Partick Duck Club

Partick Duck Club, old and new.

Partick Duck Club, Hyndland Street, Glasgow

Once it was The Hyndland Bar. Then it was Brian's Bar. An imaginative re-brand gave us a decade of Cafe Rio, with its 1950s diner vibe and jazz, poetry readings and open mic nights. All that changed a few weeks ago. With classy new decor insight and a shocking blue coat of paint outside, the Partick Duck Club arrived in this part of Partick, the corner of Fordyce Street and Hyndland Street. Open for breakfast, lunch and dinner they are aiming at the bistro feel that has been successful further up the street at Cafezique. I enjoyed a tasty lunch in here last week (I ordered their duck dish of course) and wish them success in their venture.

The Partick Duck Club name rang a bell for me. I had read about the original "Partick Duck Club" before. On an afternoon randomly browsing books in the Mitchell Library in Glasgow I came across the intriguingly titled "Glasgow and its Clubs; Or Glimpses of Conditions, Manners, Characters and Oddities of the City" by John Strang, published in 1855. The complete book is available in various places online now, a gossipy and snooty account of the various city worthies and their pastimes, some chapters of which appeared in The Spectator in the 1850s. Alongside tales of the Hodge Podge Club, Waterloo Club, Sma' Weft Club and the Face Club is a chapter on "Partick and its Gastronomes - Duck Club". As the name has been resurrected I have reproduced the chapter from this book on the original Partick Duck Club.

The Bunhouse, Partick, 1827

Formed in 1810, the Duck Club of Partick was a social club made up of merchants, bankers, shopkeepers and professors. They would meet up on a Saturday and walk out from Glasgow to the leafy village of Partick, on the banks of the River Kelvin. The picture above (from 1827) shows the tavern in which they would gather, the "Bun and Yill House", also know as the Bunhouse. This stood on Old Dumbarton Road near to the river. Yill is an old Scots word for ale. The Regent Flour Mill stood near to the Bunhouse inn and tavern, and was usually known as the Bunhouse Mill because of this. All that carries the name now down in that part of Partick is Bunhouse Road, which runs alongside the Kelvin Hall, connecting to Old Dumbarton Road.

The members of the club would come out here to drink the locally brewed ale or a glass of cold punch and enjoy green peas with roasted duck; ducks made abundant and healthy from feeding at all the local grain mills down by the river here. It was a Partick which still had the ruins standing of the second Partick Castle (recent archaeology has confirmed the existence of an earlier castle than the one Mr Strang describes - I have written about it here). 

John Strang's account of the club, in its heyday from 1810 to 1830, was written in 1855 at a time of great change, from a rural village to an industrial town, ready to be swallowed up by Glasgow growing out towards it (I have previously looked back at Partick's growth here). He writes of there being only one notable tavern in the village at that time, whereas in his day Partick "has now many more public-houses than even the greatest enemy to the Maine Liquor Law could well justify." Maps a further 30 years after show a Partick in 1884 with many more tenement blocks, many more pubs, and no licensed premise on Old Dumbarton Road.

1884 map of Partick with pubs and premises licensed to sell alcohol highlighted

Below is the account of the Partick Duck Club, from his 1855 book "Glasgow and its Clubs; Or Glimpses of Conditions, Manners, Characters and Oddities of the City".

Partick and its Gastronomes

DUCK CLUB

"Among the many rural villages which at one time surrounded Glasgow, perhaps none surpassed Partick in beauty and interest. Situated on the banks of a limpid and gurgling stream, which flowed through its centre; and beautified, as it was of yore, with many fine and umbrageous trees; and above all, ornamented with an old hoary castle, with whose history many true and many more fabulous tales were associated; and when to these were added its dozen or two of comfortable and clean cottages, and its picturesquely-planted mills, historically linked with the generous gift of the successful opponent of the lovely Mary at Langside, - all combined to render this locality one of the most favourite of suburban retreats.* It was, in fact, the resort of every who enjoyed a lovely landscape, an antiquarian ramble, or a mouthful of fresh air - to which might be superadded, the certainty of getting a mouthful of something better, provided the visitor should have ever heard of the good things obtainable within the walls of its ancient “Bun-and-yill-house.”

*The mills at Partick belong, to the Corporation of Bakers. In the year 1568, the forces of the Regent Murray, who successfully opposed those of Mary Queen of Scots at the battle of Langside, were quartered in Glasgow and its neighbourhood. On this an occasion the bakers were called upon for an extraordinary supply of bread for the troops, which they implemented so much to the satisfaction of the Regent, that he gave them a grant of the Archbishop's mill, which had now become the property of the Crown, and a piece of ground adjoining it. In 1664 the bakers erected a small mill on the site of the old one, which, in conjunction it the Town's mill, served them till the year 1771, when they purchased, from the Magistrates and Council of Glasgow, the malt and snuff mills at Clayslaps,  a few hundred yards above the Partick mills. These the Incorporation fitted up as a flour mill, which has subsequently been enlarged, and, since then, they have made large additions to the establishments at Clayslaps and Partick.In 1818 the west wing of the old mill was taken down and rebuilt, and in 1828 the remaining part of the old building was taken down and reconstructed.

