When the Clyde Ran Red

by Maggie Craig

  An organised search for the Loch Ness monster by a party of Glasgow ‘hikers’ and ramblers took place yesterday, but it was unsuccessful. The monster was not seen. Wet, disagreeable weather prevailed, and the conditions were all against the possibility, a remote one at the best, of the monster making an appearance.

  The monster hunt created mild amusement in the district of Loch Ness-side, where it was known that there was not the slightest chance of the Glasgow party catching a glimpse of the monster. Local people exhibited no interest in the search, and wisely remained indoors. The stricter Sabbatarians regarded the Sunday search as an unwarranted intrusion.

  So the 30 Glaswegians, all members of the Scottish Ramblers’ Federation, returned home without a sighting, and Nessie remained undisturbed.

  Founded in 1889 after correspondence in the Glasgow Herald, the Scottish Mountaineering Club was considered to be for those of a certain social status. Founded in 1930, the Creagh Dhu Club was made up of shipyard workers from Glasgow and Dundee. Their favourite stamping ground was the Arrochar Alps at the head of Loch Long.

  The right to roam the hills and climb the mountains was hard won. This was even more the case in England and Wales, where a law of trespass applied and was often invoked against hikers and ramblers. The argument had been raging for 20 years and more when, in 1908, Scottish Liberal MP John Bryce argued that ‘the people should not have this access to mountains on sufferance but as a right’. The following year, Bryce brought in his Access to Mountains (Scotland) Bill. This aimed to ‘secure to the public the right of Access to Mountains and Moorland in Scotland’. It got to a second reading. In 1927, with characteristic directness, Davie Kirkwood told his fellow MPs, ‘We said “Now” for the Access to Mountains Bill. Are we not going on with it?’

  Twelve years later, in 1939, Kirkwood’s fellow Clydeside Labour MP Campbell Stephen was still arguing for ‘complete access to the mountains of Scotland and the moorlands of this country’.

  After decades of lobbying, confrontation and direct action by the Ramblers’ Association and others, the Countryside and Rights of Way (CRoW) Act of 2000 gave walkers in England and Wales a legal and much greater right of access to the countryside. What Scots often see as a time-honoured right to roam was finally enshrined in law in the Land Reform (Scotland) Act of 2003.

  Everyone loved the Firth of Clyde, a sail doon the watter, from Craigendoran, Wemyss Bay or Largs to Kilcreggan, the Kyles of Bute, Millport or Brodick, on Arran. Or you could glide along the Forth and Clyde Canal from Speirs Wharf at Port Dundas, heading for the little resort of Craigmarloch, just beyond Kirkintilloch.

  Dominated by the massive cooling towers of Pinkston Power Station and the tall chimney of the whisky distillery, the embarkation point was in the heart of dirty, smoky Glasgow but the crew of the excursion boats cleaned the cobbles of the quay thoroughly before the passengers got there. The fondly remembered Gypsy Queen and the Fairy Queen were the pleasure craft which plied this run.

  At Stockingfield Junction the Port Dundas spur of the canal joined in with the main part and the boats had to move slowly to negotiate the turn. In a poignant reminder of the poverty in which so many Glaswegians lived, boys there would dive for coins the passengers threw into the canal.

  At Craigmarloch there was a tea house called the Bungalow, an 18-hole putting green and swings for the children. Cooked by students from the Do School during their summer vacation, the Bungalow’s menu never varied: Scotch broth, steak pie, pears and creamed rice, with ice creams to follow for those who had any room left.

  The classes, lectures, clubs, hobbies and activities that people with not very much time and little spare cash took part in continue to impress, the sheer number and variety of them: cycling, hiking, dancing, photography, mending watches, sewing, knitting, playing in a band, putting on plays, stretching your body and your mind.

  Men and women read widely. Many learned the poems of Burns, Byron, Shelley, Scott and others off by heart and, throughout their lives, delighted in reciting them aloud to admiring younger relatives. Alex McCulloch, uncle of the writer of this book, was one of them.

