Glasgow was famous for neglect and poverty even as late as the 70’s but yes this poverty was a result of not one but two world wars. The great wealth of England was spent fighting the Germans, interestingly enough it has only been England who paid in full its debt back to the United States and only a few years ago was the last payment made. No surprises that the Russians hardly paid a penny back for what was given them to fight the Germans.
Aside that, if these images were in color their impact would probably not be as impactful as they are in this black and white display.
Strangely enough, I feel the cold weather in them. You can tell that they had little to pay for heating but food and MAINTAINING their clothing was uppermost, sadly the ability to keep clean because soap and hot water cost money was obviously not an importance.
Every weekend we would go to our house in the Cumbrian Lake District, we would climb two mountains every Saturday, using two cars one being at the other end to bring us back to collect the first. We then went to a Hotel called the Braithwait, near Keswick. We would go in for drinks and sandwiches. Father with his Zeiss Super Ikonta over his shoulder within it the images of the climbs. There was a scruffy man who was always there, a drunk looser of a sort. He would drink until he ran out of money and he stopped getting free beers. I remember seeing two children sitting outside, not allowed in because they were too young. They had “NO SHOES ON THEIR FEET” and yes they were the drunks children, some father who would rather pay to drink beer than buy shoes for his children.
There was a fancy dress party, I remember that four of the locals were in a car crash on their way home from the party, three died but the one who survived was the drunk. My mother was heartbroken because two who dies were farmers who Mother loved to talk with.
With Father being a Doctor there was a lot of respect for him amongst the farming community, one such man was called John Mattinson, he had a wiry head of wild hair, always wearing his wellingtons with a lovely smile. He and Mother were especially friendly. Well his father lived with him on the farm and he apparently had a badly infected foot, he asked my father would he mind taking a look at it. So we followed him back to his farm and because it was winter, we all went inside. The stench as soon as we went inside was atrocious, small farmers must have been living in terrible poverty back then, the,itches did not look too different from the images in this article. I remember standing watching as father removed the bandages, the whole foot was black and appeared to be literally rotting. This was the source of the smell, father changed the bandage, tried to comfort the old man, then took John to one side and talked with him. We then left, once in the car Mother asked the obvious questions, I then heard two terms one of them new to me that being gangrene and amputation, then father said it had gone too far for surgery to cure. The old man died not long after, the nearest hospital was a while away. Then one weekend we arrived as usual to discover that John Mattinson had died, he had been on the fells with his sheepdog rounding up his flock and had a stroke. His wife called the Police and they got the mountain rescue team out to search for him up on the fells. They found John dead, his collie dog lying next to his master. My Mother cried all weekend, I remember the silence in the bar from my small corner, I was allowed in as long as I sat quietly and drank my lemonade. The first pub in the village would not allow me in because I was only eight, you had to be fourteen back then, so I sat in the cold car with father bringing me crisps and lemonade. The next time we tried the Coledale, Father went into the bar and asked the owner if he would allow me to come in and sit quietly, the owner said yes, as long as I did not ask for a pint !!!! That was the beginning of a long lasting friendship with the locals and farmers.
I need to search through Fathers negatives and see if there are any of these old and now dead friends. Sorry for rambling on.
