A Recurring Portrait of Poverty.

Poverty Safari, or Othering the Poor?

On a Poverty Safari

In the preface to his Orwell Prize winning book, Poverty Safari, Darren McGarvey talks about the residents of Grenfell Tower. They had been warning for months about the fire dangers they could see in their flats. They were a group of people whose voices were not listened too. After the tragedy, in which 72 people died, the media, and even Theresa May tried to visit the community, but retreated away quickly. Theresa May was criticised for not speaking to any victims of the tragedy, citing security concerns. For her "poverty safari" she kept her distance, the poor were a dangerous and unpredictable alien species, best approached cautiously, and with protection nearby. Certainly not listened to or understood.

The image below of two kids playing in a manky Glasgow close is repeatedly used in the media to illustrate stories about poverty. I fear that it is overly reductive and plays to stereotypes, without being an accurate representation of poverty in the UK. It plays to ideas of poor people not being like "us", best viewed from afar, in their own world, rather than people who should be understood and listened to.

What is poverty?

The most commonly used definition of poverty is based upon income. The OECD defines those living "below the poverty line" as those in households living on less than half the median household income of the country.

("Median"? Brief diversion into statistics. The mean is what most of us understand as the average - you add up all the numbers in a sequence and divide by how many numbers you had. The median is the middle number in a range, used when there are extreme outliers that can skew an average, eg the very rich. If your numbers are 1,3,3,4,5,7,10,17,40 the mean is 90 dived by 9 = 10. Whereas the median is 5 in this example. 
"Poverty" is not those living below half the "average" income, but HALF the MEDIAN income).

By this measure of poverty over a third of the population of Britain is living below the poverty line (a ratio of 0.3555, which is among the worst ratios in Europe). Newer definitions of poverty add in calculations for childcare costs, as the previous measure overestimated the disposable income of households with children.

Statistics are slippery beasts however, so what does this mean in reality if you are living in poverty?

Poverty means lacking food, lacking heat, lacking secure housing, lacking adequate clothing. It means being excluded from things others in society take for granted, such as holidays, trips to the cinema or even using public transport. It means having a lot less than other people, including opportunities to change your position. This leads to mental health problems, physical health problems, feelings of worthlessness, insecurity and feelings of being judged by the media, and by society. 

Children from poorer backgrounds are more likely to be born premature, more likely to suffer chronic illness and disability in childhood. Children living in deprivation fall behind in education at every stage in life. Childhood poverty also has a hugely significant effect on life expectancy. The BBC news article above, from 2018, shows that those living in the most affluent areas of England can expect to live 8 years longer than those in the poorest areas (although the article is about England, have a look at the photograph they use - does it look familiar?).

News article in Glasgow Herald 23rd February 2019

In Scotland the difference is more stark. In the most deprived areas of Glasgow life expectancy for men is 67.8 years, in the least deprived areas of East Dumbartonshire (less than 10 miles away in Bearsden and Milngavie) it is 81.2 years. Remember that for ALL of these men, you won't be able to start collecting your state pension until the age of 66.

In the UK work does not guarantee a way out of poverty. Two thirds of children living in poverty are in a house where at least one family member is working. People with disabilities are more likely to live in poverty than their peers, and people from certain ethnic minorities also suffer higher rates of poverty than the UK average. 

Okay, without labouring the point, poverty is bad, has a huge effect on people's lives and costs the UK billions of pounds in lost revenue as vast numbers of people lack opportunities to live productive, healthy lives.

Media images of poverty

When it comes to media images of poverty, in newspapers and online articles, the same stock photographs are used again and again and again. And again. It gets dusted off more often than the chunky couple bulging out of their clothes and eating ice cream cones that gets used for every "obesity story".