  In the 1930s he worked as a shunter at the College Goods Yard, off Glasgow’s High Street and on the site of the Old College, the original University of Glasgow. The railwaymen there like to joke that they were great scholars as they went every day to the College. Some lived up to that, forming a reading group. Among the books Alex McCulloch and his workmates discussed during their meal breaks were Das Kapital and War and Peace.

  Poverty denied so many Clydesiders an education. They went to enormous efforts to get one for themselves, express their creativity and simply have fun.

  26

  The Hungry ’30s

  We don’t just make ships here, we make men too.

  Despite the Wall Street Crash of 1929, the keel of a new Cunarder was laid at John Brown’s in Clydebank just before Christmas 1930. The first rivet was driven home by the shipyard manager in front of a crowd of cheering workers. As was traditional, the new liner had as yet no name. For the time being she would be known by her job number, and it was as ‘the 534’ that the ship which was to become the Queen Mary first became famous.

  As the ship was built and began to grow, the skeleton of the 534 came to dominate Clydebank. Rising up like a spire over the tenement homes of the men who were building her, it made a pair with the Singer clock.

  Disaster struck shortly before Christmas 1931. A year after the keel was laid, work on the 534 stopped. The slump which followed the crash had begun to bite and Cunard could no longer afford to keep building. Looming as she did over Clydebank, the unfinished and rusting hulk of the 534 became a potent symbol of the Depression.

  It was two years before work resumed, two years during which thousands in Clydebank and elsewhere had no other option but to go on the dole, two years during which masculine pride took a battering and wives and mothers had an even tougher struggle than usual to make ten shillings do the work of a pound. That the skeleton of the 534 was so visible only added to the emotional as well as financial depression gripping the town.

  One response to the mass unemployment of the 1930s was the hunger marches which took place throughout Britain. One of the Scottish organizers of these was Harry McShane, stalwart of the National Unemployed Workers’ Movement (NUWM). The NUWM was established in 1921 and grew out of associations of demobbed sailors and soldiers. Those thrown out of work by the crash and the slump swelled its ranks.

  The NUWM was dominated by members of the Communist Party, Harry McShane one of them. He took part in marches on London and, in the summer of 1933, along with John McGovern, a Glasgow Labour MP, led the Scottish Hunger March to Edinburgh.

  A huge amount of planning went into the Scottish Hunger March of June 1933. Field kitchens were set up along the routes of the marchers converging on Edinburgh, donations of food and money to stock them gathered from trade unions and co-operative societies along the way. Bo’ness Co-op donated 600 ‘twopenny pies’.

  The marchers came from Glasgow and Clydeside, Fife, Lanarkshire, Ayrshire, with a handful from Aberdeen. They were required to fill out and sign a recruiting form. Putting their name to this committed them to accepting ‘strict discipline, as I realise that unless discipline is observed the greatest danger will arise for the marchers’. They also had to state they fully accepted the aims of the march and the five demands which were to be made of the government. The Scotsman listed those on Monday, 12 June 1933, the day after the marchers had reached Edinburgh:

  Abolition of the means test.

  An extra 1s. 6d. a week for each unemployed child and an extra 3s. 6d. a week for each adult unemployed and adult dependant.

  The reduction of rents by 25 per cent.

  The provision of relief work at Trade Union wages and under Trade Union conditions.

  The repudiation of social service schemes and voluntary labour connected with them.

  The Glasgow marchers set off from George
Square on 9 June. Mainly men, there were some women in the ranks. It was a Friday afternoon and they were given a great send-off, with music playing and flags flying. They marched up out of Glasgow to Bishopbriggs and then on to Kilsyth. The Scotsman put the numbers of the Glasgow contingent at 600.

  According to Harry McShane, at Kilsyth the Provost and the town councillors had found they had business elsewhere that Friday but the locals gave them a warm welcome, allowing them to spend the night in the local Salvation Army citadel. A meeting was held beforehand in the local park. Must have been quite an excitement on a long, light June evening in Kilsyth.

