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Good Sunday morning to you,I am just on a train home from Glasgow, where I have been gigging these past two nights. I've had a great time, as I always seem to do when I go north of the wall.But Glasgow on a Saturday night is something else. My hotel was right next to the station and so I was right in the thick of it. If I ever get to make a cacatopian, end-of-days, post-apocalyptic thriller, I'll just stroll through Glasgow city centre on a Friday or Saturday night with a camera to get all the B roll. It was like walking through a Hieronymus Bosch painting only with a Scottish accent. Little seems to have changed since I wrote that infamous chapter about Glasgow in Life After the State all those years ago. The only difference is that now it's more multi-ethnic. So many people are so off their heads. I lost count of the number of randoms wandering about just howling at the stars. The long days - it was still light at 10 o'clock - make the insanity all the more visible. Part of me finds it funny, but another part of me finds it so very sad that so many people let themselves get into this condition. It prompted me to revisit said chapter, and I offer it today as your Sunday thought piece.Just a couple of little notes, before we begin. This caught my eye on Friday. Our favourite uranium tech company, Lightbridge Fuels (NASDAQ:LTBR), has taken off again with Donald Trump's statement that he is going to quadruple US nuclear capacity. The stock was up 45% in a day. We first looked at it in October at $3. It hit $15 on Friday. It's one to sell on the spikes and buy on the dips, as this incredible chart shows.(In other news I have now listened twice to the Comstock Lode AGM, and I'll report back on that shortly too). ICYMI here is my mid-week commentary, which attracted a lot of attentionRight - Glasgow.(NB I haven't included references here. Needless to say, they are all there in the book. And sorry I don't have access to the audio of me reading this from my laptop, but, if you like, you can get the audiobook at Audible, Apple Books and all good audiobookshops. The book itself available at Amazon, Apple Books et al).How the Most Entrepreneurial City in Europe Became Its SickestThe cause of waves of unemployment is not capitalism, but governments …Friedrich Hayek, economist and philosopherIn the 18th and 19th centuries, the city of Glasgow in Scotland became enormously, stupendously rich. It happened quite organically, without planning. An entrepreneurial people reacted to their circumstances and, over time, turned Glasgow into an industrial and economic centre of such might that, by the turn of the 20th century, Glasgow was producing half the tonnage of Britain's ships and a quarter of all locomotives in the world. (Not unlike China's industrial dominance today). It was regarded as the best-governed city in Europe and popular histories compared it to the great imperial cities of Venice and Rome. It became known as the ‘Second City of the British Empire'.Barely 100 years later, it is the heroin capital of the UK, the murder capital of the UK and its East End, once home to Europe's largest steelworks, has been dubbed ‘the benefits capital of the UK'. Glasgow is Britain's fattest city: its men have Britain's lowest life expectancy – on a par with Palestine and Albania – and its unemployment rate is 50% higher than the rest of the UK.How did Glasgow manage all that?The growth in Glasgow's economic fortunes began in the latter part of the 17th century and the early 18th century. First, the city's location in the west of Scotland at the mouth of the river Clyde meant that it lay in the path of the trade winds and at least 100 nautical miles closer to America's east coast than other British ports – 200 miles closer than London. In the days before fossil fuels (which only found widespread use in shipping in the second half of the 19th century) the journey to Virginia was some two weeks shorter than the same journey from London or many of the other ports in Britain and Europe. Even modern sailors describe how easy the port of Glasgow is to navigate. Second, when England was at war with France – as it was repeatedly between 1688 and 1815 – ships travelling to Glasgow were less vulnerable than those travelling to ports further south. Glasgow's merchants took advantage and, by the early 18th century, the city had begun to assert itself as a trading hub. Manufactured goods were carried from Britain and Europe to North America and the Caribbean, where they were traded for increasingly popular commodities such as tobacco, cotton and sugar.Through the 18th century, the Glasgow merchants' business networks spread, and they took steps to further accelerate trade. New ships were introduced, bigger than those of rival ports, with fore and aft sails that enabled them to sail closer to the wind and reduce journey times. Trading posts were built to ensure that cargo was gathered and stored for collection, so that ships wouldn't swing idly at anchor. By the 1760s Glasgow had a 50% share of the tobacco trade – as much as the rest of Britain's ports combined. While the English merchants simply sold American tobacco in Europe at a profit, the Glaswegians actually extended credit to American farmers against future production (a bit like a crop future today, where a crop to be grown at a later date is sold now). The Virginia farmers could then use this credit to buy European goods, which the Glaswegians were only too happy to supply. This brought about the rise of financial institutions such as the Glasgow Ship Bank and the Glasgow Thistle Bank, which would later become part of the now-bailed-out, taxpayer-owned Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS).Their practices paid rewards. Glasgow's merchants earned a great deal of money. They built glamorous homes and large churches and, it seems, took on aristocratic airs – hence they became known as the ‘Tobacco Lords'. Numbering among them were Buchanan, Dunlop, Ingram, Wilson, Oswald, Cochrane and Glassford, all of whom had streets in the Merchant City district of Glasgow named after them (other streets, such as Virginia Street and Jamaica Street, refer to their trade destinations). In 1771, over 47 million pounds of tobacco were imported.However, the credit the Glaswegians extended to American tobacco farmers would backfire. The debts incurred by the tobacco farmers – which included future presidents George Washington and Thomas Jefferson (who almost lost his farm as a result) – grew, and were among the grievances when the American War of Independence came in 1775. That war destroyed the tobacco trade for the Glaswegians. Much of the money that was owed to them was never repaid. Many of their plantations were lost. But the Glaswegians were entrepreneurial and they adapted. They moved on to other businesses, particularly cotton.By the 19th century, all sorts of local industry had emerged around the goods traded in the city. It was producing and exporting textiles, chemicals, engineered goods and steel. River engineering projects to dredge and deepen the Clyde (with a view to forming a deep- water port) had begun in 1768 and they would enable shipbuilding to become a major industry on the upper reaches of the river, pioneered by industrialists such as Robert Napier and John Elder. The final stretch of the Monkland Canal, linking the Forth and Clyde Canal at Port Dundas, was opened in 1795, facilitating access to the iron-ore and coal mines of Lanarkshire.The move to fossil-fuelled shipping in the latter 19th century destroyed the advantages that the trade winds had given Glasgow. But it didn't matter. Again, the people adapted. By the turn of the 20th century the Second City of the British Empire had become a world centre of industry and heavy engineering. It has been estimated that, between 1870 and 1914, it produced as much as one-fifth of the world's ships, and half of Britain's tonnage. Among the 25,000 ships it produced were some of the greatest ever built: the Cutty Sark, the Queen Mary, HMS Hood, the Lusitania, the Glenlee tall ship and even the iconic Mississippi paddle steamer, the Delta Queen. It had also become a centre for locomotive manufacture and, shortly after the turn of the 20th century, could boast the largest concentration of locomotive building works in Europe.It was not just Glasgow's industry and wealth that was so gargantuan. The city's contribution to mankind – made possible by the innovation and progress that comes with booming economies – would also have an international impact. Many great inventors either hailed from Glasgow or moved there to study or work. There's James Watt, for example, whose improvements to the steam engine were fundamental to the Industrial Revolution. One of Watt's employees, William Murdoch, has been dubbed ‘the Scot who lit the world' – he invented gas lighting, a new kind of steam cannon and waterproof paint. Charles MacIntosh gave us the raincoat. James Young, the chemist dubbed as ‘the father of the oil industry', gave us paraffin. William Thomson, known as Lord Kelvin, developed the science of thermodynamics, formulating the Kelvin scale of absolute temperature; he also managed the laying of the first transatlantic telegraph cable.The turning point in the economic fortunes of Glasgow – indeed, of industrial Britain – was WWI. Both have been in decline ever since. By the end of the war, the British were drained, both emotionally and in terms of capital and manpower; the workers, the entrepreneurs, the ideas men, too many of them were dead or incapacitated. There was insufficient money and no appetite to invest. The post-war recession, and later the Great Depression, did little to help. The trend of the city was now one of inexorable economic decline.If Glasgow was the home of shipping and industry in 19th-century Britain, it became the home of socialism in the 20th century. Known by some as the ‘Red Clydeside' movement, the socialist tide in Scotland actually pre-dated the First World War. In 1906 came the city's first Labour Member of Parliament (MP), George Barnes – prior to that its seven MPs were all Conservatives or Liberal Unionists. In the spring of 1911, 11,000 workers at the Singer sewing-machine factory (run by an American corporation in Clydebank) went on strike to support 12 women who were protesting about new work practices. Singer sacked 400 workers, but the movement was growing – as was labour unrest. In the four years between 1910 and 1914 Clydebank workers spent four times as many days on strike than in the whole of the previous decade. The Scottish Trades Union Congress and its affiliations saw membership rise from 129,000 in 1909 to 230,000 in 1914.20The rise in discontent had much to do with Glasgow's housing. Conditions were bad, there was overcrowding, bad sanitation, housing was close to dirty, noxious and deafening industry. Unions grew quite organically to protect the interests of their members.Then came WWI, and inflation, as Britain all but abandoned gold. In 1915 many landlords responded by attempting to increase rent, but with their young men on the Western front, those left behind didn't have the means to pay these higher costs. If they couldn't, eviction soon followed. In Govan, an area of Glasgow where shipbuilding was the main occupation, women – now in the majority with so many men gone – organized opposition to the rent increases. There are photographs showing women blocking the entrance to tenements; officers who did get inside to evict tenants are said to have had their trousers pulled down.The landlords were attacked for being unpatriotic. Placards read: ‘While our men are fighting on the front line,the landlord is attacking us at home.' The strikes spread to other cities throughout the UK, and on 27 November 1915 the government introduced legislation to restrict rents to the pre-war level. The strikers were placated. They had won. The government was happy; it had dealt with the problem. The landlords lost out.In the aftermath of the Russian Revolution of 1917, more frequent strikes crippled the city. In 1919 the ‘Bloody Friday' uprising prompted the prime minister, David Lloyd George, to deploy 10,000 troops and tanks onto the city's streets. By the 1930s Glasgow had become the main base of the Independent Labour Party, so when Labour finally came to power alone after WWII, its influence was strong. Glasgow has always remained a socialist stronghold. Labour dominates the city council, and the city has not had a Conservative MP for 30 years.By the late 1950s, Glasgow was losing out to the more competitive industries of Japan, Germany and elsewhere. There was a lack of investment. Union demands for workers, enforced by government legislation, made costs uneconomic and entrepreneurial activity arduous. With lack of investment came lack of innovation.Rapid de-industrialization followed, and by the 1960s and 70s most employment lay not in manufacturing, but in the service industries.Which brings us to today. On the plus side, Glasgow is still ranked as one of