 Such was Partick during the latter part of the last century; and even for a few years after the commencement of the one which has produced so many metamorphoses it still retained its rural character and its smoke-less atmosphere. At the latter period, there were still only a straggling house or two on the side of the turnpike from Anderston to the Craw-road. The summit of Gilmorehill had scarcely been two or three years crowned by Mr Bogle's handsome mansion; and the house at Dowanhill was just being finished, while the trees in front of it, which are now so lofty and leafy, were only being planted, under the boyish eye of him who now pens this notice. The fact is, Partick was then truly in the country. Its comfortable thatched and white-washed cottages, with its ruinous castle, were such as to evoke the admiration of every tasteful limner; and its river, while it suggested a theme for the poet's lyre, likewise offered an attraction for the angler's rod.

For many long years after this, however, Partick may still be said to have maintained its sequestered aspect; but at length utilitarianism, that foe to beauty and the picturesque, marched westward from the City. The steam-engine became, a necessary accessory to the flour and corn mills, and, thereafter, to many other public factories. The few one-storey cottages that spotted the slopes of the Kelvin, or surrounded the ancient Castle, could not meet the requirements of the hundreds of houseless ship-builders and other citizens, drawn from a distance to the extensive establishments which increasing capital and enterprise had there erected. The ground on which these cottages stood soon became too valuable to be occupied by such humble dwellings, which were ere long supplanted by more formidable though less picturesque tenements; while the once-honoured though ruinous-gabled castle was some years ago, converted into a quarry.* 

* The old castle of Partick, which had stood as a landmark for many long years,at the junction of the Clyde with the Kelvin, was removed almost in a night, by ruthless hands, to form dykes to the neighbouring fields. It entirely disappeared about the year 1836 or 1837. In a pamphlet giving the story of Partick Castle, and in letters addressed to David McKinlay, Esq., preceptor of Hutcheson's Hospital, by Laurence HIB LLB., he says, "I became aware from some private personal papers of the founders, which, on the death of Thomas Hutcheson's widow, Mrs Marion Stewart, passed into the hands of their nephew, Mr Ninian Hill of Lambhill, that this house (Particik Castle), known as Bishop's Castle, and which was certainly built in the year mentioned by Chalmers, was the work not of Bishop Spottiswode, but built as a dwelling-house for himself, by George Hutcheson." Mr Hill adds, "the contract betwixt me and ye masoun in Kilwyinning, anent the bigeing of the house of Partick," dated the 9th and 14th January, 1611. So that in future, the ecclesiastical status of the ruinous house which once so picturesquely adorned the west bank of the Kelvin, must be annihilated.

At this hour, the landscape painter's occupation  about Partick is gone; the sketching desk may be for ever closed, and the pencil and pallet thrown aside. The village is now a town, with a provost and baillies, a police force, local taxes, and a lockup-house; and instead of having one celebrated “Bun-and-yill-house," it has now many more public-houses than even the greatest enemy to the Maine Liquor Law could well justify. It has been stretching out on every side, and for some time has been shaking hands with Glasgow, so far as gas and lamp-posts are concerned. Its future destiny will doubtless be, to be swallowed up like its suburban relatives, Calton, Bridgeton, Gorbals, and Anderston, by its all absorbing Babylonish parent city.

It was about the period when Partick was in its more rural, that there existed diverse knots of individuals connected with Glasgow, who, inspired by the noble purpose of enjoying ducks and green peas in perfection, with cold punch ad libitum, proceeded hebdomadally to indulge their gastronomic propensities at this picturesque village. Among the many inducements which this locality offered to these united bands of kindred spirits were, the agreeable and health-inspiring distance of this common rendezvous from the smoky City—the picturesque appearance of the village itself—the refreshing flow of the limpid Kelvin, broken by successive cascades—the neat and comfortable character of the hostelry; and above all, the superior quality of ducks reared under all the known advantages that arise from the proximity which large grain-mills naturally afford for good feeding. To these inducements, too, was superadded the delicious manner in which the ducks were prepared for the table, and which never failed to excite an appetite, which was only each guest had finished his bird!

 Of these various groups of Glasgow gastronomes, there was one which, par excellence was truly entitled to the appellation of the DUCK CLUB OF PARTICK, seeing that, during the whole season, when these luxuries were in perfection, and even after they became a little out of date, there seldom was a Saturday permitted to pass on which the several members of this social fraternity were not seen either wending their hungry way towards the well-known "Bun-house" of that village, between the hours of three and four o'clock, or returning therefrom "well refreshed" before "set of sun."

Many of the men who composed this rather gustative and gormandising fraternity had long been connected with the management of the Trades' House, and had held deaconships and masterships in several of the Incorporations of the City, in which capacities they had learned the value of the good old and well-known Hudibrastic apophthegm, and never failed to practise it when they had any object to carry. They felt also, during their long experience in public office, that business might be carried on successfully, although the members of the sederunt should quaff, during the breathing-time intervals, something rather stronger than the produce of the Westport well. In short, they were men to whom good eating and serious drinking was no novelty—such creature comforts, in fact, forming a peculiar feature in their every-day corporate life. As a key to the Corporation class who were members of the Duck Club, we may merely mention Mr M‘Tyre—a gentleman who, after passing through all the gradations of the Cordiners' Corporation, arrived at last at the Convener's chair and a seat at the City Council board. This personage, who may be justly regarded as the president of the social Partick brotherhood, was exceedingly popular, not only among his Council friends at the "Bun-house," but likewise among the members of the Trades' House. He was, in fact, so much esteemed by the latter body, that they expressed a unanimous wish to have his portrait taken as a most appropriate ornament to their Corporation walls; and there it now hangs as a stimulant to every ambitious man to do his duty. It was during the period of this popularity that the Convener was most frequently found wending his way, with majestic step, towards Partick; it was then that the ducks in that village suffered most from his Saturday visits; and it was on one of these occasions that the Club poet, Mr William Reid—of whom more anon—improvised the following true and touching couplet