A couple of faceless young boys play football, or climb a fence beside a graffiti-daubed tenement. The windows are boarded up, the garden is unkempt and overgrown, a shopping trolley is sometimes seen. The unsupervised kids sometimes look like they are actually adding to the graffiti or kicking a ball against the door; "feral" you might say. For the audience and for the editors that keep picking these images it ticks all the boxes.

It's a shorthand, an image that tells the story to the audience. It is also one that looks very familiar to me, for two reasons.

Firstly the tenement is recognisably from Glasgow. It reminded me of buildings in Garthamlock and Dalmarnock, and I spent a bit of time out and about trying to find out where it was. I did find it eventually, although I was wrong, it lies south of the River Clyde, as I will explain later.

Secondly, it looked familiar to me personally as I have a photograph of my brother and me at similar ages, outside a graffiti-daubed tenement, unkempt back court and boarded up windows. I was that media stereotype.

Me with the carrier bag in 1970s Glasgow

Except this photograph of me only tells part of the story. Our tenement was virtually uninhabitable at the time this photo was taken. Rat-infested, no bath or shower, no central heating, no hot water, and (importantly) awaiting demolition shortly after this picture was taken. We were soon  to be re-housed to a newly built council house (ask your dad), in Maryhill.

The photographs that have been used continuously for over 10 years to illustrate news stories of poverty are likewise not what they seem. The other thing I know about the type of tenements I recognised in these pictures, is that they too were demolished shortly after the pictures were taken in 2008. Nobody lived in those boarded up flats. Nobody was there to care for the garden or keep an eye out for vandalism. The images fit a handy stereotype, which I believe is harmful and not particularly accurate or representative. 

POVERTY - as illustrated in The Guardian, Sky News, The Independent,
The Times, Daily Record...and ,eh, David Icke's website.

A poverty of ideas

The Joseph Rowantree Foundation issued a report in 2008 criticising media reports on poverty as drawing on... 

"...stock phrases and a familiar journalistic repertoire which portrayed government as active, while people experiencing poverty (when not overtly stigmatised) were represented as passive victims. Even when coverage was generally sympathetic, it risked differentiating those experiencing poverty from mainstream society, and portraying them as lacking initiative, unproductive and a burden on 'us'."

I would argue that the pictures used repeatedly to present an image of poverty reinforce this idea that the story is not about "people like me". I don't live in a house like that. I supervise my kids, clean my close and cut my grass. These images feed a narrative of "them and us".

Other analysts have looked at how the media stigmatises those living in poverty, describing how media representation...

"...contributes to the public's perception that people living in poverty are at fault for their financial circumstances due to individual character flaws and weaknesses, as opposed to structural constraints...framing techniques that present poverty as an individual problem rather than a societal issue rooted in economic and political inequality further reinforce the perceived undeservingness of the poor"

Read all about it. The undeserving poor

An LSE research paper in 2014 analysed how British newspapers represent poverty, and came to some interesting conclusions. In domestic stories the focus was limited to stories of poverty in the elderly and in childhood. The causes of poverty in these stories was unknown or unreported. However in stories on poverty outside the UK the socio-political inefficiencies responsible for the poverty were examined and analysed. I was struck by that today when I was driving home from work and poverty in Venezuela was being discussed alongside debate about the political and governmental situation that was causing it. The LSE researchers also concluded that British newspapers had a...

"...tendency to distance poverty from general society and portray it as a problematic Other."

That's the problem I have with these unsupervised children in a neglected building illustrating every single story we read on the topic, this "othering". They are not like "us", these poor people. We wouldn't end up in that situation. It must be the fault of the parents, not society or government.

In a lecture in 2017 Ruth Lister, Professor of Social Policy at Loughborough University, talked about "Othering the poor". She described it as a process...

"...through which 'the poor' are treated as different from and inferior to the rest of society....a line is drawn between 'us' and 'them'...It is not a neutral line, but one imbued with negative value judgements that diminish and construct 'the poor' variously as a source of contamination, a threat to be feared, an 'undeserving' economic burden, an object of pity or even as an exotic species to be explored. Broadly, 'othering' condemns 'the poor' for what they do or looks down on them for the qualities or capacities they are considered to lack." 

