A Tree, The Bird, The Fish And The Bell: A Boy, A Church And A Cemetery
by Helen Moat
Think of Glasgow and what do you think of: the Glasgow kiss (a greeting with a head butt), alcohol-fueled street brawls, sectarian violence between Celtic and Rangers supporters and thick, threatening, indecipherable accents. You might think of a sprawling urban mess, notoriously dysfunctional high-rise flats, 70s concrete monstrosities and dark, forbidding sandstone Victorian tenement buildings and other utilities blackened by decades of pollution. Poverty.
You might think of bad, bad food: iron brew, a nuclear-orange sugar-fueled drink, the deep-fried Mars bars (surely an urban myth?), bloody black pudding, haggis consisting of the parts most butchers throw away, flat sausages, 90% fat and 10% meat, and sugar-packed cakes. Early death.
London it isn’t – nor Edinburgh. There’s nothing twee, contrived, touristy or pretty-pretty about Glasgow. Glasgow is down-to-earth, has real character. It’s smart, gritty, witty, vibrant and alive. It’s the genuine article.
Glasgow has had its ups and downs. It’s easy to forget it was once called the ‘Empire’s second city,’ it was a thriving industrial city full of sea merchants, shipbuilders, tradesmen, entrepreneurs, inventors, ground-breaking scientists, artists and intellects.
Nowhere is this more evident than at the Necropolis in the Cathedral Quarter. I went there as a tourist and unwittingly returned my father-in-law to the place of his birth, finding myself touching a personal past. I had no idea. He lived in the shadows of the Cathedral and the atmospheric Victorian cemetery, a child of poverty among Glasgow’s great and good.
The cathedral area was Alan’s stamping ground. The gates of the Necropolis were kept locked, no doubt to keep young scallywags like him out. Hardly a deterrent, the street kids scaled the railings and crept in regardless, sometimes tearing their clothes on the railings. Once they dared each other to enter the cemetery after dark. They crept through Celtic crosses, obelisks, toppled urns, headless statues and mausoleums. They crept past writers (including the author of Wee Willie Winkie) and sculptors, rich industrialists, sea merchants and esteemed churchmen and a towering John Knox. Near the bottom, they saw a shadowy old woman attired in black. They glanced away and looked back again to find she was gone. The boys scarpered. My father-in-law, a man not usually given to flights of fancy, swears she was a ghost.
The Necropolis lies on a hill overlooking the city. All of Glasgow stretched out before us: the Tennent’s brewery close by, isolated tenement blocks, smaller brick-built houses, concrete offices and wind turbines on the moors, far on the horizon. Alan pointed out the place where his tenement home had once stood, long gone now. It had survived an incendiary bomb during the war (His mother, an ARP warden, had hosed down the fire in the attic herself) only for the building to be later demolished.
Atop the hill, a Victorian high-rise city of the dead, Glasgow’s elite sought to outdo their neighbour: with the largest family vault, the highest monument, the best quality stone, the most detailed mason work, the grandest sculpture or the finest inscription.
The gravestones are filled with story and history. I could have spent hours there uncovering lives like John Ronald Ker’s: accidentally drowned while shooting wildfowl from a small boat off Contyre of Ronaghan at the early age of 21 – of a generous and amiable disposition and endearing qualities which made him so agreeable a companion, so good and true a friend. (July 1868)
Making our way back down the hill, Alan showed us a wall with a 30 foot vertical drop. He and his pals had once skidded to an abrupt stop here as they had tried to out-run a police officer. The policeman caught up with the ragamuffins and apprehended them, taking delight in reading out every detail of graveyard vandalism over the entire week, although the boys’ singular crime had been ‘breaking and entering’.
We slipped out of the cemetery, over ‘the bridge of sighs’ into the cathedral. It’s an imposing Gothic church built in the Middle Ages. Saint Kentigern (more widely known as St Mungo) supposedly built the first Christian church in Scotland here. The tomb of the saint lies in the lower crypt.
