Things that fire my imagination…3 Glasgow.

Renfield Street. Glasgow City Centre, 1950s. Curtesy of Vintage Glasgow

Glasgow is many things to many people but to me, it has become an inspiration.

As I came into my forties, I began the search for my Scottish ancestors in earnest as my mother Celia was nearing the end of her life and wanted to find out all she could about her family, using the ancestry research tools that have become available online over the last twenty years. Together we delved deeper into the past and I asked her again about her own upbringing in the heart of Glasgow.

Her memories began to fascinate me and the seeds for my novel Julia Sleeps were sown. Such were her powers of description that I walked with her through the George Square of the 1930’s, up the long hill of Cathedral Street to the city’s ancient necropolis and along the Broomielaw beside Glasgow’s great river Clyde.

In autumn 2022 I was lucky enough to find myself in my city of inspiration for one shining day that will live in my memory as long as it lasts. I began my pilgrimage early, delighting in finally seeing some of the locations my mother had told me about, and mourning those no longer there. I walked until I could walk no more, my journey culminating in finding the burial place of my grandparents whom I never knew as both died before I was born. This day was the inspiration for my short story ‘The White Roses’, published by Everscribe Magazine on March 2nd 2025. Home | Everscribe Magazine

As we know modern Glasgow is very different from 1930’s Glasgow, mainly due to the creation of the M8 motorway slicing through the centre of it as large sections of the old city had to be demolished. I therefore had to find many an old map of Glasgow to negotiate the pre motorway city to make sure the characters in my novel walked the correct routes for that time, but it was a joy and my mother’s words helped guide me.

I must mention the author Ian Todd who has written 13 novels set in Glasgow and his facebook page ‘strives to keep alive the social history of Glasgow through old photos…’. Ian shares three to four posts a week, each showing around 50 photos of Glasgow, often from as far back as the 1920’s and 1930’s and I eagerly look forward to his posts.

It was invaluable to me to actually see the streets my mother told me about as they were when she was a child; please visit Ian’s page to see what I mean and maybe consider buying one of his novels. https://www.facebook.com/theglasgowchronicles

I know that if you should read Julia Sleeps, you will hear the voices of a family now long gone, but never forgotten, and I hope that I have done justice to the memory of my mother’s beloved home city in my novel.