 A counter narrative can be constructed, based on a politics of redistribution. This needs recognition of the causes of the problem, and recognition of the attributes and strengths the people being discussed. It also needs their voices to be heard and their opinions listened to.

Agencies working in this area are trying to challenge misconceptions about poverty, and present a different image, such as this video produced by Poverty Alliance.

Reality versus the photos

I do not mean any criticism of the photographer who created these stock photographs for Getty Images. The are a very good piece of photo-journalism that clearly struck a chord with editors up and down the land who continue to use these images over a decade after they were taken. Shot in September 2008, the images clearly state on the Getty Images website "note to editors - since these images were taken the street pictured has been demolished".

So I went to see what image of "Child poverty in the UK" we could use if we went back to the street in these images today.

I vaguely recognised the high flats seen behind the fence in one of the pictures as blocks in Govan and with some help from Twitter I was able to locate the street and find the fence, which is the only part of these images standing today.

These kids again illustrating stories of child poverty in the UK.

Same fence today, at Ibrox football complex, behind Ibrox primary school,

 The flats and tenements behind it were demolished in 2009 and 2010

The photograph of the kids climbing on the fence is the one that helps locate the street where the original pictures were taken in September 2008. The fence is still there, but the tenements and silhouetted tower block behind the children are long gone. The tenements photographed lined the streets between Hinshelwood Drive and Paisley Road West in Govan.

However these photographs of children playing amidst boarded up and vandalised houses are deceptive. Like my 1970s tenement in Whiteinch the picture was taken at a time when they were awaiting demolition and were empty. The tenements are visible in the photograph below from early 2009, taken from Broomloan Court, looking east. The petrol station which is still there on Broomloan Road helps you orientate yourself.

Broomloan Court, 2009

By late 2009 the streetscape had totally changed, as this photo below demonstrates. By then 400 tenement flats had been demolished and preparations were being made to demolish the tower blocks (photos posted on Hidden Glasgow forum). Yet every few weeks, these derelict tenements awaiting demolition are re-built in the pages and websites of the national media to illustrate "childhood poverty".

Looking west towards Broomloan Court flats, Ibrox, Glasgow. 2009

By 2010 the multi-storey flats at Broomloan Court were also going, going, gone.

The demolition and regeneration of these areas is something I have watched with interest, as after my Victorian slum demolition in Whiteinch, I have subsequently watched my former block of high flats being demolished, where I lived for about 10 years. I revisited the high flats in Knightswood that I used to live in several times to watch my old block being rightly torn apart and I have written about it here. 

From visits to my old flats in Knightswood. Gone, but not forgotten, but definitely not there now

So what is the reality today of the street reproduced repeatedly in media to tell us about poverty in the UK? Do these images still represent a fair version of areas of deprivation today? Here are more stories from the past 12 months that show the poor as "an exotic species" for our delectation. 

But here is the reality of that derelict street today. It may still be an area with problems, but I think we need to find a more nuanced way to talk about poverty. The stereotype we get accompanying these news stories is just that. A stereotype.

Then and now

Stereotypes are widely held and oversimplified ideas that can be harmful and stigmatising. If you are wanting to tell a story about child poverty, it would be more accurate to have a photograph of an ordinary class of 30 school children bent over their work, but point out that 9 or 10 of them will be destined to fall behind their  peers because of disadvantages beyond their control. Not because they are out in the street playing football, not because they are different from your kids or my kids. Simply because they have less money coming in to their household than their classmates.

Fair representation?

The flats pictured again and again in the papers were demolished 10 years ago. They were photographed just before their demolition. The kids in the pictures must be about 18 and 14 years old now. The space where these flats used to be is still in part a building site, with more new flats still under construction (below).