  Along the route, people donated what money they could: ‘Coppers, which could ill be spared, clinked into the boxes; women with tears in their eyes, wishing the men “good luck” and dropping their contributions into the collecting tins.’ The next day was the longest of the march: 20 miles. McShane praised ‘Comrade Heenan’:

  . . . whose feet were in a terrible condition and who wrenched his ankle six miles from Corstorphine, but who obstinately refused even to consider giving up, and kept tramping doggedly on. How can one tell of the humour, the healthy, salty humour, that refused even to consider downheartedness even when tramping along at the end of a twenty-mile march through two hours of pelting rain?

  The Glasgow marchers reached the arranged rendezvous at Corstorphine at four o’clock on the afternoon of Sunday, 11 June. Everybody cheered everyone else as they came in and there was a special cheer for the women. The field kitchens fed everyone and then they formed up behind their own bands and marched into Edinburgh:

  The Edinburgh workers sent out a strong contingent to meet us and march in with us. The streets were lined all the way into Edinburgh with sympathetic workers, tremendous enthusiasm prevailing.

  The Scotsman confirms Harry McShane’s description of the arrival and assembly at Corstorphine, the subsequent entry of the marchers into Edinburgh and the enthusiasm:

  Fife and drum bands accompanied them, and, as they entered Corstorphine, the marchers sang ‘The International’ and ‘The Marseillaise’ and other tunes. With the Ayrshire section was a one-legged man, who marched upon crutches.

  Only the Ayrshire section complained of indifferent treatment on the way. They had marched from Hamilton, and had to sleep in a stable. Huts and halls had been found for the other sections.

  The marchers were met outside Corstorphine by the Edinburgh contingent, which, like the other sections, contained members of the Young Communist League. Cards with various slogans were particularly prominent among this section, which was headed by marchers in brown shirts and slouch hats, with red pompoms. When the two parties met cheers were raised, but a little further on these gave place to booing, as an armoured car containing soldiers passed the column.

  A collection was taken en route from the large crowd which had gathered at the Corstorphine tram terminus and from sightseers and sympathisers who lined the streets of the city. As the marchers reached the city people were entering churches for the evening service, and the collectors took up their stands in the porches . . .

  While the marchers were still on the road officialdom had agreed to meet a deputation on the Monday morning after they arrived in Edinburgh. This meeting was to take place at the offices of the Ministry of Labour, then located at 44 Drumsheugh Gardens. However, Sir Edward Collins, Secretary of State for Scotland, had not responded to requests that he should meet the marchers.

  On the Sunday evening they headed for the Mound, where an open-air meeting was held. Harry McShane says 20,000 were there. The Scotsman puts it at ‘several thousand’. Afterwards the marchers went on down to Leith, where they were given a meal in the ILP Hall in Bonnington Road. After a night in various hostels and halls, they formed up again the following morning and headed for Drumsheugh Gardens.

  The deputation spent two hours in the Ministry of Labour offices, the rest of the marchers waiting outside. Secretary of State for Scotland Sir Edward Collins had remained in London and made it clear he had no intention of coming north to meet the marchers.

  The deputation had some interesting demands. Although such a huge number of people were unemployed, the middle classes were still complaining about having to do their own housework. The marchers insisted that young women who were unemployed should not be forced into domestic service. Another suggestion was that new public-works schemes should be launched. These included the building of a road bridge over the Forth ‘and a new arterial road through Glasgow’. The marchers also wanted more schools and ‘better boots and books for the children of the unemployed’. They also protested against the trade embargo currently in force against the Soviet Union.

  The Ministry of Labour officials told them all their points had been duly noted. Although the deputation didn’t think much of that, its members withdrew and joined the rest of the marchers waiting outside in Drumsheugh Gardens. Their next move was to Parliament Square, where an impromptu outdoor cafeteria was set up, complete with those field kitchens and trestle tables. Harry McShane was very taken with the scene:

  The three camp-kitchens were soon belching forth large clouds of smoke. Gallons and gallons of tea were made, while boxes containing a large amount of food were unloaded. Some six or eight women assisted the Marchers’ own cooks in preparing and serving the food.