"The ducks of Partick quack for fear,
Crying, ‘Lord preserve us; there's McTear!’”*

And no wonder. For no sooner was the rubicund beak of the worthy Convener espied by the blue and white swimmers of the mill-dam, than it was certain that the fate of those now disporting would become, ere another Saturday, that of their jolly companions who at that moment were suffering martyrdom at the auto-da-fe in the kitchen of the "Bun-house!" Though the ducks, as may reasonably be supposed, quacked loudly in anticipation of their coming fate, yet the Convener, having no sympathy with anything akin to the melting mood, except what was produced by the sun's summer beams, was deaf to pity.

* We have been favoured with a correct MS. copy of the poem penned by Mr Reid; and although satirical, severe, personal, and perhaps not altogether just towards the individual who is the burden of the song, it is at least characteristic of what Dr Chalmer’s powerful oratory produced soon after his arrival in Glasgow.

"Ilk body has his hobby-horsey:

John Lawson sings --Brown fechts wi Dorsey;

 There's souter Will, used every day

 The Catholic synagogue survey;

Since Chalmers cam he changed his tune—

Some say he'll be an elder soon—

His name is never out his mouth,

Even when we meet to slocken drouth;

And what, has been his curious lot,

He’s made a proselyte of Scott!

Not  only him, but there’s the tanner,

Of curious, furious, swearing manner,

Even he’s at kirk the ither Sunday,

And swears by G— he'll back on Monday!

There's Gibb the sonter in a broil,

Does every Sunday fecht wi’ Croil;

About a seat he’ll bite and bark,

Argue wi’ bailies and their clerk;

Vulcan and Condie, ill their turn,

 Will warsle keel' wi’ Dr Burn.

A' this proceeds frae souter Willie,

Wha’s now turn'd good and unca holy.

The Provost says it's guid to men—

Great need there was, and that some ken;

For, when he was in London toun,

‘Tis said he was an unca loon;

He made his boots, they said, on Sunday,

And then he drank and ---- on -Monday;

But now his heart is holy warm,

His Sunday face as lang’s my arm;

We've seen the day he used to revel,

And even on Sunday went to travel;

The fowls at Partick used to ken him,

It’s even been said they used to name him—

The ducks the quack’d through perfect fear,

Crying, ‘Lord preserve us! There’s McTear!’”

He felt too strongly the truth of Cato’s famous saying, that "it is no easy task to preach to the belly, which has no ears." The truth is, that neither the poetry of Reid nor the quacking of the ducks had any power over the alimentative bump of the carnivorous Convener. Its cry never ceased from June to October, when, alas! the broad sheet of water which, in spring, had been almost covered with the feathered flock of youthful divers, was found, in autumn, altogether untenanted, save by the lamenting parents of their once happy and noisy families! The Convener and the Club had, during the summer's campaign, made conscripts of all the young, and had sacrificed them to their own gustative propensities, without one tear for the family bereavements they were weekly occasioning, except, perhaps, when that was now and then called forth through the pungency of the spiritual consolation which universally followed the Saturday holocaust!

And, in good troth, when we reflect on those duck feasts, we do not wonder at the weekly turn out of guests who congregated at Partick, or that there should have been, in consequence, a hebdomadal murder of the innocents to meet the cravings of the Club. For we verily believe, that never did even the all-famous " Trois freres Provenceaux," in the Palais Royal at Paris, send up from their celebrated cuisine, un canard roti in better style than did the landlady of the Partick "Bun-house" her roasted ducks, done to a turn and redolent with sage and onion ; — and then the pease, all green and succulent, and altogether free from the mint of England and the sugar of France! What a glorious sight it was to see the Club met, and what a subject would such a meeting have afforded to the painter of character and manners! The rosy countenance and bold bearing of the president, seated at the head of a table surrounded by at least a dozen of happy guests almost as rubicund and sleek as himself, each grinning with cormorant eye ever his smoking duckling, and only waiting the short interval of hastily muttered grace to plant his ready knife into its full and virgin bosom; —verily, the spectacle must have been a cheering one!