The Skene Road side of the Govan redevelopment. Ibrox Stadium just poking over the rooftops.

Conclusion

If you were to create an image to illustrate poverty in the UK there would be a myriad ways to represent it. You could use a family where both parents are in low-paid, insecure jobs, one parent working night-shift, one working day shift to save on childcare, yet still having to rely on benefits in the form of Working Tax Credit to get by. A person with a disability struggling to find paid employment, but continuing to volunteer for 20 hours a week in a charity shop. Or why not a 70 year old surviving on a state pension, but looking after his grandchildren 5 days a week to let his daughter get out to work. Don't forget that in Britain the poor pay a far higher proportion of their income in tax than the wealthy. It has also been shown that the poorest in our society also give a far higher proportion of their income to charity than the wealthiest in society do.

If you casually stigmatise certain sections of the population, you undoubtedly reduce people's understanding of their lives. 

There is an increasing lack of people from poorer backgrounds getting their voices heard - whether in the media, in politics or in professional positions. If the endless succession of gibbering idiot politicians wittering on about Brexit has demonstrated anything, it is now clear to everyone that Britain is certainly NOT a meritocracy.

If you feel that your voice and opinions are not being listened to, why bother taking part? If the journalist or politician that you hear does not talk like you or have any insight into how your life works, it is hard not to be cynical about what they say. There therefore needs to be increased opportunities for people from different backgrounds to contribute to a more diverse society that represents all of the people in it.

I hate ghettoised areas, where people don't share shops, cafes, schools and streets with their fellow citizens, whether it's people of different class, or lifestyle or ethnicity. I fear that these media images of poverty falsely push poverty into a ghetto, to "other" those affected by it and absolve the rest of society from solving the problem.

Ordinary woman carrying an ordinary child on an ordinary street. This is how The Big Issue illustrated a story on child poverty this week. Easy.

Running Around the Commonwealth Games Venues: Part 2

The Commonwealth Games kick off in Glasgow in July 2014 and the deadline for the first batch of ticket applications is the 16th of September. Like many people I've put in a clutch of applications for me and my family and am waiting to see how many I've got before deciding whether to apply for some of the other sports on offer. It is an eccentric collection of sports that are in the Commonwealth Games, I guess the clue for that being the fact that these were originally the British Empire Games, but with countries participating including Jamaica, Australia, Canada, Kenya and Vanuatu there will be a host of top athletes on show.

Whatever tickets I get there will still be the marathon and the road cycling to be watched on the streets of Glasgow. The recent National Road Race Championships through the city streets showed what an entertaining spectacle these will be. Work is ongoing to get all the venues ready. As I'm running the Great Scottish Run half marathon in Glasgow in 4 weeks time the distances for my training runs of a Sunday morning are having to increase, and as I get easily bored, I devised a couple of wee 13 mile/ 20km routes around the Commonwealth Games venues to see what progress is being made on them. So if you want to run, cycle or walk around these places let me tell you what route I chose and what I saw.

Route 2. Scotstoun, Hampden and Ibrox, a 22km loop

Clyde Auditorium (Armadillo) and The Hydro

Yesterday I ran around some of the Commonwealth Games venues in Glasgow, and today I had a quick scout around the other Glasgow venues as I want to do another 13 mile training run next weekend as I get ready for the Great Scottish Run. I had decided to leave off the diving venue (Royal Commonwealth Pool, Edinburgh), the Mountain Bike Course on Cathkin Braes (although that appealed as it was where Benny Lynch went on his training runs) and also the Barry Buddon Shooting venue in Carnoustie.

SECC with BBC studios across the Clyde

So I started at the SECC where the Hydro, SECC and Armadillo will be hosting the Boxing, Netball, Judo, Wrestling, Weightlifting and Gymnastics during the Commonwealth Games. I then headed west along the Cydeside.

Glasgow Museum of Transport (and a big crane?)