Europe's top 20 financial centres and is home to some leading Scottish businesses. But there is considerable downside.Recent studies have suggested that nearly 30% of Glasgow's working age population is unemployed. That's 50% higher than that of the rest of Scotland or the UK. Eighteen per cent of 16- to 19-year-olds are neither in school nor employed. More than one in five working-age Glaswegians have no sort of education that might qualify them for a job.In the city centre, the Merchant City, 50% of children are growing up in homes where nobody works. In the poorer neighbourhoods, such as Ruchill, Possilpark, or Dalmarnock, about 65% of children live in homes where nobody works – more than three times the national average. Figures from the Department of Work and Pensions show that 85% of working age adults from the district of Bridgeton claim some kind of welfare payment.Across the city, almost a third of the population regularly receives sickness or incapacity benefit, the highest rate of all UK cities. A 2008 World Health Organization report noted that in Glasgow's Calton, Bridgeton and Queenslie neighbourhoods, the average life expectancy for males is only 54. In contrast, residents of Glasgow's more affluent West End live to be 80 and virtually none of them are on the dole.Glasgow has the highest crime rate in Scotland. A recent report by the Centre for Social Justice noted that there are 170 teenage gangs in Glasgow. That's the same number as in London, which has over six times the population of Glasgow.It also has the dubious record of being Britain's murder capital. In fact, Glasgow had the highest homicide rate in Western Europe until it was overtaken in 2012 by Amsterdam, with more violent crime per head of population than even New York. What's more, its suicide rate is the highest in the UK.Then there are the drug and alcohol problems. The residents of the poorer neighbourhoods are an astounding six times more likely to die of a drugs overdose than the national average. Drug-related mortality has increased by 95% since 1997. There are 20,000 registered drug users – that's just registered – and the situation is not going to get any better: children who grow up in households where family members use drugs are seven times more likely to end up using drugs themselves than children who live in drug-free families.Glasgow has the highest incidence of liver diseases from alcohol abuse in all of Scotland. In the East End district of Dennistoun, these illnesses kill more people than heart attacks and lung cancer combined. Men and women are more likely to die of alcohol-related deaths in Glasgow than anywhere else in the UK. Time and time again Glasgow is proud winner of the title ‘Fattest City in Britain'. Around 40% of the population are obese – 5% morbidly so – and it also boasts the most smokers per capita.I have taken these statistics from an array of different sources. It might be in some cases that they're overstated. I know that I've accentuated both the 18th- and 19th-century positives, as well as the 20th- and 21st-century negatives to make my point. Of course, there are lots of healthy, happy people in Glasgow – I've done many gigs there and I loved it. Despite the stories you hear about intimidating Glasgow audiences, the ones I encountered were as good as any I've ever performed in front of. But none of this changes the broad-brush strokes: Glasgow was a once mighty city that now has grave social problems. It is a city that is not fulfilling its potential in the way that it once did. All in all, it's quite a transformation. How has it happened?Every few years a report comes out that highlights Glasgow's various problems. Comments are then sought from across the political spectrum. Usually, those asked to comment agree that the city has grave, ‘long-standing and deep-rooted social problems' (the words of Stephen Purcell, former leader of Glasgow City Council); they agree that something needs to be done, though they don't always agree on what that something is.There's the view from the right: Bill Aitken of the Scottish Conservatives, quoted in The Sunday Times in 2008, said, ‘We simply don't have the jobs for people who are not academically inclined. Another factor is that some people are simply disinclined to work. We have got to find something for these people to do, to give them a reason to get up in the morning and give them some self-respect.' There's the supposedly apolitical view of anti-poverty groups: Peter Kelly, director of the Glasgow-based Poverty Alliance, responded, ‘We need real, intensive support for people if we are going to tackle poverty. It's not about a lack of aspiration, often people who are unemployed or on low incomes are stymied by a lack of money and support from local and central government.' And there's the view from the left. In the same article, Patricia Ferguson, the Labour Member of the Scottish Parliament (MSP) for Maryhill, also declared a belief in government regeneration of the area. ‘It's about better housing, more jobs, better education and these things take years to make an impact. I believe that the huge regeneration in the area is fostering a lot more community involvement and cohesion. My real hope is that these figures will take a knock in the next five or ten years.' At the time of writing in 2013, five years later, the figures have worsened.All three points of view agree on one thing: the government must do something.In 2008 the £435 million Fairer Scotland Fund – established to tackle poverty – was unveiled, aiming to allocate cash to the country's most deprived communities. Its targets included increasing average income among lower wage-earners and narrowing the poverty gap between Scotland's best- and worst-performing regions by 2017. So far, it hasn't met those targets.In 2008 a report entitled ‘Power for The Public' examined the provision of health, education and justice in Scotland. It said the budgets for these three areas had grown by 55%, 87% and 44% respectively over the last decade, but added that this had produced ‘mixed results'. ‘Mixed results' means it didn't work. More money was spent and the figures got worse.After the Centre for Social Justice report on Glasgow in 2008, Iain Duncan Smith (who set up this think tank, and is now the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions) said, ‘Policy must deal with the pathways to breakdown – high levels of family breakdown, high levels of failed education, debt and unemployment.'So what are ‘pathways to breakdown'? If you were to look at a chart of Glasgow's prosperity relative to the rest of the world, its peak would have come somewhere around 1910. With the onset of WWI in 1914 its decline accelerated, and since then the falls have been relentless and inexorable. It's not just Glasgow that would have this chart pattern, but the whole of industrial Britain. What changed the trend? Yes, empires rise and fall, but was British decline all a consequence of WWI? Or was there something else?A seismic shift came with that war – a change which is very rarely spoken or written about. Actually, the change was gradual and it pre-dated 1914. It was a change that was sweeping through the West: that of government or state involvement in our lives. In the UK it began with the reforms of the Liberal government of 1906–14, championed by David Lloyd George and Winston Churchill, known as the ‘terrible twins' by contemporaries. The Pensions Act of 1908, the People's Budget of 1909–10 (to ‘wage implacable warfare against poverty', declared Lloyd George) and the National Insurance Act of 1911 saw the Liberal government moving away from its tradition of laissez-faire systems – from classical liberalism and Gladstonian principles of self-help and self-reliance – towards larger, more active government by which taxes were collected from the wealthy and the proceeds redistributed. Afraid of losing votes to the emerging Labour party and the increasingly popular ideology of socialism, modern liberals betrayed their classical principles. In his War Memoirs, Lloyd George said ‘the partisan warfare that raged around these topics was so fierce that by 1913, this country was brought to the verge of civil war'. But these were small steps. The Pensions Act, for example, meant that men aged 70 and above could claim between two and five shillings per week from the government. But average male life- expectancy then was 47. Today it's 77. Using the same ratio, and, yes, I'm manipulating statistics here, that's akin to only awarding pensions to people above the age 117 today. Back then it was workable.To go back to my analogy of the prologue, this period was when the ‘train' was set in motion across the West. In 1914 it went up a gear. Here are the opening paragraphs of historian A. J. P. Taylor's most celebrated book, English History 1914–1945, published in 1965.I quote this long passage in full, because it is so telling.Until August 1914 a sensible, law-abiding Englishman could pass through life and hardly notice the existence of the state, beyond the post office and the policeman. He could live where he liked and as he liked. He had no official number or identity card. He could travel abroad or leave his country forever without a passport or any sort of official permission. He could exchange his money for any other currency without restriction or limit. He could buy goods from any country in the world on the same terms as he bought goods at home. For that matter, a foreigner could spend his life in this country without permit and without informing the police. Unlike the countries of the European continent, the state did not require its citizens to perform military service. An Englishman could enlist, if he chose, in the regular army, the navy, or the territorials. He could also ignore, if he chose, the demands of national defence. Substantial householders were occasionally called on for jury service. Otherwise, only those helped the state, who wished to do so. The Englishman paid taxes on a modest scale: nearly £200 million in 1913–14, or rather less than 8% of the national income.The state intervened to prevent the citizen from eating adulterated food or contracting certain infectious diseases. It imposed safety rules in factories, and prevented women, and adult males in some industries,from working excessive hours.The state saw to it that children received education up to the age of 13. Since 1 January 1909, it provided a meagre pension for the needy over the age of 70. Since 1911, it helped to insure certain classes of workers against sickness and unemployment. This tendency towards more state action was increasing. Expenditure on the social services had roughly doubled since the Liberals took office in 1905. Still, broadly speaking, the state acted only to help those who could not help themselves. It left the adult citizen alone.All this was changed by the impact of the Great War. The mass of the people became, for the first time, active citizens. Their lives were shaped by orders from above; they were required to serve the state instead of pursuing exclusively their own affairs. Five million men entered the armed forces, many of them (though a minority) under compulsion. The Englishman's food was limited, and its quality changed, by government order. His freedom of movement was restricted; his conditions of work prescribed. Some industries were reduced or closed, others artificially fostered. The publication of news was fettered. Street lights were dimmed. The sacred freedom of drinking was tampered with: licensed hours were cut down, and the beer watered by order. The very time on the clocks was changed. From 1916 onwards, every Englishman got up an hour earlier in summer than he would otherwise have done, thanks to an act of parliament. The state established a hold over its citizens which, though relaxed in peacetime, was never to be removed and which the Second World war was again to increase. The history of the English state and of the English people merged for the first time.Since the beginning of WWI , the role that the state has played in our lives has not stopped growing. This has been especially so in the case of Glasgow. The state has spent more and more, provided more and more services, more subsidy, more education, more health care, more infrastructure, more accommodation, more benefits, more regulations, more laws, more protection. The more it has provided, the worse Glasgow has fared. Is this correlation a coincidence? I don't think so.The story of the rise and fall of Glasgow is a distilled version of the story of the rise and fall of industrial Britain – indeed the entire industrial West. In the next chapter I'm going to show you a simple mistake that goes on being made; a dynamic by which the state, whose very aim was to help Glasgow, has actually been its ‘pathway to breakdown' . . .Life After the State is available at Amazon, Apple Books and all good bookshops, with the audiobook at Audible, Apple Books and all good audiobookshops. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.theflyingfrisby.com/subscribe

