thegorbals

Happy Father's Day to all you Dad's who post on this site...I know you all remember your Dads and what great men they were raising us in the Gorbals under hard times...I will never, ever forget my Dad...He worked in White's Chemical Works out in Rutherglen for all his life in Glasgow...previous to that he worked in Ireland for farmers before he came over on the boat...He was very hard working and had a couple of allotments in the Glasgow Green where he grew all our potatoes and vegetables for years and years...We had great respect for him and I don't remember him having to hit us once for misbehaving...All you needed was the look and that was enough...When we were wee he would take us to "The Bee's" on Commercial Road and we saw everything from Tom Mix, Hopalong Cassidy, Roy Rogers, The Wolf Man and Frankenstein...I remember coming home from the pictures up Commercial Lane and when were passing the "The Gravie" he would say to us..."See those old rags hanging up on the trees, well that is all that is left of the wee boys and girls who run away from home and the monkeys get them and eat them up and throw their clothes up there." My brother, Hugh (Shug), was deathly afraid of monkeys and was known to take walks and get lost...After my Dad told us that story, he never ventured far from Sandyfaulds Street again when he was little...May my Dad rest in peace...and my brother also...Today would have been his 74th birthday...

Hi Margaret,
Yes Fathers day is a special day held by us all and how our Fathers would work hard to bring us up [not forgetting our Mothers too] in the soo-side and as you say just a "look" would be enough for us to know we had to behave. You say the Bee's picture house on Commercial Rd well I remember going there on one Saturday [matinee ?] with my sister Jeanette to watch a film about explorers in Africa with their pith helmets, Khaki shorts etc and I got my wee finger jammed in the seat when bringing it down and sat there with blood dripping but wouldn't tell my sister in case we had to leave the picture hoose !!!.. We used to play in the Gravie too [Rutherglen Rd] and was always amazed with the old headstones there, getting back to our Fathers my own Da never drank or smoked and worked with a building firm M.D.W. for most of his life and always brought an unopened pay packet home on a Friday night. Unfortunately my Da got Alzheimer's and it was tragic to watch him slowly fade away. I always was working away from Glasgow but could see the dramatic changes when I went home for a week or weekend. So God Bless all our Fathers who are at sleep now, my own Da would have been 96 years old.
Regards.
Danny

My da was a miner all his life worked in different pits missed a few disasters either coming of or on the nightshift. I was a daddys lassie would call me his lass, he chewed Gallaghers Warhorse tobacco always bought an ounce of it unless he was short we would have to go and get him a half an ounce and he always told us to ask for the bigger half as some of the shops would cut it with a knife on a board it looked like a chopper. We used to get our coal delivered and they would dump it in the street but at the latter end we finished up getting it in bags could tell us if the coal was good or bad.
My Da God rest his soul would have been 104 0n his last birthday
Amelia

Hi Margaret,
Apologies for late post as on Fathers day this year I started a cycle-ride from Monparnass
station Paris via Orleans,Blois,Tours,Saumur, Parthenay,finishing six days later in the Mediaval town of
Vouvant.
Whenever I think of Fathers Day I always think of 1986 firstly because I ran the GLASGOW Marathon in my fastest time and we all ran through the Gorbals and young children there would give us
sweets just standing there all during the run helping put sugar back into the runners.!!
But wind forward Christmas Eve the same year and I got a phone call at work from Selly Oak Hospital to
say that my father was poorly and by the tone of the voice on the other end of the line I knew it was
serious.This was about 3pm so I dropped everything and drove about 200 miles from Hampshire to
Birmingham to see him for what proved to the last time.
He had a lung disease and his breathing was laboured and when I arrived I was able to have a cup of tea with him and we also chatted for a little time. He had telephoned me about two weeks previously to say that he could not shake off "This Dam Cold as he called it" however I realize now that he had
the early signs of pneumonia. He was also on Morphine and that was an indication of the seriousness
of the situation . About 11 pm I was called to the pay phone out side the ward and it was my brother
Ringing from Portugal to tell me that he could not get a Flight to the UK.
There was an Asian Nurse looking after my father in the ward at the time and whilst on the phone she called me to come quick as my my Father was slipping away.
I have always been grateful for that last cup of tea with him and of course the help from the Nurse at
a very difficult time .
I thought also how ironic it was that it should be a nurse from the continent that he was born should be present at his final minutes.
He had lived alone in the Midlands and when I went back to his house all of his Christmas cards
were on the mantlepiece and the woolen Scarf that we had sent was opened and lay on the brown wrapping. I still have the scarf today and cherish it.

The next morning I drove back to Hampshire and there was a couple with children that had broken
down on the M40 which links Oxford to the Midlands and the emergency phones did not appear to work so I took his details and made a call from a phone box and he got the assistance that he
needed . As it was Christmas Day there was very little traffic on the road and the irony was it was an
Asian couple and St. Joseph's College Darjeeling may be a million miles from the Gorbals but it was
where my father grew up and I could always see the amazement in peoples faces from that continent
when this apparent foreighner would launch into fluent "Urdu" Hence today I am a massive Curry fan
and it is down to his influence and my love of poetry by Kipling and Burns etc. The thing that I remember missing was his voice.!!! He also taught me to always be humble and understanding of others views . God bless Bill & Mary.