A stained glass tells the story of St Mungo and the miracles associated with him (symbols that form the Glasgow coat of arms):
The bird that never flew
The tree that never grew
The bell that never rang
The fish that never swam
Another stained glass window pays homage to Glasgow’s tradesmen: bakers, barbers, bonnetmakers, bookmakers, coopers, cordiners, dyers, fleshers, gardeners, maltmen, masons, weavers and wood binders; crafts that are now largely confined to the annals of history.
Alan called us over to show us a neatly hand-scripted list of parish servicemen who had lost their lives during the war. He pointed to one of the names on the list: Driver: C Findley RASC, and said: “My brother-in-law”.
“But Tom’s uncle died in the ’80s,” I said in a puzzled voice.
“I know,” said Alan. “It’s a mistake. Charlie took great delight in showing people his name on the memorial, claiming he was one of the living dead. He thought it a great joke.” “But how did he end up on the list?”
“When he was evacuating to Dunkirk, on the run from the Germans, his truck took a wrong turn. He ended up on a beach some miles adrift from Dunkirk. Missing, it was presumed he was one of the Dunkirk dead.”
A fortuitous wrong turn indeed.
Glasgow survived the heavy bombardment of the Second World War and the decline of its manufacturing base, and is on the up again. It’s no coincidence that Glasgow was chosen to be ‘European City of Culture’ in 1990. Since then Glasgow has gone from strength to strength.
We visited the Clydeside, currently being regenerated with its smart new Riverside Museum, a theatre – the Armadillo, and the science museum tower. Over in the West End we discovered a vibrant hub of fine eateries, trendy boutiques and night clubs set among the cleaned-up sandstone Victorian buildings; handsome historic university buildings and museums set in leafy parks and hilly bluffs.
We ate in ‘The Black Sheep’ and ‘Two Fat Ladies’ and tasted some of the best food I have ever had. Yes, Scottish fare: tatties and neeps (potatoes and turnips), haggis, black pudding and sticky toffee pudding; food that was surprisingly light and full of flavour .
Glasgow: unpretentious, vivacious, humorous, plain-speaking, rough at the edges, but ultimately warm and generous, (A bit like my father-in-law, I discovered) – yet witty and intelligent. Go there, and you might have to rethink your view of the city. I had to.
Glasgow City Centre Whisky Tour
If You Go:
Glasgow International Airport is only 8 miles from the city centre and is well served with taxis and buses. In Glasgow itself, getting around the city is easy with a comprehensive network of buses, trains and the underground railway system, known locally as “The clockwork orange”. It’s worth taking a coach up to The Trossachs and Highlands, just a stone’s throw from Glasgow. The hills, lochs and the pure clear northern light are the perfect contrast to the bustling city.
About the author:
Helen Moat is a British teacher and travel writer. She has won several travel writing competitions, including runner-up with the British Guild of Travel Writers, and has been published in The Daily Telegraph. Her greatest passions in life are music, travel and writing (not surprisingly).
Find other travel pieces by her at: moathouse-moathouseblogspotcom.blogspot.com
All photos are by Helen Moat:
1. Glasgow University
2. Alan Moat (subject of story) outside the cathedral
3. Outside the Cathedral
4. The Cathedral Interior
5. Details from the Guild Window (The Bell, The Bird The Fish And The Tree)
6. Details from the Guild Window
7. Details from the Guild Window
8. Riverside Museum (of transport)
This massive twenty-one-tower complex built by William the Conqueror shortly after he came into power in 1066 served a variety of functions, including a fortress against foreign attack, a repository for the crown jewels, and a refuge for the royal family in times of civil disorder. However, the Tower of London remains notorious as the site for some of England’s bloodiest bits, a living testimony to the hell that happened when certain royals ruled the roost.
After I passed by Traitor’s Gate, the famous entry to the Tower where prisoners would enter from the River Thames to the Tower, I took a counterclockwise tour of the various towers. Passing by a sequence of cells and chapels, I almost felt as though I was traversing through a medieval monastery. That is until I stumbled upon a display of torture instruments clearly designed to stretch someone into submission.
, with a seventh book in development. In addition to penning a book on pilgrimages for Zondervan (a subsidiary of Harper Collins), she has written articles about destination travel and travel products for several publications, including 52 Perfect Days, Yahoo, Sportsology.net and Killing the Buddha. Visit 
Wilton’s, the world’s oldest surviving music hall, was opened in 1858. If its disintegrating walls could talk, they would have a few tales to tell. It began its life as a sailor’s club (and possibly a brothel); then became a music hall. The burlesque lyricist and performer, George Leybourne, aka Champagne Charlie stepped onto the stage here, as did the dancers of the risqué can-can (only to be promptly banned). Sadly, Wilton’s only initially survived a short 20 years as a music hall. In 1877, the hall had to be rebuilt after a disastrous fire. Soon after, this place of twilight glamour was closed down and it took on a series of very different functions from Methodist mission hall, soup kitchen, refugee centre, safe house (from the fascists) to a sorting house for rags.
It’s an almost impossible task, and the building (in its unsafe state) has come very close to closure. When I was there, I could see daylight appearing through the rafters in places. There were unsafe electrics, leaking plumbing, and floorboards in the bar so rotten that the number of people permitted at any one time restricted. The whole of the second floor was boarded up, unfit for public use. Even the stone walls were eroding in places. Yet, it’s this forgotten, neglected state that’s given Wilton’s its indescribable atmosphere. It has the feel of Miss Havisham’s mansion in Great Expectations – as if someone had stopped the clock on time and left the building in a state of decaying beauty.
I head upstairs and into the Great Hall. I’ve walked into a Victorian fable. From the gallery a hundred fairy-lights cascade outwards from the centre of the ceiling. Yet more fairy-lights line the gallery’s railings. Pastel frescos fill the peeling walls between great arches. The gilt banister is decorated with delicate, intricate detail. A red silk curtain drapes the stage. Musician and artiste Duke Special enters the stage, eyes black with kohl, long dreadlocks, draping shirt cuffs and velvet jacket. To his left sits a string quartet: Behind him a projector screen. For two hours, he sings and plays the piano – songs he has written to accompany the black and white photos of the renowned early twentieth century American photographers, Stieglitz, Steichen and Strand. The music (commissioned by the Met Museum in New York) is heart-wrenchingly moving, the images haunting. The beauty and timelessness of the music and the photographic images fit perfectly in this magical, ethereal building. A great deal of thought is put into the theatre pieces and concerts that are produced at Wilton’s. The art, like the building, is sumptuous. So the next time you are in London, take the tube out to Wapping and to Wilton’s Music Hall and step back in time. Book a tour, or better still, one of their exceptional shows. You won’t regret it.
Skara Brae, a prehistoric village that was built before the Egyptian pyramids, has been listed as one of the “Heart of Neolithic Orkney” World Heritage Sites, and it illustrates a perfect example as to why the Orkney Islands have often been referred to as “The Egypt of the North.”
Skara Brae is approximately 5,000 years old and is located about eight miles away from the small town of Stromness on the southern shore of the Bay O’ Skaill. Although it was originally thought that the site was a Pictish village, researchers now believe that the settlement was actually an Orcadian village that was inhabited between the years of 3200 and 2200 BC.
It is believed that Skara Brae was big enough to hold about 50 to 100 villagers at any given time, and that it was inhabited for approximately 600 years.
The villagers also used volcanic pumice that could have been washed up on the shore from Iceland to help shape the bone tools and stone balls, and over 2,400 inscribed beads and hundreds of bone necklaces were found in one of the stone cupboards as well. It is believed that many of these objects resembled one’s symbol of status or may even have been used for ritualistic purposes. It is also thought that the dressers which were sitting directly across from the doorway were used to “show off” any prized possessions and/or hunting trophies whenever a visitor entered the home.
Because many belongings and artifacts were left behind in the village and stored carefully away in the cupboards, some believe that Skara Brae was abandoned because of an “apocalyptic” event and/or disaster which forced the villagers to flee their home.
