EDMISTON STREET - PARKHEAD
Paul Gallagher has kindly e-mailed me some old photo's of the street that I used to live in - Edmiston St. (Although the Photos are from the"Glesca Keelies" Website.)
The first one showing the corner of Edmiston St. and Springfield Rd. Showing "Leitch" the bakers, I was sometimes allowed in the back shop to help the baker to cut up the dough for the morning rolls, these were of course made at night. Also the wall behind the back close was also the back wall of the oven, so it was always warm and was a favourite spot for winching couples in the winter. Many a time my pals and me were chased away for annoying them ! Two or three doors up from the bakers, was a butcher who used to sell steak pies in enamel ashets. When you returned the ashets, you got back your deposit of 6 pence. The butcher would wash and re-use them, but he would place them up on the bars of the open window to dry. Well we would nick one every now and again and return it to him after a day or two for the 6 pence. He never twigged to what was going on because we never got "greedy" on it.
Ward's stores on the opposite corner, I remember as being called something like "The Star Emporium" but maybe it is my memory playing tricks. Anybody else remember this store ?
The second photo looking into Edmiston St. The tall man in the back left/middle of the photo is in front of the house on the corner of Palace St. Well when I lived there, that house was where the "Ness" family lived, the father was a bookies runner and used to take bets at that window. His daughter was Catherine Ness and was in my class at Newlands.
Our first house was the next close past the "Ness" house, No. 61 we were one up on the left. But this house had an outside shared toilet, so we later moved across the street to No. 48 which was on the right and had an inside toilet.
There was a wee dairy at the far right hand corner next to Delburn St and the owner (can't remember his name) had the only car that I ever remember being parked in our street in those days.
At the first close on the left there is a woman in white standing at it. Well just past her, you will see a wee low building between the two tenements. This was a wee single end flat (ground floor only - like a wee bungalow). it had it's own door in the back court which you had to access through the close. My cousin Billy Gibson lived in that flat when he first got married in the 1950s.
( Both photos are reproduced here by kind permission of Charlie McDonald at the "Glesca Keelies" Website.)
12 comments:
Nice wee Blog this :-)
I wasn't around Parkhead when it looked like it does in the pictures just before they tore it down what a shame to see it like this it was never a colourfull place at the best of times but it and it's people had a warmth about them wee arra peeplel ,, no thats not the pygmies national anthem buy the way have a GUID NEW YEAR People awe ra best Boabby
I agree with Boabby that the tenements look very sad and abandoned.....and to think those streets used to ring with the sounds of the Coal Men, shouting their prices up to the top-floor housewives....and the shouts of young lads trying to sell wee bundles of "sticks" so we could try to light the cheap coal which was too wet to make a warm fire...and mothers could be heard yelling down at kids in the back to get away from their clean wash festooning the lines with all their man's shirts & overalls for work. Besides them hung rows and rows of nappies. Later in the evenings, the pubs came out and created a unique concert for us of taunts, threats, pleadings, and drunks singing at the top of their lungs! This was accompanied by the delicious smells of fish suppers well soaked with brown vinegar and lashings of salt!
i used to stay in 33 palace street around the time that photo was taken i loved the place and i remember well being round the back of leitches bakers close getting off with some of the girls.the old place might not have been in the best of shape at the time but now the whole area is a sad and deserted looking place when i stayed there i was a pain in the but to everyone and a nightmare for the local police but i was only boy then and you eventually grow up i miss the old place as at that time every one new each other and had time to speak to your neibours now everyone is in to much of a rush but its just sad that they did not refurbish palace street malcom street delburn street and edminston street like they did with a lot of other tenements from the area i can still see my nickname on wards store ALKA saddly the other name on it is no longer with us. AJ glasgow
Yes a very sad sight for me. I lived in Malcom Street but my Gran lived in Edminston. I remember waiting at the bakery for the rolls to come out fresh from the oven and then running home so they were still warm enough to melt the butter.To have lived in the area has probably made us better people for having done so.
Stew Merrilees
I can see my bedroom window in this pic! I lived in 4 Palace Street and my bedroom is on the corner 2 up, we lived the from 1948 to 1958 then moved to Castlemilk.
Joe Hunter
I lived in number 11 Edmiston Street which is the one past the low level house on the left. our windows were the ones on the 1st floor to the right of the close. I cant remember how long we stayed there for but we moved to Drumchapel in 1973, I can remember the demolition of the tenements at the end of the Street. I also went to Newlands.
hi Parkhead friends sorry to have neglected you and this great wee blog I am going home next week as I have done every year in the last 7/8 but this time it is with a purpose because I want to move back home to Scotland and then maybe I can visit parkhead at will when the notion takes me I know it is all changed and that's ok things have to change we have to evolve i have been lucky and travelled extensivlly and the spelling haas not got any better by the way and it never will this, from the wee boy who trembled at the knees when Miss Bone had him by the ear lobe and demamded to know
if I had made that puddle on the floor under the leaky radiator in room 5 Newlands school what a tirant she was anyway I am looking to be back home before I retire so I can retire early Glad your wee blog is still running Brian so ah am see ya Boabby
Hi just wanted to say as a family we moved to 33 Palace st in 1965 i went to Newlands & then Riverside. My dad was called Donald & my mother was called May. We left palace st in 1973 as the buildings where going to be demolished. We moved to Kinnear Rd. I am now at 942 Springfeild Rd at cross. I like the old photos of Springfeild road as i remember it when i was young, I have wonderfull memories of Palace st & Parkhead.
Hi Again Margaret DAVIS young here again from Canada. I have a school picture my daughter is going to post. Ernest Lachlan was in my class you may remember. the pic is from maybe 1954. I also remember a girl Margaret Shepherd [because that was my moms maiden name] she was not in my class but I remember her from the playground. Does anyone know her. I am sure she would have been born in 1948 [ my age]. I love you blog.
love Margaret
I live in edminston street when I was a boy 1-5 .I lived above the bakery Think It was 3rd floor bed recces in livingroom made into kitchen but sink and handmade units either side .my dad made the hall cupboard into an inside toilet .as the toilet was in the stairwell when I looked out the front window there was spare ground on the left of edminston street and if I looked right I could see the wall of the cemetry .on football days the cars and busses parked on the spare ground the place was thriving with supporters .I could look straight across the spare ground and se into c/park the back enterance were the old green corrigated double gate was and at half time they would open the gates to let those who could not aford enterance in for the second half ....the good thing was I could watch one half of the pitch from my window at half time they would change sides lol (brings a new meaning to a game of two halfs to me as I could only see one half of the pitch due to one half being covered .
one of my fondest memorys was the smell from the bakery and the anticapation of the back door opening for one of the workers to have a fly fag and often give me and my young sister a cake witch in our time was a rare treat .when they started taking down our side of the street I would often help the workmen in the back courts to load the slates they were removing by rope and bucket from the roofs and this would often mean a little treat of a warm pie of cake when the men took their lunch break my mum would go mad when I came in black from head to toe with slate dust just like a coal man haha .one of my worst moments was when a local bobby came to our door to tell mum some one had been throwing terry towling nappys out the window and they were blowing down the street ahhahah caught me and lynn my sister had been throwing them to see how farr the wind would take them and to see if we could get them into the cemetery at the end of the street although we left ther shortly after starting school(st micheals )my teacher ms carol had left the school months before but to my surprise we moved to barlanark and went to ST judes my old teachers was the head of the primary my name is also paul gallagher
I was born in 24 Edmiston St.. My dad worked at Begg Cousland. He was a voluntary ambulance man. At Begg Cousland, he was a sheet metal worker, but he also filled in with a first aid man in the company. In Edmiston St, he did the same. People would come into our single end and he would treat them. My dad died an early death much later, but my mum lived till she was 99. We were the Dobsons - my mum and dad, my older sister, Clare, and for a short time our big cousin Ian. My dad used to go on duty in Celtic Park. They had little seats for the St Andrew's ambulance men and they had prime viewing of the matches. That was a bit lost on my dad, as he wasn't as fond of football as other were, though he did like it.
My aunt Mary and uncle Alex (Stirling) owned the dairy at the opposite end from Springfield Road. The lived upstairs at 64 Edmiston street, and they had a car, which was a rare sight in those days.
I remember the gas lights and the man coming round with his ladder to set them alight each night.
it all looks more bleak in these pictures than it actually was. It was a great place to be, except for the outside loo, that didn't affect me so much as a 3 your old when we left.
During the war, my mum and dad fled along Springfield Road to the shelter (don't know where that was) with my sister in the pram. They were shot at by a German fighter plane and the next stay, they found the bullets embedded in Spingfield Road. After that my parents took there chances at home, and thankfully survived the war.
Best wishes
Pauline
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