Good Sunday morning to you,I am just on a train home from Glasgow, where I have been gigging these past two nights. I've had a great time, as I always seem to do when I go north of the wall.But Glasgow on a Saturday night is something else. My hotel was right next to the station and so I was right in the thick of it. If I ever get to make a cacatopian, end-of-days, post-apocalyptic thriller, I'll just stroll through Glasgow city centre on a Friday or Saturday night with a camera to get all the B roll. It was like walking through a Hieronymus Bosch painting only with a Scottish accent. Little seems to have changed since I wrote that infamous chapter about Glasgow in Life After the State all those years ago. The only difference is that now it's more multi-ethnic. So many people are so off their heads. I lost count of the number of randoms wandering about just howling at the stars. The long days - it was still light at 10 o'clock - make the insanity all the more visible. Part of me finds it funny, but another part of me finds it so very sad that so many people let themselves get into this condition. It prompted me to revisit said chapter, and I offer it today as your Sunday thought piece.Just a couple of little notes, before we begin. This caught my eye on Friday. Our favourite uranium tech company, Lightbridge Fuels (NASDAQ:LTBR), has taken off again with Donald Trump's statement that he is going to quadruple US nuclear capacity. The stock was up 45% in a day. We first looked at it in October at $3. It hit $15 on Friday. It's one to sell on the spikes and buy on the dips, as this incredible chart shows.(In other news I have now listened twice to the Comstock Lode AGM, and I'll report back on that shortly too). ICYMI here is my mid-week commentary, which attracted a lot of attentionRight - Glasgow.(NB I haven't included references here. Needless to say, they are all there in the book. And sorry I don't have access to the audio of me reading this from my laptop, but, if you like, you can get the audiobook at Audible, Apple Books and all good audiobookshops. The book itself available at Amazon, Apple Books et al).How the Most Entrepreneurial City in Europe Became Its SickestThe cause of waves of unemployment is not capitalism, but governments …Friedrich Hayek, economist and philosopherIn the 18th and 19th centuries, the city of Glasgow in Scotland became enormously, stupendously rich. It happened quite organically, without planning. An entrepreneurial people reacted to their circumstances and, over time, turned Glasgow into an industrial and economic centre of such might that, by the turn of the 20th century, Glasgow was producing half the tonnage of Britain's ships and a quarter of all locomotives in the world. (Not unlike China's industrial dominance today). It was regarded as the best-governed city in Europe and popular histories compared it to the great imperial cities of Venice and Rome. It became known as the ‘Second City of the British Empire'.Barely 100 years later, it is the heroin capital of the UK, the murder capital of the UK and its East End, once home to Europe's largest steelworks, has been dubbed ‘the benefits capital of the UK'. Glasgow is Britain's fattest city: its men have Britain's lowest life expectancy – on a par with Palestine and Albania – and its unemployment rate is 50% higher than the rest of the UK.How did Glasgow manage all that?The growth in Glasgow's economic fortunes began in the latter part of the 17th century and the early 18th century. First, the city's location in the west of Scotland at the mouth of the river Clyde meant that it lay in the path of the trade winds and at least 100 nautical miles closer to America's east coast than other British ports – 200 miles closer than London. In the days before fossil fuels (which only found widespread use in shipping in the second half of the 19th century) the journey to Virginia was some two weeks shorter than the same journey from London or many of the other ports in Britain and Europe. Even modern sailors describe how easy the port of Glasgow is to navigate. Second, when England was at war with France – as it was repeatedly between 1688 and 1815 – ships travelling to Glasgow were less vulnerable than those travelling to ports further south. Glasgow's merchants took advantage and, by the early 18th century, the city had begun to assert itself as a trading hub. Manufactured goods were carried from Britain and Europe to North America and the Caribbean, where they were traded for increasingly popular commodities such as tobacco, cotton and sugar.Through the 18th century, the Glasgow merchants' business networks spread, and they took steps to further accelerate trade. New ships were introduced, bigger than those of rival ports, with fore and aft sails that enabled them to sail closer to the wind and reduce journey times. Trading posts were built to ensure that cargo was gathered and stored for collection, so that ships wouldn't swing idly at anchor. By the 1760s Glasgow had a 50% share of the tobacco trade – as much as the rest of Britain's ports combined. While the English merchants simply sold American tobacco in Europe at a profit, the Glaswegians actually extended credit to American farmers against future production (a bit like a crop future today, where a crop to be grown at a later date is sold now). The Virginia farmers could then use this credit to buy European goods, which the Glaswegians were only too happy to supply. This brought about the rise of financial institutions such as the Glasgow Ship Bank and the Glasgow Thistle Bank, which would later become part of the now-bailed-out, taxpayer-owned Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS).Their practices paid rewards. Glasgow's merchants earned a great deal of money. They built glamorous homes and large churches and, it seems, took on aristocratic airs – hence they became known as the ‘Tobacco Lords'. Numbering among them were Buchanan, Dunlop, Ingram, Wilson, Oswald, Cochrane and Glassford, all of whom had streets in the Merchant City district of Glasgow named after them (other streets, such as Virginia Street and Jamaica Street, refer to their trade destinations). In 1771, over 47 million pounds of tobacco were imported.However, the credit the Glaswegians extended to American tobacco farmers would backfire. The debts incurred by the tobacco farmers – which included future presidents George Washington and Thomas Jefferson (who almost lost his farm as a result) – grew, and were among the grievances when the American War of Independence came in 1775. That war destroyed the tobacco trade for the Glaswegians. Much of the money that was owed to them was never repaid. Many of their plantations were lost. But the Glaswegians were entrepreneurial and they adapted. They moved on to other businesses, particularly cotton.By the 19th century, all sorts of local industry had emerged around the goods traded in the city. It was producing and exporting textiles, chemicals, engineered goods and steel. River engineering projects to dredge and deepen the Clyde (with a view to forming a deep- water port) had begun in 1768 and they would enable shipbuilding to become a major industry on the upper reaches of the river, pioneered by industrialists such as Robert Napier and John Elder. The final stretch of the Monkland Canal, linking the Forth and Clyde Canal at Port Dundas, was opened in 1795, facilitating access to the iron-ore and coal mines of Lanarkshire.The move to fossil-fuelled shipping in the latter 19th century destroyed the advantages that the trade winds had given Glasgow. But it didn't matter. Again, the people adapted. By the turn of the 20th century the Second City of the British Empire had become a world centre of industry and heavy engineering. It has been estimated that, between 1870 and 1914, it produced as much as one-fifth of the world's ships, and half of Britain's tonnage. Among the 25,000 ships it produced were some of the greatest ever built: the Cutty Sark, the Queen Mary, HMS Hood, the Lusitania, the Glenlee tall ship and even the iconic Mississippi paddle steamer, the Delta Queen. It had also become a centre for locomotive manufacture and, shortly after the turn of the 20th century, could boast the largest concentration of locomotive building works in Europe.It was not just Glasgow's industry and wealth that was so gargantuan. The city's contribution to mankind – made possible by the innovation and progress that comes with booming economies – would also have an international impact. Many great inventors either hailed from Glasgow or moved there to study or work. There's James Watt, for example, whose improvements to the steam engine were fundamental to the Industrial Revolution. One of Watt's employees, William Murdoch, has been dubbed ‘the Scot who lit the world' – he invented gas lighting, a new kind of steam cannon and waterproof paint. Charles MacIntosh gave us the raincoat. James Young, the chemist dubbed as ‘the father of the oil industry', gave us paraffin. William Thomson, known as Lord Kelvin, developed the science of thermodynamics, formulating the Kelvin scale of absolute temperature; he also managed the laying of the first transatlantic telegraph cable.The turning point in the economic fortunes of Glasgow – indeed, of industrial Britain – was WWI. Both have been in decline ever since. By the end of the war, the British were drained, both emotionally and in terms of capital and manpower; the workers, the entrepreneurs, the ideas men, too many of them were dead or incapacitated. There was insufficient money and no appetite to invest. The post-war recession, and later the Great Depression, did little to help. The trend of the city was now one of inexorable economic decline.If Glasgow was the home of shipping and industry in 19th-century Britain, it became the home of socialism in the 20th century. Known by some as the ‘Red Clydeside' movement, the socialist tide in Scotland actually pre-dated the First World War. In 1906 came the city's first Labour Member of Parliament (MP), George Barnes – prior to that its seven MPs were all Conservatives or Liberal Unionists. In the spring of 1911, 11,000 workers at the Singer sewing-machine factory (run by an American corporation in Clydebank) went on strike to support 12 women who were protesting about new work practices. Singer sacked 400 workers, but the movement was growing – as was labour unrest. In the four years between 1910 and 1914 Clydebank workers spent four times as many days on strike than in the whole of the previous decade. The Scottish Trades Union Congress and its affiliations saw membership rise from 129,000 in 1909 to 230,000 in 1914.20The rise in discontent had much to do with Glasgow's housing. Conditions were bad, there was overcrowding, bad sanitation, housing was close to dirty, noxious and deafening industry. Unions grew quite organically to protect the interests of their members.Then came WWI, and inflation, as Britain all but abandoned gold. In 1915 many landlords responded by attempting to increase rent, but with their young men on the Western front, those left behind didn't have the means to pay these higher costs. If they couldn't, eviction soon followed. In Govan, an area of Glasgow where shipbuilding was the main occupation, women – now in the majority with so many men gone – organized opposition to the rent increases. There are photographs showing women blocking the entrance to tenements; officers who did get inside to evict tenants are said to have had their trousers pulled down.The landlords were attacked for being unpatriotic. Placards read: ‘While our men are fighting on the front line,the landlord is attacking us at home.' The strikes spread to other cities throughout the UK, and on 27 November 1915 the government introduced legislation to restrict rents to the pre-war level. The strikers were placated. They had won. The government was happy; it had dealt with the problem. The landlords lost out.In the aftermath of the Russian Revolution of 1917, more frequent strikes crippled the city. In 1919 the ‘Bloody Friday' uprising prompted the prime minister, David Lloyd George, to deploy 10,000 troops and tanks onto the city's streets. By the 1930s Glasgow had become the main base of the Independent Labour Party, so when Labour finally came to power alone after WWII, its influence was strong. Glasgow has always remained a socialist stronghold. Labour dominates the city council, and the city has not had a Conservative MP for 30 years.By the late 1950s, Glasgow was losing out to the more competitive industries of Japan, Germany and elsewhere. There was a lack of investment. Union demands for workers, enforced by government legislation, made costs uneconomic and entrepreneurial activity arduous. With lack of investment came lack of innovation.Rapid de-industrialization followed, and by the 1960s and 70s most employment lay not in manufacturing, but in the service industries.Which brings us to today. On the plus side, Glasgow is still ranked as one of Europe's top 20 financial centres