25. Stepps, Glasgow

Private site
May 18^th -21^st

An easy but boring 35-mile drive over the Clackmannanshire Bridge over the Firth of Forth. Stepps is a small village just off the A80 on the road's way into Glasgow. I guess it's about five miles east of the centre. The site is quite strange, stuck discreetly on the end of a large holiday village in the middle of a poor, oldish council estate. For a private site it's really good value, absolutely spotless, with lovely well-tended gardens and free Wi-Fi. Many of the chalets are occupied by workmen for Babcock, most of them Bulgarian. Most of the tourers here are Germans. The day I arrived I went for a bike ride, forgetting to put my new cycling shorts on, exploring the train station, the bank, the bus stop and the supermarket.

This morning (Monday) I got the train into the city. At long last we have a really warm day and I was wearing just a tee-shirt quite comfortably. I could tell the moment I got out at Queen Street station that I was going to like the city. It's about twenty years since I last came and can't remember anything about it. The streets are arranged in a grid system, which makes it easy to explore.

The architecture is monumental, with everywhere five or six storeys of ornamented stone (don't ask me the style) with very tall ground floor frontages, so that even the smallest shops look massive. The Cancer Research charity shop was enormous. It's a great feeling strolling around in what feels like an open-air museum. It was interesting to see the Gaelic equivalents of the railway station names displayed, just like in Ireland.

What I liked most was the almost total lack of touristification, a welcome contrast to Edinburgh. This is a real place. It seems much more substantial and forward-looking than Edinburgh, which seems to be stuck in the past and feels a bit precious.

The statue of the Duke of Wellington outside the Gallery of Modern Art decorated with two traffic cones was one of the first things to meet my eye; some healthy lack of reverence for the symbols of empire there. I went and had a look in the Gallery, but I'm afraid modern art is not really my thing (I went in really because it was free and because a nice young lady came over with a lovely smile and gave me a brochure while I was admiring the Duke). There was one exhibit which took-up a whole room and which consisted of probably over a hundred models of churches made from cardboard boxes. As a keen modeller myself I was impressed by the build quality, but I'm afraid the message went over my head.

Walking back through Stepps, I noticed that it is a Catholic area, with a Catholic Church, a Catholic primary school and a Marian Centre. All the housing is council housing and it's obviously a poor area, but, almost without exception, the gardens are carefully planted and well-tended. Some old people were sitting in the sun in their front gardens and passed the time of day. Two tiny dogs charged me and tried to look menacing, barking from behind their garden fence, to everyone's amusement. It seems a friendly community.

After one glorious day the weather reverted. I managed to have a barbecue every evening, though. The last evening I was treated to a special aerial display. First, three swans flew over in a triangular formation, honking away to each other as they went. What a spectacular sight! Then, a little while later, it started to rain (again!). I had noticed earlier than there were clouds of tiny insects flying around (thankfully no midges) and the next minute the swallows arrived. I watched them happily for twenty minutes or so, until my grub was ready. One kept on flying straight at me and then soaring up over the edge of my awning just at the last minute. It was a brilliant performance.

On my last day I walked down to the Clyde and along the river for a while. A bit disappointing, really; they haven't made the most of having a major river flowing through the middle of the city. There are river trips, but none to-day. There was a nice monument to the volunteers who went to fight against Franco's fascists in 1936.

And then, of course, I had to ruin it all. I found a branch of Fopp and seized on it with delight. I got a remastered copy of '2001: a space odyssey' for £3. When I played it it didn't work. Well, that's to say it just showed a black screen for about five minutes. Anyway, they changed it for me with pleasure. I tried again and the same result. This time, however, I left it and, sure enough, it started the great 'Also Sprach Zarathustra' music and off it went with the apes and so on. It wasn't faulty at all! The film just starts with a black screen! I AM an idiot, it's been confirmed now.

No pasaran

The old Glasgow city has been sanitised and it wasn't until the last afternoon that I saw any of the old-style Weegies at all. Small, weedy, pale, emaciated, etiolated, of indeterminate age, absolutely paralytic and roaring. They used to be quite common, but I think they've been banished to Paisley and Partick now.

I'm proud to say I understood a few words spoken to me while I was here.