Wednesday, August 23

Marilyn has gone out tonight, leaving me to watch a documentary I downloaded, called 'Growing Up in Scotland'.  The first part concentrated on Education which was interesting enough but Part 2, which looked more at the social history, was very confronting, particularly of the period following World War 2.  That, of course, is when I lived in Scotland.

My memories are narrowly focused and I'm sure we were always warm, well-dressed and well fed, but it seems most of the population at that time lived in the most appalling conditions.  The tenements of Glasgow were so bad they were featured in illustrated magazines all over the civilised world.  The Gorbals became a byword for the very worst of slums.  The images of children in the late-1940s and 1950s were often heart-breaking but two women who were interviewed talked about a happy memory of an artist who visited often, drawing the children in pastels.  Joan Eardley became famous and her child subjects remember her with warmth, especially because she usually rewarded them with a 'treacle piece' and a threepenny bit.

The images are easily found on the Internet but here are a couple of examples: