Norry Wilson from Lost Glasgow on the evolution of Christmas celebrations in Glasgow at The Ubiquitous Chip

National World - LocalTV

We sat down with Norry Wilson who runs the Lost Glasgow Facebook page to chat about Christmas in Glasgow.

Transcript

00:00 Christmas itself has changed dramatically in Glasgow.

00:03 And what an awful lot of folk fail to realise,

00:09 historically, Christmas in Scotland wasn't that important.

00:13 The big thing was New Year.

00:15 The big thing was Hogmanay in the New Year.

00:18 Christmas Day wasn't even a holiday in Scotland until 1958.

00:23 Really?

00:24 So if Christmas Day fell on a Saturday or a Sunday,

00:27 you were fine.

00:28 If it fell during the working week,

00:30 most folk in Scotland would be working until lunchtime.

00:33 And they'd only get the afternoon off.

00:36 And it wasn't until, I think it was 1974,

00:39 before Boxing Day and New Year's Day

00:43 became public holidays in Scotland.

00:45 So Christmas was very much--

00:49 it was focused on the children, because the adults were all

00:52 looking forward to New Year.

00:54 That was Scotland's big celebration.

00:57 Christmas was looked on almost as a sort of English incomer.

01:03 But obviously, with the nature of national advertising

01:06 and national broadcasting, slowly but surely,

01:09 Christmas has become this bigger and bigger thing,

01:12 particularly in the minds of children,

01:14 obviously, because it means presents and all the rest of it.

01:17 But Christmas was a relatively minor sort of thing

01:23 in the social life of Scotland, really until the 1960s,

01:29 when folk started getting time off for it.

01:31 And it's also-- I don't know.

01:36 I mean, the one thing I specifically remember,

01:40 we were a bit flush.

01:41 My mum could drive.

01:42 We had a car.

01:43 And the other great treat was getting taken uptown

01:45 to see the lights.

01:48 And it wasn't just the classic upsucky,

01:50 doon-bucky, and a langard guile.

01:52 Because of course, the whole of Suckey Hall Street,

01:54 the whole of Buchanan Street, the whole of Argyle Street

01:57 was this beautiful, brightly lit tunnel of fairy lights.

02:05 And it wasn't just those three.

02:06 The whole of Renfield Street, right from the top,

02:08 right down to Central Station, it was all lit as well.

02:13 And folks say, now, why doesn't Glasgow do that now?

02:18 At the time, it wasn't really-- the council only

02:22 had to do with George Square.

02:25 They'd do the George Square lights.

02:27 And then they'd chip in, because all the big department stores--

02:31 and at that point, Glasgow was a department store city.

02:34 So up in Suckey Hall Street, you had Daley's.

02:38 You had Treyrong's.

02:40 I'm trying to remember.

02:41 There was another huge department store up there.

02:44 But all the big department stores

02:45 would put money into a Christmas fund.

02:49 So they could-- and the council would put some money in as well,

02:52 so they could light their street.

02:55 Because obviously, if you've got spectacular streetlights,

02:58 you're bringing bodies into town.

03:00 And if they're coming into town to see the lights,

03:02 then hopefully they might come into your shop

03:04 and spend a few quid.

03:06 Daley's, that was the other big one in Suckey Hall Street.

03:11 And if you didn't have a car, you'd come in

03:12 and you'd walk around.

03:14 Or right through the late '60s and into the '70s,

03:18 Glasgow Corporation used to run a Christmas lights bus,

03:22 a double-decker bus.

03:24 And for literally tuppence or fivepence,

03:28 you could get the Christmas lights bus.

03:30 It would go right around the whole city,

03:31 all the streets that were lit with Christmas lights.

03:34 And you can imagine the fight there was for seats upstairs,

03:38 because every kid wanted to be upstairs, particularly

03:40 at the front of the bus.

03:42 Because it was like traveling through this tunnel

03:45 of magical lights.

03:47 How much would a tuppence be then?

03:50 Yeah, probably about 5, 10 pence today.

03:54 We're talking old money, so that's pre-1971 decimalization.

04:01 But it was really cheap, because basically, they

04:03 wanted to get as many bodies on board as possible.

04:07 The corporation were running the buses anyway,

04:09 so you may as well stick Christmas lights special

04:12 on the front.

04:13 The driver would put on a Santa hat and a beard.

04:16 And I'm quite sure probably a few inspectors

04:19 got dressed up as elves.

04:22 I was never on it, but I've seen photographs of it.

04:24 And the kids are obviously having an absolute whale

04:26 of a time, because quite often, they're

04:28 on it without their parents, which would just

04:30 be absolute carnage.

04:31 It would be absolute human zoo.

04:33 You'd get, what, 50, 60 Glasgow Wayans on a bus.

04:37 Just feel it, oh God. (laughs)

04:40 - Come on, you know. - I don't know.

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