Passing the new Transport Museum you only get a hint of the industry that used to fill the banks of the River Clyde with the cranes of Govan shipyards downstream from here. Heading down by the river along South Street, you'll soon pass the site of Partick Thistle Football Club's Meadowside ground from 1897-1908, on the opposite bank from Govan shipyards, now blocks of modern flats.

Govan Shipyards on the south bank of the Clyde, the Meadowside flats on the north

Other shadows of the shipbuilding days are soon seen in the "Harland Cottages" on South Street, bearing the name of the Harland& Wolff yard that used to run seven building berths in their yard in Govan. Turning right into Harland Street at about the 5km mark and going straight up through the side streets you'll soon come to what I knew as Scotstoun Showgrounds when I was younger. Although initially used for agricultural shows, by 1915 it already had an athletics track and grandstand here. Since those days it has had a modern running track laid and Scotstoun Stadium is used now by Glasgow Warriors Rugby team. Alongside that there are 5-aside football pitches, a swimming pool, a gym, squash and badminton courts.

Scotstoun Sports Centre

However Scotstoun is neither hosting the Badminton nor the Rugby 7s. The Squash will be played here during the Commonwealth Games, but not without some controversy. As well as using the 6 permanent squash courts, a temporary glass walled show court will be built for the games but afterwards will be dismantled and will not be available for Glasgow to host prestige squash tournaments in the future. The Table Tennis is also going to be on here, presumably being held in the area where the Badminton courts are.

Fossilised Crazy Golf in Victoria Park which will bamboozle the archaeologists of tomorrow

So from here it was time to head through neighbouring Victoria Park and get south of the river Clyde. As a teenager I was often in Victoria Park but the rowing boats and Crazy Golf that I used to play on are long gone. The fantastic Fossil Grove is still here and I think that it is mental that we don't, as a city make more noise about the fact that you can come and see 325 million year old fossilised tree stumps in the place that they once grew.

Clyde Tunnel Cyclepath

Once you've gone through the underpass at the expressway you can get into the Clyde Tunnel cyclepath from Dumbarton Road. Where the entrance of the Clyde Tunnel now sits was once home to Partick Thistle Football Club from 1885-1897, Inchview. If you are running or walking it doesn't matter which of the two pedestrian tunnels you go down, but if cycling you need to go with the flow of traffic. The cycle tunnel is about 1km long and isn't as scary as it used to be, with the controlled entry at each end, a fresh lick of paint inside recently added to brighten it up and it no longer even smells like a urinal.

 

Mrs Elder in Elder Park

Coming out in Govan you can head towards the shipyards and then veer south through Elder Park if you want to see one of only three women immortalised in statue in Glasgow. Here can be found Mrs Isabella Elder, who created the park to remember her shipbuilding husband. She was of a philanthropic bent and particularly supportive of the education of women. She bought North Park House on Queen Margaret Drive (which later became home of the BBC) and presented it to Queen Margaret's College to use for female medical education. Her statue is of its time and, despite her efforts, women knew their place in those days so the plaque at the base of the statue records her name as "Mrs John Elder". The other two statues of women in the city are Queen Victoria astride her horse in George Square and Dolores Ibarruri, 'La Passionara', with fists clenched in the air down by the Clydeside.

Ibrox Stadium, 11 km into this route

If you've found your way through the streets and industrial units around here you'll emerge at what I suspect will be one of the easiest venues to get tickets for during the Commonwealth Games, Ibrox Stadium, which will host a weekend of Rugby Sevens. With a capacity of 50,000 you would expect there will be tickets available for this although the world's major rugby nations will all be here for the tournament. It is a wee bit tricky to find your way through the side streets of Pollokshields to get from Ibrox to the last Commonwealth Games venue today, Hampden Stadium.

Hampden Bowling Club

If you cross Paisley Road West, there is a path that goes over the M8 then under the M77. You should then come out onto leafy Nithsdale Road and head left for a couple of kilometres, crossing Pollokshaws Road and heading up to "Scotland's National Stadium" as it now seems to be branded. I was always under the impression that it was primarily "home to Queens Park Football Club". No matter how you've got here you will undoubtedly have passed a couple of Bowling Clubs on the way, surely confirming that we must be in with a chance of a few medals here.

Hampden Park

Football will be banned for most of a year in Hampden as it prepares to host 8 days of Track and Field events and the Commonwealth Games closing ceremony. For this to happen there is still a track to be laid in Hampden, which will involve raising the area at the edge of the pitch and slightly reducing the capacity by taking out the front rows. With Usain Bolt declaring that a Commonwealth Games title is still one which he wants to get, to complete his collection, it could be that all eyes will be on Hampden during these days.

Terracing at Cathkin Park, once home to Third Lanark FC

I find it impossible to go for a run out this way without sticking my head in to see the sad sight that is Cathkin Park, once home of Third Lanark Football Club before their demise in 1967. Today the weed covered terracing waved in the wind like a ghostly crowd, oblivious to the man from the council in his wee lawnmower doing handbrake turns on the pitch whilst cutting the grass. From here it is a wee run down Aitkenhead Road then turn right and down Cathcart Road. You will pass the shell of the Alexander "Greek" Thomson designed Caledonia Road Church which stands empty and purposeless in a traffic island here, a remnant of the once mighty Gorbals. From here, cross over the Clyde and head back along the north bank of the river to get back to the start at the SECC.

22km or 13.5 miles, another wee route to vary my training for the Great Scottish Run in October.


Caledonia Road Church, by Alexander "Greek" Thomson

Great North Run Training in Glasgow

There are now only 3 weeks to go until I try running my first half-marathon, so this weekend was time to see how the training has been going and do another long training run. The aim today was to run the full race distance. I get bored at times jogging along, so thought that if I had a few goals to aim at today it would keep my interest up. Also I decided that if I live-tweeted what I was doing on twitter, I would force myself to complete my loop to avoid public disgrace. Looking at a map of Glasgow last night I came up with a route which started in Partick, was 13 miles long and would take in all the professional football stadiums in Glasgow. As the distance fitted perfectly it seemed like a sign that I had to give it a go.

 

I passed my 40th birthday two years ago, and with my wee brother decided 18 months ago to train for the Glasgow Great Scottish Run 10K as my dad was talking about doing it. Since getting myself fit enough  to shuffle around that distance I've managed to keep it going. As I'm diabetic, requiring insulin injections, it has caused me a few challenges, which I've solved with some advice from the charity Diabetes UK. So this year having decided to try to run a half-marathon, I plumped for the Great North Run, a 13 mile race from Newcastle to South Shields which this year has the bonus of having the great Haile Gebrselassie and Mo Farah running it alongside 55,000 others. I am running it to raise money for Diabetes UK and if you wish to you can donate at JustGiving.

 

So early on Saturday morning I headed down to the Clyde from Partick and crossed at the bridges beside the SECC and Science Centre, a typically grey summer's day as you can see. 

10 minutes gone, crossing the Clyde..

 This bit was familiar to me from occasional visits to support Partick Thistle at Ibrox, when usually I'd catch a pint on Dumbarton Road and walk this way to see Rangers. Nowadays it is the home to a Third Division outfit, and they have a fine wee ground. Perhaps if they improve from the standards that they achieved today (drawing 1-1 with Berwick Rangers) then in a few years time I'll be back to this place of fun and friendly smiles.

20 minutes gone, 4km in, Ibrox Stadium

Heading eastwards towards the next stadium was a bit of a challenge for me. As a typical westender I rarely venture to the part of Glasgow known around here as "the Southside", but as I had spent a tense and ultimately rewarding evening here last week at Hampden I soon found my way to my next target. Known to most people outside Scotland as our national football stadium, it is home to "The Spiders", Queen's Park Football Club founded in 1867 with the motto "Ludere causa Ludendi" (play for the sake of playing). Still an amateur team after all these years my trip here last week to watch Partick Thistle win 5-4 in the dying minutes of a Ramsdens Cup tie will live long in my memory. 

