I grew up in Glasgow, the tough talking, no nonsense, largest working class city on the west coast of Scotland. As a child, we lived in close knit communities. The sort of place where nobody thought twice about giving children into trouble if they stepped over the line, where children knew respect for adults and police, where everybody rallied round to help when there was a family crisis, and neighbours all knew each other. 

Times were hard and money was short, much like today for some people but, most people now have it much easier and don't even appreciate it. We lived up a 'close' (a communal entrance way) which led to the houses above. There were usually about four houses on every level and, in some cases, there was ONE toilet in the shared 'close' that had to be used by the occupants of all four houses. There was not even a wash hand basin, just a toilet seat and newspapers cut into squares as toilet paper! So much for hygiene, yet we never seemed to suffer so many 'ailments' as people do now. 

More often than not, the window was broken and you froze as you sat there looking down into the back court area behind the building. Night time journeys to the toilet were few and far between then, especially in winter. Too many times you would go to use the toilet only to find that someone else had got there first and you had to 'dance' around until the toilet was free.

No, Im not making it up!   

The workplace was also a community and, in those days, unions were strong, very strong, almost too strong - and that scared the bejeezus out of the English government of the time!!

When the shipyard workers went on strike in Glasgow, because of compulsory redundancies (due to the gorvenment selling off the shipbuilding industry to private, foreign companies), the workers decided to 'sit-in'. That meant nothing went in and nothing went out. Period! The sit in drew widespread interest, financial donations and messages of support and the 'Red Clydesiders" (as they became known) began to threaten the political stability and status quo. It ended when some miscreant took alcohol into the premises and the striking workers lost a lot of their public support due to the "orchestrations" of the British Government of the time.

It never ended there though, the government decided that "people power" of such enormity, of such force, of such a credible threat, could never be allowed again, and so they began a campaign  to eradicate the entire 'Red Clydeside' once and for all. They destroyed whole communities, casting neighbours and friends aside, who had lived beside each other for years, maybe even their whole lives. Families were split apart, people became strangers to each other and the Spirit of the Community that once made Glasgow great, was extinguished.

Their corrupt agenda only came to light in recent years due to the release of 'Official secrets act" papers, yet it is one that most Glaswegians suspected, even if they could not prove it to be a fact.

To see the River clyde now, you could grudgiungly admit that they were horrendously efficient in eradicating the community which once was there, but you would be foolish to even think that they had crushed the Spirit of the people - and that failure is testament to both the ignorance of politcians and the tenacity of the Spirit of the Scottish people.

That Spirit lives on in every new born infant, in every breath, in every heart beat and although it may appear to lie in slumber, it is a giant that will no doubt awaken once more.

As they say in Scotland.....

"Wha's like us? Damm few an they're aw deid! Lang may yer lum reek people!"

(Translation:-  Who is like us? Very few and even those are all dead (In other words we Scots are all unique!);  Long may your chimney smoke (May you always have a happy, heated home)