and is home to some leading Scottish businesses. But there is considerable downside.Recent studies have suggested that nearly 30% of Glasgow's working age population is unemployed. That's 50% higher than that of the rest of Scotland or the UK. Eighteen per cent of 16- to 19-year-olds are neither in school nor employed. More than one in five working-age Glaswegians have no sort of education that might qualify them for a job.In the city centre, the Merchant City, 50% of children are growing up in homes where nobody works. In the poorer neighbourhoods, such as Ruchill, Possilpark, or Dalmarnock, about 65% of children live in homes where nobody works – more than three times the national average. Figures from the Department of Work and Pensions show that 85% of working age adults from the district of Bridgeton claim some kind of welfare payment.Across the city, almost a third of the population regularly receives sickness or incapacity benefit, the highest rate of all UK cities. A 2008 World Health Organization report noted that in Glasgow's Calton, Bridgeton and Queenslie neighbourhoods, the average life expectancy for males is only 54. In contrast, residents of Glasgow's more affluent West End live to be 80 and virtually none of them are on the dole.Glasgow has the highest crime rate in Scotland. A recent report by the Centre for Social Justice noted that there are 170 teenage gangs in Glasgow. That's the same number as in London, which has over six times the population of Glasgow.It also has the dubious record of being Britain's murder capital. In fact, Glasgow had the highest homicide rate in Western Europe until it was overtaken in 2012 by Amsterdam, with more violent crime per head of population than even New York. What's more, its suicide rate is the highest in the UK.Then there are the drug and alcohol problems. The residents of the poorer neighbourhoods are an astounding six times more likely to die of a drugs overdose than the national average. Drug-related mortality has increased by 95% since 1997. There are 20,000 registered drug users – that's just registered – and the situation is not going to get any better: children who grow up in households where family members use drugs are seven times more likely to end up using drugs themselves than children who live in drug-free families.Glasgow has the highest incidence of liver diseases from alcohol abuse in all of Scotland. In the East End district of Dennistoun, these illnesses kill more people than heart attacks and lung cancer combined. Men and women are more likely to die of alcohol-related deaths in Glasgow than anywhere else in the UK. Time and time again Glasgow is proud winner of the title ‘Fattest City in Britain'. Around 40% of the population are obese – 5% morbidly so – and it also boasts the most smokers per capita.I have taken these statistics from an array of different sources. It might be in some cases that they're overstated. I know that I've accentuated both the 18th- and 19th-century positives, as well as the 20th- and 21st-century negatives to make my point. Of course, there are lots of healthy, happy people in Glasgow – I've done many gigs there and I loved it. Despite the stories you hear about intimidating Glasgow audiences, the ones I encountered were as good as any I've ever performed in front of. But none of this changes the broad-brush strokes: Glasgow was a once mighty city that now has grave social problems. It is a city that is not fulfilling its potential in the way that it once did. All in all, it's quite a transformation. How has it happened?Every few years a report comes out that highlights Glasgow's various problems. Comments are then sought from across the political spectrum. Usually, those asked to comment agree that the city has grave, ‘long-standing and deep-rooted social problems' (the words of Stephen Purcell, former leader of Glasgow City Council); they agree that something needs to be done, though they don't always agree on what that something is.There's the view from the right: Bill Aitken of the Scottish Conservatives, quoted in The Sunday Times in 2008, said, ‘We simply don't have the jobs for people who are not academically inclined. Another factor is that some people are simply disinclined to work. We have got to find something for these people to do, to give them a reason to get up in the morning and give them some self-respect.' There's the supposedly apolitical view of anti-poverty groups: Peter Kelly, director of the Glasgow-based Poverty Alliance, responded, ‘We need real, intensive support for people if we are going to tackle poverty. It's not about a lack of aspiration, often people who are unemployed or on low incomes are stymied by a lack of money and support from local and central government.' And there's the view from the left. In the same article, Patricia Ferguson, the Labour Member of the Scottish Parliament (MSP) for Maryhill, also declared a belief in government regeneration of the area. ‘It's about better housing, more jobs, better education and these things take years to make an impact. I believe that the huge regeneration in the area is fostering a lot more community involvement and cohesion. My real hope is that these figures will take a knock in the next five or ten years.' At the time of writing in 2013, five years later, the figures have worsened.All three points of view agree on one thing: the government must do something.In 2008 the £435 million Fairer Scotland Fund – established to tackle poverty – was unveiled, aiming to allocate cash to the country's most deprived communities. Its targets included increasing average income among lower wage-earners and narrowing the poverty gap between Scotland's best- and worst-performing regions by 2017. So far, it hasn't met those targets.In 2008 a report entitled ‘Power for The Public' examined the provision of health, education and justice in Scotland. It said the budgets for these three areas had grown by 55%, 87% and 44% respectively over the last decade, but added that this had produced ‘mixed results'. ‘Mixed results' means it didn't work. More money was spent and the figures got worse.After the Centre for Social Justice report on Glasgow in 2008, Iain Duncan Smith (who set up this think tank, and is now the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions) said, ‘Policy must deal with the pathways to breakdown – high levels of family breakdown, high levels of failed education, debt and unemployment.'So what are ‘pathways to breakdown'? If you were to look at a chart of Glasgow's prosperity relative to the rest of the world, its peak would have come somewhere around 1910. With the onset of WWI in 1914 its decline accelerated, and since then the falls have been relentless and inexorable. It's not just Glasgow that would have this chart pattern, but the whole of industrial Britain. What changed the trend? Yes, empires rise and fall, but was British decline all a consequence of WWI? Or was there something else?A seismic shift came with that war – a change which is very rarely spoken or written about. Actually, the change was gradual and it pre-dated 1914. It was a change that was sweeping through the West: that of government or state involvement in our lives. In the UK it began with the reforms of the Liberal government of 1906–14, championed by David Lloyd George and Winston Churchill, known as the ‘terrible twins' by contemporaries. The Pensions Act of 1908, the People's Budget of 1909–10 (to ‘wage implacable warfare against poverty', declared Lloyd George) and the National Insurance Act of 1911 saw the Liberal government moving away from its tradition of laissez-faire systems – from classical liberalism and Gladstonian principles of self-help and self-reliance – towards larger, more active government by which taxes were collected from the wealthy and the proceeds redistributed. Afraid of losing votes to the emerging Labour party and the increasingly popular ideology of socialism, modern liberals betrayed their classical principles. In his War Memoirs, Lloyd George said ‘the partisan warfare that raged around these topics was so fierce that by 1913, this country was brought to the verge of civil war'. But these were small steps. The Pensions Act, for example, meant that men aged 70 and above could claim between two and five shillings per week from the government. But average male life- expectancy then was 47. Today it's 77. Using the same ratio, and, yes, I'm manipulating statistics here, that's akin to only awarding pensions to people above the age 117 today. Back then it was workable.To go back to my analogy of the prologue, this period was when the ‘train' was set in motion across the West. In 1914 it went up a gear. Here are the opening paragraphs of historian A. J. P. Taylor's most celebrated book, English History 1914–1945, published in 1965.I quote this long passage in full, because it is so telling.Until August 1914 a sensible, law-abiding Englishman could pass through life and hardly notice the existence of the state, beyond the post office and the policeman. He could live where he liked and as he liked. He had no official number or identity card. He could travel abroad or leave his country forever without a passport or any sort of official permission. He could exchange his money for any other currency without restriction or limit. He could buy goods from any country in the world on the same terms as he bought goods at home. For that matter, a foreigner could spend his life in this country without permit and without informing the police. Unlike the countries of the European continent, the state did not require its citizens to perform military service. An Englishman could enlist, if he chose, in the regular army, the navy, or the territorials. He could also ignore, if he chose, the demands of national defence. Substantial householders were occasionally called on for jury service. Otherwise, only those helped the state, who wished to do so. The Englishman paid taxes on a modest scale: nearly £200 million in 1913–14, or rather less than 8% of the national income.The state intervened to prevent the citizen from eating adulterated food or contracting certain infectious diseases. It imposed safety rules in factories, and prevented women, and adult males in some industries,from working excessive hours.The state saw to it that children received education up to the age of 13. Since 1 January 1909, it provided a meagre pension for the needy over the age of 70. Since 1911, it helped to insure certain classes of workers against sickness and unemployment. This tendency towards more state action was increasing. Expenditure on the social services had roughly doubled since the Liberals took office in 1905. Still, broadly speaking, the state acted only to help those who could not help themselves. It left the adult citizen alone.All this was changed by the impact of the Great War. The mass of the people became, for the first time, active citizens. Their lives were shaped by orders from above; they were required to serve the state instead of pursuing exclusively their own affairs. Five million men entered the armed forces, many of them (though a minority) under compulsion. The Englishman's food was limited, and its quality changed, by government order. His freedom of movement was restricted; his conditions of work prescribed. Some industries were reduced or closed, others artificially fostered. The publication of news was fettered. Street lights were dimmed. The sacred freedom of drinking was tampered with: licensed hours were cut down, and the beer watered by order. The very time on the clocks was changed. From 1916 onwards, every Englishman got up an hour earlier in summer than he would otherwise have done, thanks to an act of parliament. The state established a hold over its citizens which, though relaxed in peacetime, was never to be removed and which the Second World war was again to increase. The history of the English state and of the English people merged for the first time.Since the beginning of WWI , the role that the state has played in our lives has not stopped growing. This has been especially so in the case of Glasgow. The state has spent more and more, provided more and more services, more subsidy, more education, more health care, more infrastructure, more accommodation, more benefits, more regulations, more laws, more protection. The more it has provided, the worse Glasgow has fared. Is this correlation a coincidence? I don't think so.The story of the rise and fall of Glasgow is a distilled version of the story of the rise and fall of industrial Britain – indeed the entire industrial West. In the next chapter I'm going to show you a simple mistake that goes on being made; a dynamic by which the state, whose very aim was to help Glasgow, has actually been its ‘pathway to breakdown' . . .Life After the State is available at Amazon, Apple Books and all good bookshops, with the audiobook at Audible, Apple Books and all good audiobookshops. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.theflyingfrisby.com/subscribe