It may easily be conceived how many changes must have occurred among the members of the Particik Duck Club, during the twenty years in which, from 1810 to 1830, the fraternity met and guzzled; but, perhaps, none was more striking than the change which befell its worthy president. The Trades' House, Police Board, and Council popularity, which Convener McTyre had won by his talents for business, by the energy of his character, and by his devotion to the best interests of the City, was all lost during the short and evanescent struggle of a Parliamentary election. At the time to which we allude, the Council of Glasgow was nearly equally divided between the claims of two gentlemen, who then offered themselves to represent them in the House of Commons. These worthy individuals were, the well-known Mr Kirkman Finlay and Mr Campbell of Blythswood; and, although the commercial mart of the West of Scotland was as yet limited to having only a fourth voice in the representation, it so happened that her voice on that occasion settled the Membership. The interest in the result was therefore more than usually keen, and the candidates and their supporters were more than usually exacting. It must also be remembered, that although both candidates for the seat may be said to have been hitherto linked with the Tory party, still Mr Finlay, from having given tokens of greater liberality in commercial matters, and particularly in having loudly advocated the opening up of the trade with India and China, secured for himself the support of the more liberal portion of the community, and, consequently became the popular candidate. Mr McTyre, who all along, during his public career, had voted with the latter party, was looked upon, at first, as a sure card for Mr Finlay. But ere long he began to coquet with the supporters of his opponent, and at last went fairly over to his camp. The consequence of this one false step in the eyes of his former admirers was, that he was hurled from his lofty throne of popularity, and stigmatised as nothing better than a political recreant and tergiversator. And so high was political feeling then carried, that it was seriously mooted, in order to testify the popular displeasure against such conduct, to urge the Trades’ House to order the full-length portrait of their once beloved and admired Convener to be turned upside down, to deter others from turning their coats and changing their colours in future! In short, it was gravely proposed to hang the poor Convener by the heels instead of the head,—a degradation which, however, for the honour of all concerned, was, under the reflection of cooler moments, never carried into execution. The instability of popular feeling, combined with an increasing love for his birthplace, drew the ex-Convener from Glasgow to Maybole, and, consequently, deprived the Partick Club of one of its chief loadstars and the ducks of their chief enemy.

While these rulers of the various Trades may be considered to have been the chief assistants at the weekly demolition of ducks and green peas, which took place in the comfortable hostelry situated near the flour-mills at Partick, there were happily others also present who could throw their mite of merriment into the afternoon's symposium; and among these was a gentleman to whom we have already slightly alluded—the facetious Mr William Reid, of the well-known firm of Brash & Reid, who, as book-sellers, carried on for so long a period a successful business in the Trongate, and to whose labours the bibliomaniac is indebted for some rather scarce and curious publications. In the then extensive field of Glasgow's social companions, it would have been difficult to find one more courted as a club associate than Mr Reid. To a peculiarly placid temper, he united a strong smack of broad humour, and an endless string of personal anecdotes, which he detailed with a gusto altogether his own. Of all things he loved a joke, and indulged in this vein even at the risk of causing the momentary displeasure either of an acquaintance or a customer. We say momentary— for with all his jesting and jocularity, he never really said, we believe, one word which was meant to offend. To "laugh and grow fat" was his constant grotto, and, consequently, he never troubled himself either about his own obesity or about that of any one else who might follow his laughing example. Of the satirical sallies poured out behind the book-seller's counter in the Trongate, we have heard as many repeated as might well eke out another supplement to the already thousand and one sayings of the " Laird of Logan"—who, most assuredly, had he lived in the pantheistical days of the early world, would have disputed with Momus the god-like crown of mirth!

Mr Reid’s every-day off-hand rhymes it is perhaps enough to say that they entitled him to enter the lists as a Scottish improvisatore. But while the witty bibliopole indulged in these playful and innocent vagaries, it must never be forgotten that he has also left behind him " drops of ink" that will go down to posterity—verses linked, as a few of them are, with the never-dying lyrics of Robert Burns—whose early friend and acquaintance he was—which will be sung as they now are; and although but too frequently believed to be altogether the breathings of the bard of Ayrshire, are nevertheless partly the production of the bard of the Duck Club of Partick. It is only justice to say, that in early and mature life Mr Reid could boast of no small share of that peculiar talent which the genius and dazzling career of Burns evoked in the minds of many of his admiring countrymen. He not only shared in the general enthusiasm which the appearance of that "day-star of national poetry" elicited, but he also participated  himself not unworthy of either such intimacy or such inspiration. These lyrics are chiefly preserved in a collection entitled " Poetry, Original and Select," and which at this moment is rarely to be met with, save in the libraries of the members of the Roxburgh, Bannatyne, and Maitland Clubs, or of the more unobtrusive race of bibliomaniacs scattered over the country, but which, since the demise of poor Dr Thomas Frognall Dibdin, are now sadly getting into the " sere and yellow leaf." There is another curious publication with which Mr Reid was connected, the "Life of James McKean," who was executed for the murder of James Buchanan, the Lanark carrier, at the Cross of Glasgow, on Wednesday the 25th January, 1797. As a piece of biography, it is certainly neither remarkable for taste nor talent; but as a statement of what McKean, while under sentence of death, actually communicated to the compiler, it is both curious and startling. The work had an extraordinary sale, through the never-ceasing existence of that odd craving for everything connected with the horrible . As a conclusion to this imperfect sketch of Mr Reid, we may mention that for many years he kept a large vase, or pinnar-pig, into which he deposited his literary scraps, where, for aught we know, they still remain under that ban which he so often made use of when making a deposit or closing a story, and which we would in his case also repeat –

“Down wi’ the lid! Quo’ Willie Reid.”

With the departure of the shadow of the jolly Convener from the “Bun-house,” the Duck Club may be said to have closed its regular sittings; and although many knots of social spirits have since met in perpetuation of the Partick Club, still, never have the roasted ducks and green peas been demolished with such gusto, nor the punch goblets been drained with such delight, as when the broad humour and telling anecdotes of the Trongate bibliophile made every well-lined paunch shake with laughter.

Since the departure of these two worthies from the scene of their gormandising glory, the “Bun-house” of Partick has as much ceased to Glasgow gourments to be the shrine of Apicius, as the castle of Partick to be the haunt of the antiquarian limner. "

Bombs Over Glasgow On The Night Of The Clydebank Blitz

I recently read a book about Scottish war artists. Although there wasn't a picture of it, the book mentioned a painting called "Bomb Crater, Knightswood" by Ian Fleming, painted after the Clydebank blitz. I spent my teenage years in Knightswood in Glasgow and although I knew that huge parts of Clydebank had been flattened during the war, I really had no idea which areas of Glasgow had been bombed. So I decided to have a look about for any remaining signs of war damage.

Clydebank Blitz

Over two nights on the 13th and 14th of March 1941, Clydebank suffered intense attack from the Luftwaffe as they tried to destroy shipbuilding and industrial targets in the town. Afterwards only seven of the 12,000 houses in the town were left undamaged, with 4,000 completely destroyed and a similar number severely damaged. Remarkably the industrial sites survived relatively unscathed and were soon able to return to full production. However the number of people made homeless who had to move away and the civilian casualties caused long-lasting hardship to the residents of the town. On those two nights numerous targets in nearby Glasgow were also bombed, with a greater loss of life but spread across a wider area. According to official figures (which some feel may be an underestimate) the two nights of bombing led to the deaths of 528 people in Clydebank and a further 650 in Glasgow.

The main targets in Clydebank were the Singer Sewing Machine factory, which had switched to munitions production during the war, John Brown's Shipyard and Beardmore's engine works. My great-uncle Andy worked in John Brown's Shipyard in Clydebank. Travelling daily from his home in the Gorbals, he was 14 years old when he started working in the yards as a "bilge boy" on the construction of HMS Hood. This work involved holding a candle, and going down with a bucket to the lowest parts of the ship to collect dropped rivets and tools. Work in the shipyards paid much better than many other industries and he was paid 30 shillings for this. At the time of the Russian revolution he remembered tossing his bunnet into the air when he and other workers celebrated the news from Moscow (he remembered it because he lost his bunnet that day). On the day of the armistice in 1918 everyone was sent home from the shipyard at 11am, except the gatekeepers. Oblivious to all of this, as he was working deep in the lowest parts of the ships, he emerged later to find the shipyard like a ghost town, and had to walk home to the Gorbals, as there were no buses then running. He later became an engineer and for two years during the depression of the 1930s was entirely unable to find any work. As war approached, shipbuilding picked up again and he was back to work in John Brown's. He was still working when I joined a march through Glasgow, in my pram, to support him and his co-workers in the UCS work-in in the early 1970s, and he retired when the work-in ended in victory.

He was working nightshift in John Brown's Shipyard on the night of the blitz, spending most of the time in underground shelters. He found it difficult to comprehend the total devastation he witnessed walking home towards Glasgow through the rubble that first morning after the bombing. I was only a child when he told me these stories, but the memories of the Clydebank blitz never left him.

Records of bombs landing on Jellicoe Street north of the Forth and Clyde Canal at Dalmuir  opposite the engine works

The highest density of bombing on those nights was over Clydebank. The map above shows the bombs that landed around Jellicoe Street in Clydebank. One family in this street suffered particularly when 14 members of the Rocks family, at number 78, died in the bombing.

Just before 9pm on the 13th of March the first German aircraft were spotted coming up the Clyde. The first wave usually dropped incendiary bombs to start fires and guide subsequent planes carrying bombs with move explosive power. Early in the first night of bombing in Clydebank the incendiary bombs ignited the timber store at Singers factory and Yoker distillery began burning furiously. By the next morning it was as if the whole town was on fire. My wife's grandad was a coalminer in Fife and he remembers looking west from Lochgelly that evening and knowing something awful was happening, as he could see the horizon glowing.

Photograph taken from Great Western Road/ The Boulevard on the night of 13th March 1941 with Clydebank ablaze. The Singer tower can be seen in the centre of the picture

Glasgow during the Clydebank Blitz - 13th March 1941

An Anderson shelter on display at the People's Palace, Glasgow. In wartime it would have been covered in earth.

Glasgow had always been identified as vulnerable to German attack, and with its high concentration of heavy industry was expected to be a target. Anderson shelters could be built in gardens in leafy Knightswood and Mosspark (and many were still standing as garden sheds when I was a kid), but the densely populated, tightly packed tenements in the city meant that bombs landing here could cause many casualties. Communal shelters were built in some streets and back courts. Other tenements had to make do with "strutted close-mouths", wooden beams put up to try to make a safe area from potential collapse of the building above. This was in the days before closes had doors, leaving residents huddling together through the night, exposed to the elements in event of an air raid (a concern that was raised in Parliament at the time).

Ian Fleming. Shelters in a tenement lane, Glasgow

As well as the shipyards of Clydebank, other targets that the Germans had identified were the oil depot at Old Kilpatrick, the many shipyards in Glasgow, industries in Parkhead and Springburn, Port Dundas power station and, as you can see in the German reconnaissance photograph below, Dawsholm gas works, and rubber and chemical factories along the banks of the Forth and Clyde Canal. It was realised that a bomb damaging the canal could cause extensive flooding and several emergency "Stop Locks" were built. These could be closed to reduce this risk in the event of damage to the canal. The remnants of one of these can still be seen at the Stockingfield Junction, above Lochburn Road.

Emergency Stop Lock on the Forth and Clyde Canal

German Luftwaffe reconnaissance photograph over Wyndford and Maryhill, with potential bombing targets highlighted

Reports of incendiary devices landing on Clydebank started to arrive around 9pm on the 13th of March 1941. Bombs were soon reported falling on Drumchapel and High Knightswood just north of Great Western Road. This has often led to the suggestion that many German pilots were mistaking the long, wide Great Western Road, glinting in the moonlight, for the River Clyde or the Forth and Clyde Canal, and were dropping their bombs on these residential areas in error, missing the industrial targets to the south.

Shortly after the first bombs fell on Clydebank a "parachute landmine" exploded in the playground at Bankhead School in Knightswood. The school was used as an ARP station, home to the Auxilliary Fire Service and a first aid post. Parachute mines were designed to explode upon landing, spreading the force of their blast wider than bombs that buried themselves in the ground and they caused much of the damage across Glasgow that night. Thirty nine people were killed by this explosion at Bankhead School, including two "boy messengers". Bankhead Primary School was re-opened after the war. When her family were moved to Drumchapel from the Gorbals in the late 1950s, my mum spent her primary 6 and primary 7 years at Bankhead Primary.

Bankhead School before the war

Wartime painting by Ian Fleming. "Bomb Crater, Knightswood" with the typical housing of this area visible in the background

Memorial in Bankhead Primary School to those who died there that night

The German airmen recorded anti-aircraft fire started at 9.35pm. Anti-aircraft guns were located up and down the Clyde coast, in Glasgow at Kings Park and Carmunnock on the southside, at Station Road in Bearsden and out near Khyber Pass in what is now Mugdock Park. You can still see the structures where these guns stood in Mugdock Park, and look down towards the Clyde. My granny spent her army years during the war working in an anti-aircraft gun unit at Portishead near Bristol and told me what her days there were like. As well as concentrating on targeting the enemy aircraft, the gunners were themselves a target. When she wasn't on duty, my granny can recall sleeping in the nearby Nissen hut with dirt and shrapnel, thrown up by German bombs, peppering the roof through the night.

Anti-aircraft gun emplacement above Glasgow in Mugdock Park

Anti-aircraft gun operation room in Mugdock Par,k which received information and passed targeting details to the gunners. Officers and women from the ATS (like my granny) worked in these bunkers, as women were not allowed to actually fire the guns

One of four gun emplacement, surrounded by ammunition stores, above the River Clyde in Mugdock Park

By 11pm extra fire engines were being called in to Clydebank to deal with the fires now blazing there from Kirkintilloch, Motherwell, Helensburgh and Coatbridge. Before midnight in Glasgow, bombs had also landed in Govan and at the junction of Radnor Street and Argyle Street. The St Enoch Free Church building that stood at the gushet where Old Dumbarton Road and Argyle Street meet later had to be pulled down due to the bomb damage. For many years this became the site of a BP garage stood there, before recently giving way to a block of student flats.

Former site of the St Enoch's United Free Church, at the corner of Old Dumbarton Road and Argyle Street in Glasgow

Two mines had landed in Kelvingrove Park. One of them landed on Kelvin Way near the bridge over the River Kelvin, damaging the statues there (a plaque records the subsequent repairs) and also blew out windows at Glasgow University and Kelvingrove Art Gallery. The statues at the northern end of the bridge were damaged, allegorical sculptures which represent Peace and War, Philosophy and Inspiration. The exploding landmine blew these sculptures into the River Kelvin where they lay until 1949. It wasn't until a hot spell in 1995 made the river levels in the Kelvin fall very low that a passerby spotted a missing arm from one of the sculptures, that had lay in the water for over 50 years. This newspaper report confirms that satisfied with the earlier 1951 repair, the city council did not plan to re-attach the original arm.

Statues on Kelvin Way which were damaged by a German bomb. These figures represent "Peace" and "War"

Statues on Kelvin Way which were damaged by a German bomb. These figures represent "Philosophy" and "Inspiration". Many windows in Glasgow University, visible in the distance here, were smashed by the explosion

Plaque marking the repair to these statues in 1951

At 11.30pm a landmine and five bombs landed in Partick on Sandy Road, Hayburn Street, Dumbarton Road and on Peel Street, where the most extensive damage occurred. On Peel Street the tenements on the western side of the street opposite the West of Scotland Cricket Club were destroyed. When the buildings collapsed here 50 people lost their lives and survivors were being pulled from the rubble for days. In several other spots nearby modern flats standing amongst the old tenements show where bomb damaged buildings had to be pulled down.

Few old tenements still stand down the west side of Peel Street, most were destroyed by bombs in 1941

Just before midnight a parachute mine lands on offices at Yarrow's shipyard in Yoker, collapsing an underground shelter below. 200 men are trapped inside and 67 of them die. Many tenements in the neighbouring streets of Scotstoun and Yoker were also being hit around this time. A mine landed on shelters between Earl Street and Dumbarton Roan, killing 66 people. In Hyndland a bomb landed at Queensborough Gardens and mines fell on Dudley Drive, Airlie Street and Turnberry Road. On Dudley Drive numbers 8, 10 and 12 collapsed and across the road numbers 7 and 9 later had to be demolished. 36 people died here and 21 were injured. You can see the difference where the gaps on Dudley Drive were filled after the war with red sandstone tenements. 

8-12 Dudley Drive, 36 people died when a landmine landed on the tenement here, rebuilt in the 1950s

7 and 9 Dudley Drive, demolished due to bomb damage and later re-built

On the southside of Glasgow bombs and mines landed in Chapel Lane in the Gorbals, the Co-op warehouse on Morrison Street and nearby on McLure and McIntosh's knitwear factory on Florence Street (known after its owners, as the "Twomax").

On Govan Road, where a petrol station now sits in a gap site near to the Clyde Tunnel roundabout, three tenements were destroyed by a parachute bomb aimed at Stephens Linthouse shipyard across the road. 69 people died in this attack.

Petrol station on Govan Road at site of bombing which destroyed three tenements

Bomb disposal officers successfully defuse an unexploded land mine which fell on Glasgow

The destructive power that these parachute mines had was made clear when one landed between a tram and the tenements on Nelson Street, at the junction with Centre Street in Tradeston. 110 people died from this blast (pictured below) including three French sailors on the other side of the Clyde, on the Broomielaw. Eleven of those that died were on the tram from which twenty people were rescued, remarkable given the damage that occurred here which you can see in the picture below. Many more people were injured in the collapsed buildings surrounding this, or trapped in underground shelters. This was the worst loss of life in any single incident during a bombing raid on Scotland during the war.

A parachute mine lands between a tram and the adjacent tenements on Nelson Street, Glasgow

Junction of Centre Street and Nelson Street today. The destruction started by the Luftwaffe in 1941 was completed by Glasgow City town planners in the 1960s with this formerly bustling area being a jumble of run down warehouses to this day 

A parachute mine lands on Queen Margaret Road at the junction with Queen Margaret Drive and Wilton Street. The BBC building across the River Kelvin was thought to be the intended target. If you look at the red sandstone tenements here, just west of Alexander 'Greek' Thomson's "Sixty Steps", you can see that the mine caused the complete destruction of the last block in the road, which was rebuilt in the 1950s. Damage from the mine can be seen still on the nearby bridge over the Kelvin. A second mine which fell on 84 Kelvin Drive, at Clouston Street (at that time The Aberholme Hotel), crashed through the roof with its parachute still attached, but did not explode.

Tenements on Queen Margaret Road, the original tenement in the foreground and the later replacement in the distance of the tenement destroyed by German bombing

Queen Margaret Bridge shows signs of damage from the landmine which destroyed the tenement building across the road

Shortly after the bombing stopped in Clydebank, the last bomb of the night fell on Glenburn Street in Maryhill at 5.35am. Those buildings in Clydebank which had not collapsed with the intense bombing there during the night, all seemed to be on fire as day dawned. 

The Polish destroyer ORP Piorun (meaning Thunderbolt) was in John Brown's Shipyard for repairs on the night of the German bombing of the town. During the raid the commander of the ship, Eugeniusz Plawski, got his men to direct fire from the ships guns towards the German aircraft overhead. It is believed that this may have steered some planes away from dropping their bombs over the yards. For their bravery there is a memorial to the Polish crew of the ship in Clydebank's Solidarity Plaza. Eight weeks after that night during the Clydebank Blitz the ORP Piorun was among the ships hunting the Bismarck, and the first to spot her. Until support arrived, the captain had his ship charge at the Bismarck alone sending radio messages to make sure that she knew it was a Polish ship was attacking them.

Solidarity Plaza in Clydebank, dedicated to the sailors of O.R.P. Piorun, "defenders of Clydebank".

The Second Night - 14th March 1941

With rescues still ongoing among the rubble in Clydebank and Glasgow, when darkness fell the following night the air raid sirens sounded again. The first bomb of the night fell just before 9pm, again north of Great Western Road in Drumchapel destroying the post office. Soon afterwards bombs were falling again on Clydebank and in Drumchapel, near the train station. 

Ian Fleming . Blitz Maryhill, Kilmun Street

Just before midnight two mines fell on Maryhill. The first exploded in a field by Duncruin Street and the second on the tenements of Kilmun Street. Kilmun Street runs off Maryhill Road, just behind St Mary's Primary School. The collapse of the buildings here led to the deaths of 83 people. Rescuers coming to the area reported that Maryhill Road was increasingly covered in broken glass the nearer they got to the site. The local school was the designated first aid post in the area, but was also damaged by the blast, with many windows broken. Whilst rescues carried on through the night in the rubble, as seen in Ian Fleming's painting below, many survivors were gathered together down at the tram depot on Celtic Street.

Ian Fleming. Rescue Party, Kilmun Street 1942

Kilmun Street in Maryhill lies empty today

Street sign at Cumlodden Drive/ Kilmun Street junction

Elsewhere on the Clydeside that night ships were damaged by bombs falling on Dalmuir Basin, Princes Dock in Glasgow and at Denny's Shipyard in Dumbarton. A mine also exploded in the Clyde at the mouth of the River Cart, beaching a tug. The Old Kilpatrick oil tanks, which were still ablaze from the previous night's attack, were bombed again. Two mines landed on the Clydebridge Iron Works in Cambuslang, but didn't explode. Other bombs caused minor damage at Sheildhall Power Station and at Sheildhall Wharf and Stephen's Shipyard.

Firdon Crescent next to Drumchapel train station was hit, bombs landed in Knghtswood at the junction between Waldemar Road and Chaplet Avenue, on Alderman Road and on Lincoln Avenue at the junction with Archerhill Road (I lived in the high flats here for 10 years, oblivious to this fact). Six people were killed in Knightswood that night and six houses destroyed. Great Western Road was closed at Drumry when a bomb left a huge crater in the road here.

