats at play (tapestry, 1995)
Red still life (tapestry, 2023)

The other exhibition at Dovecote was also fascinating – Costume Couture: Sixty years of Cosprop (on till 16th January). Founded by Oscar and BAFTA-winning costume designer John Bright in 1965, Cosprop specialises in period costume for film, television and theatre. Below I’ve chosen some examples from productions I have seen. And yes, the Pride and Prejudice group does include the legendary wet shirt – sadly dry and with no Mr Darcy in it.

General view
Room with a View (1985)
Pride and Prejudice (1995)
Poirot: Death on the Nile (2004)
The Duchess (2008)

The explanations about the costumes revealed subtleties that I would never have noticed, in common with most of the audience I suspect. For example, the last image above is of a 1770s gown created for Keira Knightly as Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire. According to costume designer Michael O’Connor:

Georgiana begins the film in pale blue. When we meet Lady Bess Foster (Hayley Atwell) she is wearing dark brown, as they grow closer, and when they are at their most sisterly, they are both wearing white; at the end Bess is in pale blue and Georgiana is in chocolate brown.

I almost feel I have to watch it again to check!

The final exhibition we attended was in Paisley, The Big Art Show. With almost 1000 exhibits, this open entry exhibition was always going to be of variable quality and a bit overwhelming, but we still absolutely loved it. Here are a few things which caught my eye – if I had been in the market for a picture (and we have way too many already) I would have liked one of Morven Howell’s beautiful woodland scenes.

1926 Strike Banner by Jamie-Max
1926 Strike Banner by Jamie-Max
Rozelle, Into The Woods by Morven Howell
Mochrum Wood, Moss and Fallen Leaves by Morven Howell
We Are All Cells by Sam Ainsley
Sleeping Badger No 3 by Matthew Smith

While in Paisley we also visited the Abbey and Fountain Gardens, but given that this post is already too long I’ll hold them over.

Moving on from exhibitions to public art, I was delighted to see one of the Scotties back. A reasonably accurate map of Glasgow West by Adrian B. McMurchie stood outside Hotel du Vin on Devonshire Gardens during the trail, and they bought him back in the auction.

A Sign of Humour has been busy again – the sign below was spotted near the River Kelvin at Maryhill. You probably have to be British and of an age to remember The Two Ronnies to appreciate it!

And, of course, the cyclist continued to cycle – though nothing matched his trip to France. Some days, the views were beautiful, some days the skies were ominous, and for days (and there have been a lot) when the weather was too appalling even for John, a new toy has appeared.

A couple of sites have been drawn to my attention this month. I can’t comment because I haven’t used either of them yet, so feel free to ignore the next couple of paragraphs, but they seem like interesting ideas that others might be interested in. Blogr is a directory of Scottish blogs created by Paul who says:

The reason I started Blogr is that I worry we’re slowly losing the internet we once knew. Between Google’s changing search results, big publishers dominating everything and AI-generated answers keeping visitors away from actual websites, independent bloggers are finding it harder to be discovered. I miss the days when you could stumble across someone’s wee corner of the internet, enjoy a good read and follow a link to discover another interesting blog.

I’m Safe is created by Jeson and is a way of sharing locations with people you trust. I do like to know where John is and that he is still moving when he is out cycling, and I like him to know where I am if, say, I am coming home on my own at night. As we both have iPhones that’s easily done (and I have had to use location sharing once to find him when his bike had an irreparable puncture) but I can see other circumstances where this app might be useful. (NB neither of these people have offered me anything).

We ended the month at a Scottish National Orchestra concert at which the major piece was Shostakovich’s Leningrad Symphony. It was truly wonderful and more relevant than ever when fascists are again on the march. Because it was Halloween we were then entertained on the way home by crowds of young people getting on and off our train in amazing fancy dress. They were happy, good-natured, and only very slightly drunk. I guess for them the night was still young (10.30ish). I bet I felt a lot better than they did the next morning though.

Finally, I’m linking to Natalie’s Monthly Wrap-Up as usual. Happy November!