In this episode I talk with Tommy McInnes of Dennistoun.   Tommy was born and has lived in the East End all of his life. We talk about growing up in the Gallowgate, his Mum and Dad, the joy of playing football at every opportunity, the cinemas in the area, school life, working life and how he met his wife, Irene McInnes, who we spoke to in the first episode of this series.   This is the last episode of the current series of Tales Fae the East, so I thought it a nice way to book end things by speaking to Tommy after having spoken to Irene at the start.   Tales Fae the East is an artist in residence project from Glasgow Life.   For more info and links, please visit our site here. Photo of Tommy by Tim Morozzo Thank you for listening!

This episode is a conversation with Jackie Shearer of Dennistoun about her life and work.   Jackie was brought up in Glasgow and East Kilbride and has had a long and fascinating career in the arts sphere.   We talk about growing up in East Kilbride, the role of a good 80's jumble sale, the thriving music scene of the 80's, how Tom Leonard and Alasdair Gray's work really connected with her as a young person, then how she stepped into working in the arts.  We also talk about comparisons between the East End in the past and the present.  Tales Fae the East is an artist in residence project from Glasgow Life.  I share the position with Tim Morozzo who will be taking photo portraits of the participants.   For more info and links, please visit our site here. Thank you for listening!

This episode is a conversation with film and TV producer Barbara Orton about her life and work and how she came to live in Dennistoun. We talk about growing up in Newcastle, her first steps into community work, the setting up of a community video company in Pilton in Edinburgh, how the City of Culture 1990 brought her west to Glasgow and then how she stepped into film and tv production.  We also talk about the change in the community that she's seen since first moving to Dennistoun.    Barbara's production company is the Bafta award winning True TV. There are so many more tales to be told, so if you know someone who knows tales of Dennistoun, Sighthill or Haghill and you think they'd be willing to talk to us for the podcast, we'd love to hear from them!  I'm particularly keen to speak to folk from Haghill as we've not spoken to anyone there yet.  I'd also love to speak to anyone from the diverse immigrant communities in the area, so please do drop us a line on info@tales-fae-the-east.com with any contacts you think would be willing to talk.  Episode links and more can be found on tales-fae-the-east.com Thank you for listening!