  The unusual sight in this historical Square attracted large crowds of passers-by, and they seemed inclined to linger to watch the proceedings; but a large body of police arrived on the scene and kept them in motion.

  The meal was simple: tea, a sausage roll and two slices of bread. Marchers sat down in Parliament Square to enjoy it in the bright June sunshine on the steps outside the entrance to St Giles’ Cathedral and on the plinth around the monument to the Duke of Buccleuch. Harry McShane noted what a colourful lot they were ‘with red flavours very much to the fore’. The Scotsman also commented on the profusion of red shirts and ribbons and one beret embroidered with a hammer and sickle.

  Once they were fed and watered they marched down the Royal Mile, heading for Holyrood Park. The policeman at the gates of Holyroodhouse instructed them to wheel right. The marchers kept on going, taking a shortcut through the grounds of the palace. Harry McShane was beside himself with excitement, seeing huge political significance in this. In his pamphlet, Three Days that Shook Edinburgh, he waxed lyrical about the ‘proletariat in their ragged clothes’, walking into ‘the most sacred precincts in Scotland’.

  The walls and grounds of the Royal Palace of Holyrood – that innermost sanctuary of all the Royal parasites in Scotland’s history – echo the tramp of the first legions of the masses. The walls and grounds of Holyrood that heard the music of Rizzio, and Mary, Queen of Scots, heard the song of that murdered Irish leader, ‘The Rebel Song’, and then the thunderous battle cry of the world’s workers, ‘The Internationale.’

  On Monday night the hunger marchers spent the night sleeping on the pavement in Princes Street. The police kept an eye on them but stood back and let them get on with it. Contradicting the ‘you’ll have had your tea’ slur, many Edinburgers stopped by during the evening and gave the marchers cigarettes:

  The police . . . left the marchers to while the time away as they thought fit, contenting themselves with keeping the curious crowds on the move. This was not an easy task. The amazing spectacle was an unusual counter-attraction to the shops, and great patience and tact were demanded from the policemen to prevent serious congestion.

  From the police point of view matters were not improved when flute bands began to play and marchers took part in impromptu dances.

  One man was stretched out under a blanket, and had a white sheet laid across his forehead. A card on his chest informed passers-by that he was ‘a victim of the means test.’

  The ‘reveille’ scene in the morning was remarkable. Men shaved with their mirrors supported on the railings of West Princes Street Gardens, and others washed and dried themselves at a fountain in the middle of the marchers’ en
campment.

  After a meal had been served in the middle of the day hundreds of banana skins were stuck onto the railing spikes, and remained there during the afternoon, forming a new decorative touch scarcely in harmony with the everyday dignity of the street.

  Fortified by the bananas, the people who surely must already have had enough blisters on their feet spent Tuesday marching not once but twice through Edinburgh and the East Coast haar which had come down after the golden sunshine of the previous day.

  Now estimated by The Scotsman at a thousand strong, it was midnight before they returned to Princes Street after a stravaig across North Bridge, South Bridge, Chambers Street, Candlemaker Row, the Grassmarket and through onto Lothian Road. Edinburgh came up trumps, having arranged from them all to spend the night in different halls around the city: ‘It was stated that whether or not indoor accommodation had been found for the men last night, the women would have been accommodated indoors.’

  On Wednesday morning breakfast was served on a piece of waste ground at Simon Square at the Pleasance. More bananas, in sandwiches this time, were washed down with tea. Meanwhile, McGovern and McShane called at the City Chambers, asking for help to transport the marchers home. Fine, said the Lord Provost and the police, but there’s one condition: You have to promise not to come back and do it all again.

  McGovern and McShane refused to give that commitment and for a while the situation grew tense. Edinburgh blinked first. Nineteen free buses were laid on to take the marchers home to wherever they had come from in the first place: Fife, Central Scotland, Glasgow and the West. Separate arrangements were made for the five marchers from Aberdeen. Maybe they got a ride home on the train: