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Once, while out on the lash, my pal dived a skip, and found a Victorian/Edwardian photo album, of the grand days of Clyde yachting, tossed away like so much rubbish.
Here's a picture of the first, Clyde-built, royal yacht - just look at those lines, and all that canvas
A thread
Here's a picture of the first, Clyde-built, royal yacht - just look at those lines, and all that canvas
A thread
When, aged 22, I went into journalism, I found I loved working with photographers - I spoke their visual language - their/our imagination, and sense of fun, was limitless...
Then, I started looking at old photographs, and was smitten. My mum, an art teacher, had shown me how to 'read' a painting; and I applied that disciple to old pictures - a saw things frozen in the periphery of the frame which even the snapper hadn't seen...
And then, in 1999, I watched Stephen Poliakoff's remarkable drama, Shooting The Past, in which a large US firm tries to buy, and strip out the best from a photo archive, something clicked...
In the drama, Oswald Bates (Timothy Spall) prevents the break up of the archive by piecing together a series of shots - from various sources - showing the potential buyer's Jewish grandmother, caught as a child, in pictures of pre-Nazi Germany. A very big cog clicked...
I went looking, and found my mum, as a pretty young teacher, at Castle Toward, in the 1950s, on the Glasgow Schools Summer Art Course.
That's her, before I existed, sitting pretty bottom left...
That's her, before I existed, sitting pretty bottom left...
And then I went searching for myself.
That's me, bottom left, aged about 14/15, doing my best Echo and the Bunnymen look, on the last ever train between Glasgow and Kilmacolm.
I'm wearing one of my mum's old 1950s 'swagger' coats...
That's me, bottom left, aged about 14/15, doing my best Echo and the Bunnymen look, on the last ever train between Glasgow and Kilmacolm.
I'm wearing one of my mum's old 1950s 'swagger' coats...
And then, after years of searching, I spotted the back of my napper, fag in hand, bottom left, watching the busking Clash, in Dukes Bar, in Glasgow, in 1985...
And I began to realise that it was as easy to step between this world and the past, as it was as easy as stepping out your own front door...
And then, one night, at Dundee Rep, I met the beautiful actress Lindsay Duncan (who had appeared in Shooting The Past), and, as I was sharing a flat with a big ferm loon of the same name (he wrote scripts for The Beano), I begged a kiss - and she spoke longingly of the show.
And, when I came back to Glasgow, to work on the ET/Herald, I threw myself into the picture archive - the proverbial pig in s**t. As a former library worker, I loved our library ladies, and their arcane archiving system.
And then, the titles were sold to the Yanks, and months later all the ladies were sacked, and, in full earshot of all my colleagues, I called our managing editor a 'fucking Philistine prick' as all the picture files were emptied - higgelty-piggelty - into wheelie bins...
They - almost 16m images - were destined for a skip, until myself, the NUJ, and one senior manager threatened to flag up this destruction of 'our' history. They ended up, unfiled, in a locked room at the Mitchell Library, where they lie still...
About this time, I found a small site called Lost Glasgow (a shadow of the Lost Edinburgh site), and, one night, after a couple of glasses of wine, messaged them, saying they should do it more like Lost Edinburgh...
I awoke the next morning with a headache, and a message, saying 'We are Lost Edinburgh, but we don't know Glasgow so well; do you want to come on board?"...
A couple of months later, I walked from the Herald and ET - banged out by my colleagues - and, as he looked up from his desk at the racket, I flipped the bird at that hated managing editor, and skipped out the door...
Freelance life hasn't been easy (it never is), but throwing myself into the forgotten/ignored celluloid history/stories of our Dear Green Place has been the most exciting and liberating adventure of my life...
And it would mean nothing if I didn't have you guys to help me, correct me, point me, and cheer me on. So, thank you...
Like anything worthwhile in life - it is nothing if not done correctly, and with love and passion.
Anyway, that's the story, and here's the guys who provided much of the personal, late night soundtrack...
I've spent over 30 years looking down at my hands - my mother's hands, with the same beautiful almond shaped nails - and I now start to see them get wrinkled.
Don't worry - mileage in them yet - always more stories to be told...
Don't worry - mileage in them yet - always more stories to be told...
Stories - the ones we tell, the ones told about us - are what make, define, and what we will be remembered by.
Make good stories...
Make good stories...
Doesn't matter whether we are sitting around in a cave, looking into the glow of a fire, or looking into the glow of a PC, tablet, or phone; it's the stories we want...