This episode is a conversation with Rose Ruane. Rose first settled in the East End with a flat in Haghill, then eventually moved into Dennistoun where she's been a resident for many years.  Rose is an author and so much more, her first book, This is Yesterday was published in 2019.  Rose is also studying for her doctorate at present, which we talk about towards the end of the episode. Our conversation goes into Rose's life in the area, her work and her thoughts on the changes to Dennistoun over the last years. A special thank you to Helen Cassidy, who put Rose in contact with the podcast.   If you know someone who knows tales of Dennistoun, Sighthill or Haghill and you think they'd be willing to talk to us for the podcast, we'd love to hear from them!  I'd also love to speak to anyone from the diverse immigrant communities in the area, so please do drop us a line on info@tales-fae-the-east.com with any contacts you think would be willing to talk.   One of the subjects we're particularly interested in investigating is the role of Gaelic in the community.  If you're a Gaelic speaker in the area and would like to talk to us, we'd love to have a natter.  If you know of any interesting Gaelic related stories or facts about the area, we'd also love to hear about them!  Bhiodh sin dìreach gasta!   Photo of Rose by Tim Morozzo Links and more can be found on https://tales-fae-the-east.com/ Thanks for listening!  

This episode is a conversation with Robert Macaulay of Robert's Hair Design of Duke St, Dennistoun.  Robert was born and brought up in Sword St and knows Dennistoun intimately.    Our conversation goes into life in the area in Robert's youth, how he started his working life at the age of 9, his memories of cinemas in the area, childhood holidays, the Dennistoun Palais in its roller disco days, roller hockey, the music scene in Glasgow of his younger days, his professional life and lots more besides.      As we recorded this conversation over Zoom there are occasional odd noises and pinging sounds, I've tried to edit them out where possible, but you will hear the whistle and echo for which I apologise.   Thank you to Gail and Alison at Florresters on Duke St, and Mairi Binnie for putting me in contact with Robert.  There are so many more tales to be told, so if you know someone who knows tales of Dennistoun, Sighthill or Haghill and you think they'd be willing to talk to us for the podcast, we'd love to hear from them!  I'm particularly keen to speak to folk from Haghill as we've not spoken to anyone there yet.  I'd also love to speak to anyone from the diverse immigrant communities in the area, so please do drop us a line on info@tales-fae-the-east.com with any contacts you think would be willing to talk.  Episode links and more can be found on tales-fae-the-east.com Photo of Robert by Tim Morozzo Thank you for listening!

In this episode I speak with Alis Le May of Dennistoun. Alis is a bespoke tailor, whose practice includes both suits and dresses, and the sharing of knowledge through community out reach with Decent Projects, a company she runs with her partner Calum.  We talk about her path from Norfolk to Dennistoun, taking in her studies and how she continued to develop her craft.  We also go into the history of tailoring in the area, too and how much the area means to her.  Episode links and more can be found here. alislemay.com Photo of Alis by Tim Morozzo Thank you for listening!    

In this episode I speak with Stuart Cosgrove of Dennistoun.  Stuart is a writer, broadcaster, television executive and so much more.    A resident of Dennistoun for many years, Stuart originally comes from Letham in Perth. Our conversation covers a huge amount of ground, we go from life in Dennistoun, his youth in Perth, his studies in Hull and America, then on to Stuart's working life.  We also talk about the importance of soul music, we touch on the life and skills of late Mary Wilson of the Supremes and then we round off with a reflection of Gaelic in the community.   Stuart also goes into the nature of poverty, what it means, and how important it is for us as a society to invest in the creative talents of young people. There's also two naughty words which pop later on in the episode, please feel free to add a  beeping sound at your own discretion.       As we recorded this conversation over Zoom there are occasional odd noises and pinging sounds, I've tried to edit them out where possible, but you will hear the odd pop and growl for which I apologise.   If you want to drop us a line you can reach us on info@tales-fae-the-east.com We're also on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram Episode links and more can be found here. The photo of Stuart is by Tim Morozzo. Thanks for listening!  

In this episode I speak with Mitch Miller of Dennistoun. Mitch is an artist who works with an approach which he calls the Dialectogram, offering a pigeons eye view of spaces.  Spaces as seen from above, but with the pigeon's knowledge of where all the dropped chips from Friday night lie. Mitch comes from a long line of travelling show folk.  It's so interesting to hear him talk about this heritage and how it has influenced both his life and work.   Our conversation touches on his family's story, how he first came to Dennistoun, his studies, his work outside of the art world and how his art practice has grown and developed over the years, tied into community and place.    One thing that comes across so strongly from our conversation is Mitch's love for and commitment to the area.  Mitch's website can be found here.   Tales Fae the East is an artist in residence project from Glasgow Life.  I share the position with my mate Tim Morozzo who will be taking photo portraits of the people we speak to when Covid restrictions lift. There are many more tales to be told, so if you know someone, like Mitch or Irene, who knows tales of Dennistoun, Sighthill or Haghill and you think they'd be willing to talk to us for the podcast, we'd love to hear from them!  You can reach us on info@tales-fae-the-east.com We're also on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.  Our website https://tales-fae-the-east.com gives you some more info about the project an intro to Tim and I, and provides links to subjects covered in the episodes.   With this residency we're going to be offering photography and podcasting workshops, so please do feel free to drop us a line to say if you'd like to join us.  We'll advertise these more as we go along so you know where to go online.  The likelihood is that they'll be on Zoom for the foreseeable future.   Episode links, photos and more can be found here. Thanks so much for listening!  

Welcome to 'Oh Lockdown. How We Laughed' Season 2, Episode 14 with Special guest, all the way from Dennistoun in Glasgow, Garry Mac. Garry is a queer writer and illustrator from Glasgow. He recently displayed work in GoMA and co-directed a short film with Michael Lee Richardson, and BBC NowNext and LUX Scotland. He is currently undertaking a PhD with University of Dundee researching queer time in comics with a practical element, a comic called PRAXIS. Join us as we chat about Comedy, Lockdown, Comics, Mental Health and the importance of limiting social media for the sake of creativity and our peace of mind.

In the first episode of Tales Fae the East we speak with Irene McInnes of Dennistoun.  Irene grew up in the East End, and came to settle in Dennistoun in her 20's. She's been one of the key figures in Reidvale Housing Association, a pioneering community housing association who put their tenants at centre of their operations, since the very beginning.   We talk about Irene's family as she was growing up, her father's service during the second world war, characters from the community, memories of dancing at the Palais de Dance, going to see bands in the 60's, the correct type of sausage to have in a roll and so much more.  Towards the end of the episode we talk about Reidvale, how it grew and what its role in the community is.    Tales Fae the East is an artist in residence project from Glasgow Life.  My friend and colleague Tim Morrozo shares the residency with me.  Tim is a photographer and will be visiting each of the people we speak to take a portrait of them to accompany the podcast and be shown as part of an exhibition once Covid restrictions ease. We're going to be offering podcasting and photography workshops as part of this project. If you'd like to see the links for this episode and find out more about the project, please visit the episode page on our website. Thanks for listening!      

This week on Live Joy, Share Joy: "JOY and Do Unto Others" with LaVon Dennistoun. Hosted by Deb McGregor of Life Full of Joy. Visit lifefullofjoy.com.

Lulu Kennedy-Cairns, best known as Lulu, is a Scottish singer, actress, television personality and businesswoman. She is noted for her powerful singing voice.She is internationally known, but especially by UK audiences in the 1960s. Later in her career she had hits internationally with "To Sir with Love" from the 1967 film of the same name and with the title song to the 1974 James Bond film The Man with the Golden Gun. In European countries, she is also widely known for her Eurovision Song Contest 1969 winning entry "Boom Bang-a-Bang", and in the UK for her 1964 hit "Shout", which was performed at the closing ceremony of the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow.Lulu was born in Lennoxtown, Stirlingshire, and grew up in Dennistoun, Glasgow, where she attended Thomson Street Primary School and Onslow Drive School. She lived in Gallowgate for a while before moving to Garfield Street, Dennistoun. At the age of 12 or 13, she and her manager approached a band called the Bellrocks seeking stage experience as a singer. She appeared with them every Saturday night: Alex Thomson, the group's bass player, has reported that even then her voice was remarkable. In 1964, under the wing of Marion Massey, she was signed to Decca Records. When she was only fifteen, her version of the Isley Brothers' "Shout", credited to 'Lulu & the Luvvers' and delivered in a raucous but mature voice, peaked at no. 7 on the UK charts. Massey guided her career for more than 25 years, for most of which time they were partners in business, and Massey's husband Mark produced some of Lulu's recordings.After the success of "Shout", Lulu's next charting single was "Leave A Little Love" in 1965, which returned her to the UK Top Ten. Her next record, "Try to Understand", made the Top 40.Later that year she guested on the cover version of the Dan Hartman song "Relight My Fire", with boy band Take That. The single reached no. 1 on the UK Singles Chart and Lulu appeared as Take That's supporting act on their 1994 tour. At this time she also appeared as an unhappy public relations client of Edina Monsoon in two episodes of the BBC television programme Absolutely Fabulous and teamed with French and Saunders many times, including their send up of the Spice Girls (the Sugar Lumps) for Comic Relief in 1997, when she took the role of "Baby Spice", mimicking Emma Bunton. The music for the podcast is Twiggy's version of "Waterloo Sunset" by the Kinks and can be found on Apple Music at this link https://music.apple.com/gb/album/romantically-yours/693460953If you’ve enjoyed listening to “Tea With Twiggy” please give take a moment to give us a lovely 5 STAR rating on Apple Podcasts. It really helps other people to find the show.If you haven’t done so already please subscribe to this podcast so you auto-magically get the next episodes for free and do tell all your friends and family about it too. If you want to connect with me I’d love to hear from you.You can find me on Twitter @TwiggyOr you can find me on Instagram @Twiggy LawsonMy thanks go to all the people that have helped this podcast happen:● Many thanks to James Carrol and all the team at Northbank Talent Management● Thanks to all the team at Stripped Media including Ben Williams, who edits the show, my producer Kobi Omenaka and Executive Producers Tom Whalley and Dave CorkeryIf you want to know more about this podcast and other produced by Stripped Media please visit www.Stripped.media or email Producers@Stripped.Media to find out! See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Welcome to HOOVERING, the podcast about eating. Host, Jessica Fostekew (Guilty Feminist, Motherland) has a frank conversation with an interesting person about gobbling; guzzling; nibbling; scoffing; devouring and wolfing all up… or if you will, hoovering.This week I’m talking to an absolutely brilliant author, Rose Ruane in her badass, beautiful home in Glasgow. Just yesterday her new novel ‘This is Yesterday’ came out and you’ll hear from how utterly MIND-BLOWINGLY masterous she is with words here, how amazing her book is. I’ve just finished it and it jangled my insides around completely. She is truly something else. My personal favourite episode in a while. Enjoy, and please do get her amazing book. Everything written below in CAPITALS is a link to the relevant webpage. Tickets to see Hoovering LIVE in 2019Our next live show is up in Thirsk on Sat 23rd November as part of the amazing PODCAST SOCIAL CLUB run by the legends behind Deer Shed Festival. My guests include comedian Kate Fox and one more being announced super soon. Honourable MentionsRose isn’t on social media but I implore you to please please please get this book. She and it are so off the charts brilliant. ORDER THE BOOK HERE ON AMAZON but you can get it in any of the usual places, obvs. I have a stand up show called HENCH all, roughly about strength and gender and a little bit about diet-life too you know. It got nominated for best show in Edinburgh and it won some other shit and got sexy reviews across the board. It’s on tour and I would love love love to have you come to it. In January it’s at the SOHO THEATRE from 6th - 25th. Not Sundays but all the other nights. It’s sold out in October and January is nearly sold out most weekend nights now so get in quick yes please yes please.Then from February to June it’s ON TOUR all around the world with new dates and locations being added ALL THE LOVELY TIME. - just added ticket links for Poole in Dorset, the Machynleth Festival in Wales, Liverpool and Birmingham. Outside of that I’ll be doing new material gigs and I’m always sticking new dates on MY WEBSITE so have a check. The Hoovering Live dates go on there too. The food we wolfed in this episode was from TAPA and MESA, both brilliant places to eat if you’re passing through Dennistoun, Glasgow. These are the ELENA FERRANTE books we talk briefly about, they’re really exquisite. As per I mention