In Bridgeton a parachute mine destroyed a tenement on Allan Street. This started a fire at the nearby methylated spirit works and 600 people here lost their homes. Other planes appeared to be dumping their bombs before returning to Germany or had been completely disorientated in their targetting, as this night bombs also fell in Drymen, Blanefield, Fintry, Neilston and Barrhead. 27 bombs fell on Erskine Hospital, home to disabled veterans of the first World War, presumably intended for the nearby munitions works in Bishopton. Four bombs fell on the Isle of Bute in the hills behind Rothesay, and one "fell three miles west of Sannox Bay on the Isle of Arran".

At 6.15am the all clear was sounded in Clydebank, a town which over two days had been flattened.

Edward Ardizzone. Bombed Out (Glasgow) 1941

The civilian population of Glasgow and Clydebank were the ones that suffered during the German bombing attacks on the Clydeside. The shipyards and many other industries in the city suffered relatively little damage from bombing. Terror and demoralisation of civilian populations by bombing has been argued as part of the justification of such attacks as much as any military advantage gained, or shock and awe, to use the modern vernacular.

Walls marked by shrapnel at the former bath house in Clydebank

Other bombing raids

The first attack on Glasgow was in July 1940, and the last air-raid was in March 1943. The worst bombing was the nights which I have described above, but further major bombing raids occurred in Glasgow and Clydebank in April and May 1941. The raids in May again led to extensive bombing in Glasgow, but the main target was Greenock. Despite the shipyards and Beardmore diesel works there being the target, again it was the civilian population that bore the brunt of the attack. On the night of May 6th 1941 in Greenock 10,000 homes were damaged, 280 people killed and 1200 injured.

Rescuers among the rubble of a Glasgow tenement destroyed by German bombing

Another incidents of note in Glasgow during the war was the sinking of HMS Sussex, bombed whilst in Yorkhill Quay for repairs. In September 1940, a bomb struck her fuel tanks and the ship caught fire and was sunk, later to be salvaged and repaired. Also in 1940 Merkland Street subway station (now called Partick Station) was hit by a bomb and closed for several months. Apparently if you know where to look in the tunnel between Partick and Govan stations you can see the repairs that had to be carried out.

Deanston Drive in Shawlands was struck by bombs in an attack later in the war, putting pay to the mischievous rumour in Glasgow at the time that Hitler's mother must have come from Shawlands, as it always seemed to be missed during bombing raids. There is apparently shrapnel damage visible in some of the tenement walls near here.

Queens Park UP Church, Glasgow

Queens Park UP Church on Langside Avenue, one of the most impressive buildings designed by Alexander 'Greek' Thomson, was destroyed by an incendiary bomb in March 1943, and the ruins flattened.

In the Barrowlands area, a bomb destroyed the tenement at the junction of Kent Street and London Road where Rossi's Cafe once stood.

In the city centre bombs landed in September 1940, destroying buildings just north of the City Chambers on Martha Street and North Frederick Street. Also the two modern buildings at the end of Ingram Street at the junction with Queen Street were replacements for bomb damaged buildings, the one at the corner south of Ingram Street destroyed by a bomb, and the building across the road damaged by the same explosion.

Queen Street at Ingram Street

There are maps in the Mitchell Library which record many of the bombs which landed on Glasgow, but nobody has pulled this information all together for the city in an online map, the way people have done for Clydebank or London. The maps record bombs which landed between 1940 and 1943 in Dalmarnock, Shettleston, Bridgeton, Calton, Garngad, Hutcesontown, Tradeston and Plantation. Destroyed houses are noted on Boyd Street, Govanhill, Crow Road, Anniesland and either side of Victoria Park in Scotstoun on Eastcote Avenue and Lime Street.

Old houses on the left, new on the right, replacing bomb damaged houses on Crow Road

Further west on the map the areas coloured in as war damage become more extensive. From isolated detonations in Maryhill and Kelvindale, to more widespread damage in Knightswood, Drumchapel, Drumry, Garscadden and Yoker. In areas with sparser housing the casualties were fewer, but wherever a parachute mine landed on an area of more densely populated tenements, a single blast caused significant deaths. 

Map of Glasgow war damage, Mitchell Library

As contemporary newspaper reports were so heavily censored they do not contain a useful record of the hardships faced by cities targeted by bombers. Looking back at newspapers of the time they talk vaguely about "a Clydeside town" being bombed, or talking about heroic rescues from the rubble, avoiding any details which may have proved useful to the enemy. From the start it was clear that the attacks on 13th and 14th of March were being called a "blitz", as can be seen in this article below from the Daily Record, on March 27th 1941. The article here about the "Clyde Air Raid Distress Fund" mentions that a German bomb fragment was reported to have had the word "Dollan" on it (aimed at the prominent Lord Provost of the city, Patrick Dollan.) In response an RAF Sergeant advised the Record that he had carved "Let Glasgow Flourish" on a bomb he had since dropped on a German town. Tit-for-tat that continued through the war, and does rather omit the "by the preaching of the word" second half of St Mungo's quote that makes up the city motto.

Daily Record 27 March 1941 alludes to the bombing of Glasgow and Clydebank

As the number of people still living who were alive in Glasgow during World War Two becomes smaller each year, these events fade from living memory. It is therefore important to hear their stories in order to learn from the events of the past. 

Much of the info from this blog came from the following sources...

• "Blitz Incidents" blog
• Along Great Western Road by Gordon Urquhart
• Hidden Glasgow forums
• The Clydebank Blitz by I. MacPhail