1. Under the clouds
I left home in Fife and went to live in Glasgow when I was eighteen. When I think of it now, the distance seems laughably small – forty miles, little more than an hour in the train – but the contrast between a village on the east coast and a city, Scotland’s largest, on the west coast was sharp and exciting. I had a bedsit in a dark street of better-class tenements, with a Polish delicatessen, a dance hall and a cinema just round the corner. Glasgow seemed an infinite place, never to be known completely no matter how many suburban bus terminals you reached or exploratory walks you made. It was 1963. The last trams had run the year before, but the city was still much its old self – smoke-blackened, run-down, Victorian, majestic, tipsy on beer and whisky on a Saturday night, hushed on a Sunday. More than a million people lived there then; forty years later, that figure had almost halved.
PETER BARRON about his excitement at being a leader of The Big Smile AS an only child, growing up with the beautiful Derwent Valley on his doorstep, Richard Ellis had “the best playground in the world”. Forests, rivers, hills, and wildlife have been part of his life for as long as he can remember. “It was just always where I felt most at home – out in the countryside and the fresh air,” he says. It is a passion that has stayed with him throughout his life, leading to him serving all over the world with the Royal Marines and qualifying as a mountain leader.
BBC News
By Robbie Meredith
Published
image copyrightCarrie Davenport/Getty Images
image captionAndy Cairns, seen here playing with Therapy? at Belfast s Limelight in 2015, has been playing guitar since he was 13 I can t book you, your hair s too short.
Therapy? guitarist Andy Cairns has come a long way since being turned down for gigs in Belfast for lacking long heavy-metal hair.
Now he is sharing that journey, along with some of Northern Ireland s other great guitarists, in Guitar Heroes, a series of events run by the Linen Hall Library and the Making the Future programme.
Stiff Little Fingers Jake Burns, Eric Bell of Thin Lizzy and Ricky Warwick of the Black Star Riders are among those taking part throughout May.
WORSHIPPERS reminisced over a lifetime of happy memories as their beloved church in Greenock was knocked down. Members who celebrated baptisms and weddings at East End United Reformed Church were saddened to see the Bawhirley Road building razed to the ground. Work will now begin to build eight three-bedroom homes on the site. Kay McCabe, whose membership actually pre-dated the opening of the building, said: This building has been here for more than 50 years. The church hall was well used every night, with brownies, guides and women s guild groups. We also had a big Sunday School. The distinctive red-brick building was built by congregational union architect Fred McDermid in 1968 and had a landmark tower.