Recollections of Toonheid

I was driving along Kennedy Street in Glasgow the other day,
and passed by the spot where my ancestral home once stood.
Some of you will know that this entire area, known affectionately
as Toonheid lives on only in a diminishing number of memories.

Toonheid was famous for nothing in particular.

Its houses were ancient grey sandstone tenements which reeked
of the stench of urine and shite.  Long ago I was domiciled in one
of these quaint little places.  It was a far cry from the Grannies
Hielan Hame, so beloved of generations of Scots who live
everywhere but Scotland.

Toonheid gave up the ghost in the seventies, I believe, when
Glasgow Corporation razed it to the ground to make way for smart new
hooses for the lieges. My ancestral home, which I am told,
subsequently became a brothel was a victim of this sea change
in the fortunes of the working people of Glasgow.

In particular, my thoughts were guided to the Grafton and Carlton
cinemas. There was one other opposite the Carlton, in Castle Street
adjacent to Valerio's caf, but I forget its name.  As a boy, when the
notion took me, I could run round all of these three cinemas to see
what was showing, and then make up my mind where I would spend
the next three hours or so.
It was always a hard decision if the Bowery Boys and
Buster Crabb were showing in different picture hooses.

It was a time of innocence. There was no 'drugs scene' or any
great expectation, for good or ill, that things would ever change.
Indeed it appeared that the tenement buildings had always been there
and that they would always remain. Parliamentary Road, with its
awesome  name was the Main Street of Toonheid.  It had seen
countless generations of young Scots before I, jist anither wee boy,
 appeared on the scene.

Parly Road had its fair share of men's pubs in its length from the
Empire Theatre to Castle Street at its other end. There was always a
great bustle of activity in Parly Road, which constantly had tramcars
running to and fro.  In a short time I learned the art of dodging the
trams as I crossed from one side of the road to the other.  In fact,
I always had a smug pride  that I carried out Tram Dodging with
consummate skill.

If you are ever in Glasgow's Renfield Street, take a look at the
locals ducking and diving, bobbing and weaving with the buses.
You'll see what I mean.

 Anyhow, as far as I could see there is only one bulding
 remaining in Toonheid, amid the sea of new hooses.
 It is St Mungo's RC Church.

 As a wee Presbyterian with an inbuilt sense of bigotry,
 which has waned through the years, my pals and I would scatter the
 water in the wee font at the door to the four winds.
 There was no particular malice in this.

It was jist something that ye did, in 1948.

G
--

On Fri, 3 Jun 2005 20:53:47 +0100, "Glenallan"
 wrote:


>Recollections of Toonheid
>

Well, silly me, and I thought you were gonna talk about Scotland Road,
Foster Street and Raiselands Croft.

"Brian Grosse"  wrote in message 
news:1117833121.e74cdcc16089cfa7544e05e752e84a03@teranews...

> On Fri, 3 Jun 2005 20:53:47 +0100, "Glenallan"
>  wrote:
>
>>Recollections of Toonheid
>>
> Well, silly me, and I thought you were gonna talk about Scotland Road,
> Foster Street and Raiselands Croft.


Is there much difference.?
That's one of the things I was wondering about.

I shall post my wee stories about Glasgow and its environs,
with the confidence that working people are pretty
much the same everywhere.

Tell me about Raiselands Croft and Foster Street., please.

Cheers
Glenallan
----------

On Fri, 3 Jun 2005 22:26:34 +0100, "Glenallan"
 wrote:



>
>Tell me about Raiselands Croft and Foster Street., please.
>

They're up Toonheid.