thegorbals

Only one week until Christmas Day...Everyone running around here like maniacs...The stores are full of sales trying to get rid of all their winter clothing so that after the new year they can start getting in the summer clothes...I love Christmas and have always loved Christmas...I remember when we lived on Sandyfaulds Street, on a Christmas Eve listening to a band that played outside St. Francis Church for the people waiting to go into Midnight Mass...Then lying there wondering what I was going to get in the stocking, (my mother's old stocking) hung above the fireplace and it was the old iron ranges that we had at the time...We were always assured of a Mars Bar and a Tangerine then one more thing...Now when I ask my grandchildren if they have any specials requests that they have for Christmas...they just look at me and say: "I don't know what to tell you. I really do not need anything." Can you imagine if someone had asked us old Gorbalites, from the age of sixty-five and up, what our answer would have been...I grew up during the Second World War so there was not too much in the Christmas stocking.

John, do you know how lucky you are to be able to go back to a house you lived in as a child...The house I lived in on Sandyfaulds Street is long gone and we moved to Govanhill, Cathcart Road, instead of moving to Castlemilk, and that block of houses from Butterbiggen Road to Jamieson Street were knocked down to make room for a new roadway that never was built...I cannot even go back to St. Francis as that is now a Social Centre so when I go home it is sad not to have an old address to go home to...So you are blessed to still have that address in Castlemilk...I hope the folks in your old home reply and tell you that you are most welcome to come and visit with them and have a wee cuppa with them..All the best in your endevours.


A very Blessed Christmas to everyone and a Healthy and Happy New Year...Margaret

Just to let you know the St Francis Pipe Band still do their Christmas Day march around the Gorbals.
Waking people up wae the pipes and drums has been going on for many decades. If anyone remembers this from earlier decades then it would be great tae hear about it.

A small part of so many traditions and events which used to take place around the area over Christmas, Hogmanay and Ne'er Day.

HI Anthony...When I was a little girl..many, many moons ago, it was not the pipe band that played on Christmas Eve but what they then called,I think, a Silver Band...my memory is not too good these days but what I recall was the sounds of trumpets or trombones or something like that...I also do remember the Pipe Band, they were always in full regalia and played at all the May Processions.. We lived on Sandyfaulds Street from 1937 to 1957.....All of that long gone..

Hi All
I maybe wrong but I always thought they played on New Years Day, in the morning and wake all the people up, like Margaret it is a long time ago. But I do remember standing for hours waiting for the May procession and the band playing then. Some people who lived in Sandyfaulds St. used to paint their windows. Did the band go down Lawmoor St and then ito the chapel as we always headed for Sandyfauld St to see the beginning of it.
I used to get jealous when I saw all the girls walking as our parish St. Johns never had anything like that. Then if you were picked for the May Queen that was an honour. One of my older cousins was a page boy.
Amelia

Hello everyone...

My Christmas memory is the Salvation Army playing right outside our window, my mother had this big paper star with a bulb inside which she hung above the Christmas tree, and you could see it from all over Barrhead, so I'm guessing the Army thought that was pretty appropriate, I'll always remember that as it was pretty special....a lovely memory for me.

Rose x