Best regards Reg

Moving story, Reg.

Hi Reg that was a very sad story you wrote, my father also had lung disease with being down the pits all his days the latter end he had t have the oxygen at his bedside.
I remember the morning he died I woke up and my husband wakened and I said to him something is the matter he told me to lie down as I was dreaming but I looked at the clock and that morning my father died I regret to this day not going down to my parents house when I had woke up. I miss him terribly.
Amelia x

Hi Reg,
Yes mate just as Jimbo and Amelia said that was a very moving story, my own Father and sister died of Altzheimer's so although they were still there in body the Father and Sister that I had known all my life were actually gone and I couldn't talk to them anymore as their minds didn't reconise me , my Ma didn't have the Altzheimer's but had a load of different complications and when I traveled up to see Ma just before she passed away she never fully reconised me and as I sat at her bedside stroking her hand I felt so very sad that I couldn't properly say goodbye to them all. It is a terrible time when we lose our loved ones and you never get over losing them it's just with the passing of time we try and live with the good memories that they have left us with. So to all who have lost their Parents and whatever religion we are may God always look over them.
Regards.
Danny .

Hi Amelia
Many thanks for your kind comments re my posting and I agree and sympathise with you
regarding the tough brutal conditions of working in the mines. Whilst I never actually worked down at
the coal face I took the opportunity to visit a mining museum in "Cefn-Coed" South Wales and I can
only tell you that the list off incidents written in the official "Accident Book" were many and tragic.
One that caught my eye was a horse falling down the mine shaft and crushing a few miners.
But the mine owners were a ruthless bunch.
Finally in the early seventies I worked for British Leyland <Thornycroft> and I was trying to buy my
first house in Hampshire and in frustration I applied for a job in Blackwood <Monmouthshire> another
British Leyland Factory however the only one qualification that they were interested in was that I
had to have the "Dust" Pneumoconiosis <think that spelling might not be right> as all the workers
there had the "Dust " and spent there final years convalescing with the fatal disease. That was a real
eye opener for me .I had a relation in South Wales who died from the disease and it was slow and
painful, but on the other hand there was a lot who did not get it.
Our parents never had much in the old days but they were able to impart a rich vein
of knowledge on us that was a priceless gift that we all attained throughout our life and was worth more than money itself. Like you I still miss my parents and from a very young age I knew that
my mother had a tough life bringing up a large family and I had the ability to always make her smile and laugh especially on wash days.!! She never complained once.


Thanks again Amelia and my best regards to you Reg

Thanks for posting this topic Margaret, and I hope all the Father's on here enjoyed their special day.
My Mother died when I was 6 and I had two older sisters who were 15 and 19. My Dad spoiled me all his life. We would go out every week on a Friday night to the pictures usually the George or the Bedford, he would buy his bag of nuts from the wee stall under the bridge and I would have a box of Maltezers from the newsagents. Then every Sunday we would go to the cemetery to visit my Mother's grave and then to a wee café where he would have a Ginger beer ice drink and me a coca cola and ice cream. Eventually our whole family lived in Canada (Dad and my two older sisters) When he turned 65 he had to leave his job here as at that time it was mandatory, so he decided to move back to Glasgow to see if he could get a job. And he got one no bother at all. Here he was classified a machinist I believe in Scotland it was an Engineer/Planer. He came back to visit us in Canada to meet his first born Grandson whom my husband had named (First, middle and last name) after my Dad. (this was done unbeknownst to me, but that's another story) Once he clapped eyes on his beloved grandson that was it, he went back to Glasgow gave in his notice and packed up and came back to live with us. He lived with us for 27 years and my two kids just adored him. He was a right wee character and was a wonderful story teller. Many a laugh we had with some of the tales he had to tell, especially about his cycling days when he and his pals in a club would cycle down to Blackpool to go to the dancing. Dad died in 2006 at the ripe old age of 95 and my husband, my daughter (who was the apple of his eye) my son (his best pal) and I were all with him holding his hand as he took his last breath. We all miss him terribly but I know he's now back in the arms of my Mother his beloved Katie and with his daughters who have also passed on. We took dad's ashes back to Glasgow and had them put in my Mother's grave. When I was wee I used to tell him "Daddy you're a great guy" and I still thought that until his dying day. Until we meet again Dad, I hope all your Father's days are happy. Sheila xx

Hello Sheila ,
That was a very moving story and I think loosing your mother so young must have been very difficult for you. I know how close my daughter and her mother are and now my daughter has a daughter and the process continues on . When my daughter was 6 I used to dance with her to Perry Como songs
and she still reminds me of this and she was and still is very special to me.
Yes Margaret's post has brought out a lot of quality posts touched with raw emotion but
overall reminding us of beautiful memories.

Best regards Reg