50 minutes gone, 10km in, Hampden Stadium

Halfway (or half-time) now and with having diabetes once I've been running 50-60 minutes I find that I need to top up the sugar levels with a handful of dextrose tablets. I've found jelly babies are easier to get over with a dry mouth when running.

 

Next stadium is a bit of a cheat as Shawfield is no longer a football ground, as Clyde FC left here in 1986, leading a nomadic existence, briefly sharing Firhill, before settling in an anonymous concrete stadium in a Cumbernauld wind-tunnel, where famously there seems to be a mechanism for turning off the hot water for the visiting players' dressing room.

60 minutes gone, 12km, Shawfield Stadium

Right. Half-time break on the southside over, second half about to start. Back across the River Clyde at Glasgow Green and into Glasgow's East end. Coming over this way always brings back memories of a CIS Cup game against Celtic in 2002. Alan Archibald was in the team that day which was drawing 1-1 after extra time, and we were into sudden death penalties, almost tasting victory but missed the chance again and again, and Celtic squeezed through. That was a long walk home. Today was the first time I had seen the new velodrome and sports arena across from Celtic Park. I hope the area around here does benefit from the Commonwealth Games, as it has looked pretty desolate in recent years around here at times.

1 hour 10 minutes, 14km, Celtic Park at Parkhead

Leaving Celtic Park I ran past the stall holders at the Barras setting up shop, then through the city centre, over Cowcaddens and up Maryhill Road.

 

The last bit of this run was always going to be a bit of a slog, so I had saved the stadium of Glasgow's current form team, Partick Thistle, as my final goal. I've been coming here since I was a boy in Maryhill Primary School, and they are still my local team. It has been fantastic fun this year at Firhill watching them winning games, controlling possession, passing the ball and playing some confident, classy football. The 3-0 victory yesterday over Dumbarton could easily have been 6-0 and there were lovely periods of play in that game. A few years back I went to the football for almost 3 consecutive years without seeing a single Thistle victory as we plummeted through the divisions and although we've been stuck in mid-table of Division 1 for a few years now, this looks like our best chance for a while of promotion. However, it is early days, and if you haven't been in a while, come along. You might like what you see.

1 hour 45 minutes, 21km/ 13 miles. Firhill Stadium
(NB me running in my "Blurple" away strip in which we've won every game so far this season)

Anyway, I managed to achieve my aim of a 13 mile run, taking in Ibrox, Hampden, Shawfield, Celtic Park and Firhill. I did it in a decent time and I feel ready to head down to Newcastle and Sunderland and see what football grounds I can add to my list above. I still had a bit in my legs as I slowly warmed down on the shuffle home and am pretty sure I passed Danny McGrain walking his dog in the Botanic Gardens on my way home, who managed to play top level football at Celtic whilst dealing with diabetes. If he could do it with the equipment and medications that they had back then, it is clear that diabetes needn't be an impedement with all the help and technology we get now. If you feel like sponsoring me, just follow this link to JustGiving. Thanks

P.S. Thanks to www.scottishrunningguide.com for covering this. Here is a link to their article.

P.P.S. One person asked about my diabetes management with this type of exercise. When exercising regularly I find that I need to reduce all of my insulin doses across the day and I don't make tweeks before specific runs. I aim to start a run at least an hour after insulin/ a meal, with a blood glucose between 7-11mmol/L and if exercising for over an hour will need a sugary snack during a run. As I mentioned above a handful of jelly babies I find easiest to get over. Doing this my blood glucose was 6.9mmol/L after the above run, but extra testing is required for a couple of hours afterwards as it can still fall. This is what works for me. PC