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34 Comments »

  2. A busy month of exhibits for you! That’s great you continue to do the women’s history walks, despite sometimes unlovely weather. John sure is dedicated if he must bike indoors, too!

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  3. Another excellent month with wonderful exhibitions, Anabel. I love the yellow Box art, the Fabric art, the Cats at Play tapestry and the Scottie. Bravo to John for keeping up his fitness. The pingback to my post didn’t work again but I got your post via email notification. Thank you for linking up with The Monthly Wrap-Up.

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  4. Ugh to torrential rain! But yeah to all the exhibits and interesting lectures. That header banner, as a quilter, is so interesting. The fabric is up close hand prints! As to the Fork Handles I don’t know that show but I heard about the “Bernie and the Bolt” show numerous times from a couple of English surgeons.

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    • That banner was made for a procession in 2018, by a group led by an artist called Helen de Main, and it is indeed handprints. I wasn’t part of the project – I was on the march but with a different group – so I hadn’t seen it up close until now and didn’t realise that.

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  5. I remember that Duchess film well. Still got it. History did repeat itself with Diana Spencer although I suppose that was a very common event with the elite, then as now. Now I see why John didn’t have a sore bum in France. he’s never off the saddle long enough to get one. I always had time away between long cycle rides, hill-walking instead, so always got a sore bum and cramps cycling. ( lactic acid build-up afterwards in the house. ) Even got that last week in my legs after too long a walk. Still very painful when that occurs. Had to jump out of bed in a hurry even though fast asleep. Reminds you you are still alive though. Bob. BSS.

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  8. Another amazing post with so much to read and enjoy. Well done on manning your stall…maybe Cadbury’s would like to think about a box of chocolates for the Heroines of this World! I particularly enjoyed the mentions of Gwen John and Elizabeth Blackadder. Being Welsh and having seen Gwen John’s work many times I loved seeing the three portraits …thank you. You are very fortunate to have a print by Elizabeth Blackadder…I only have birthday cards with her art work and a wonderful book of her work! Keep up visiting all the exhibitions and posting about them…it’s all wonderful!

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    • Thanks Marianne – I did my best with the chocolates with cardboard Ss to make them Sheroes. Perhaps it will catch on with Cadbury’s! The Gwen John exhibition was lovely – I had only seen a few of her works before. Our Blackadder print is of tulips. We bought it one year as a birthday present to each other!

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  10. This sounds like another excellent month 🙂 I always enjoy your round-up as although you’re at the opposite end of the country to us, your activities are closest (out of all my blogging friends) to the sort of things we enjoy in London! The Maryhill looks excellent – I’m fully behind that ‘Lift the Ban’ campaign. And I too would have been tempted by one of those woodland paintings, although I also love the very different ‘We are all cells’. Finally, I smiled to see the Fork Handles sign – such a classic sketch!!

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  12. Another busy month (as always). I had seen that the whole of Great Britain had been getting storm after storm so hopefully it will slow down in November.

    I understand your love of History; I have a degree in History and even though I never worked in that field I still enjoy reading history books on various topics. (Suzanne)

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  14. I like the idea of Glasgow having a statue to Nelson Mandela. I’ve been interested in him since I learned about him several years ago on one of our visits to South Africa. We went to Robben Island and saw his actual cell in the prison – I don’t know how he survived in there for so long, it’s tiny.

    The costume exhibition would interest me. I like the black and white costume on the right of the first photo, have you any info on it? I did enlarge the photo but the writing was too blurred.

    I love the road sign, I think that particular sketch must be the best one they ever did 😊

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  15. There’s so much here that resonates with me – the General Strike banners, the cat tapestry and Elizabeth Blackadder’s love of cats, the messages of defiance and hope in the “This is what community looks like” celebration, “Fork Handles” of course (yes, I’m well old enough for that one!). to list just a few.

    Isn’t it great that Glasgow now has a statue of Nelson Mandela, one of my standout heroes of the last century. And I love that story of how St George’s Place was renamed to irritate the consulate!

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