In a society where loneliness is rife, Fiona and Fiona turn their attention to finding some answers. Plus, Hollow has been to a dance event about archiving memory, Substantial has been chilling with Netflix and there’s some wisdom about vulnerability in performance. Oh, and there’s trouble on the streets of Glasgow. https://www.farahsaleh.com

Ending series two, we follow on from episode 15's tale of Dennistoun's adventures in France and learn that he is not alone amongst his antiquarian friends in having curious encounters. For more information - curioustalespod.com To get in touch with the show - curioustalespod@gmail.com

In this episode, we hear the tale of a man named Dennistoun and his visit to the cathedral at St. Bertrand de Comminges. For more information - curioustalespod.com To get in touch with the show - curioustalespod@gmail.com

  Welcome to MR, the podcast for beginners and insiders about the ideas, people and movements who have shaped rhetorical history. I’m Mary Hedengren and a big thanks to the Humanities Media Project at the University of Texas for support for this show. Also thanks to Jacob in the booth. Today, All Hallow’s Eve is upon us and it’s been a long time since I attempted some terrible British accents, which means it’s time for the Mere Rhetoric HALLOWEEN SPECIAL [thunder sounds? Screeching cat? What have you.] But first, some background.   When you’re asked to give a description of what rhetoric is, as we did in our very first episode, What is Rhetoric?, you might say something like, “It’s the use of words to persuade someone,” and you would imagine someone in a toga standing around on a rostom shout-talking at people, but that’s not exactly all rhetoric is. Remember Kenneth Burke’s definition of rhetoric: that we can “influence each other's thinking and behavior through the strategic use of symbols.” Even Aristotle says that rhetoric is about discovering the available means of persuasion. Verbal or alphabetic rhetoric is only one of those available means of persuasion. Visual rhetoric is another.   As you might suspect, visual rhetoric focuses on other kinds of symbols than just words. Visual rhetoricians might interrogate the influence on other people of war posters, cartoons, even the layout of airport security. But visual rhetoric isn’t just about the object of study.   Sonja Foss puts it this way:   Visual rhetoric refers not only to the visual object as a communicative artifact but also to a perspective scholars take on visual imagery or visual data. In this meaning of the term, visual rhetoric constitutes a theoretical perspective that involves the analysis of the symbolic or communicative aspects of visual artifacts. It is a critical-analytical tool or a way of approaching and analyzing visual data that highlights the communicative dimensions of images or objects (305-306)   As you might imagine, visual rhetoric opens up a lot of possiblities for scholars. And those scholars will need more theories of how to approach that those artifacts. Foss herself suggests that critics look first at the elements of the object, then   Kostelnick and Roberts create canons of visual rhetoric [what do you think? The cannon sound again?] Really? As I was saying, these canons of visual rehtoric  parallel the classical canons of rhetoric. these canons can be remembered by the British-inspired acronym CACE-TE, but you have to be creative with your spelling the first C stand for Clarity, or ease of understanding for the reader. A stands for arrangement, how the visual elements are laid out; the second C (I told you that you had to be creative in how you spell CACE) is for concision with nothing extraneous; the E is for emphasis. TE is also spelled poorly: T for tone--sarcastic or sincere, loving or rageful and E for ethos--demonstrating good will for the reader. Clarity, Arrangement, Concision, Emphasis Tone, Ethos: Cake and tea. Do you know what else is british? M. R. James ghost stories. And this year’s story demonstrates the dark side of looking too deeply into visual artifacts. And so, without futher aido, M. R. James’ 1904 story, “The Mezzotint.” Some time ago I believe I had the pleasure of telling you the story of an adventure which happened to a friend of mine by the name of Dennistoun, during his pursuit of objects of art for the museum at Cambridge.   He did not publish his experiences very widely upon his return to England; but they could not fail to become known to a good many of his friends, and among others to the gentleman who at that time presided over an art museum at another University. It was to be expected that the story should make a considerable impression on the mind of a man whose vocation lay in lines similar to Dennistoun’s, and that he should be eager to catch at any explanation of the matter which tended to make it seem improbable that he should ever be called upon to deal with so agitating an emergency. It was, indeed, somewhat consoling to him to reflect that he was not expected to acquire ancient MSS. for his institution; that was the business of the Shelburnian Library. The authorities of that institution might, if they pleased, ransack obscure corners of the Continent for such matters. He was glad to be obliged at the moment to confine his attention to enlarging the already unsurpassed collection of English topographical drawings and engravings possessed by his museum. Yet, as it turned out, even a department so homely and familiar as this may have its dark corners, and to one of these Mr Williams was unexpectedly introduced.   Those who have taken even the most limited interest in the acquisition of topographical pictures are aware that there is one London dealer whose aid is indispensable to their researches. Mr J. W. Britnell publishes at short intervals very admirable catalogues of a large and constantly changing stock of engravings, plans, and old sketches of mansions, churches, and towns in England and Wales. These catalogues were, of course, the ABC of his subject to Mr Williams: but as his museum already contained an enormous accumulation of topographical pictures, he was a regular, rather than a copious, buyer; and he rather looked to Mr Britnell to fill up gaps in the rank and file of his collection than to supply him with rarities.   Now, in February of last year there appeared upon Mr Williams’s desk at the museum a catalogue from Mr Britnell’s emporium, and accompanying it was a typewritten communication from the dealer himself. This latter ran as follows:   Dear Sir,   We beg to call your attention to No. 978 in our accompanying catalogue, which we shall be glad to send on approval.   Yours faithfully,   W. Britnell.   To turn to No. 978 in the accompanying catalogue was with Mr. Williams (as he observed to himself) the work of a moment, and in the place indicated he found the following entry:   978.— Unknown. Interesting mezzotint: View of a manor-house, early part of the century. 15 by 10 inches; black frame. £2 2s.   It was not specially exciting, and the price seemed high. However, as Mr Britnell, who knew his business and his customer, seemed to set store by it, Mr Williams wrote a postcard asking for the article to be sent on approval, along with some other engravings and sketches which appeared in the same catalogue. And so he passed without much excitement of anticipation to the ordinary labours of the day.   A parcel of any kind always arrives a day later than you expect it, and that of Mr Britnell proved, as I believe the right phrase goes, no exception to the rule. It was delivered at the museum by the afternoon post of Saturday, after Mr Williams had left his work, and it was accordingly brought round to his rooms in college by the attendant, in order that he might not have to wait over Sunday before looking through it and returning such of the contents as he did not propose to keep. And here he found it when he came in to tea, with a friend.   The only item with which I am concerned was the rather large, black-framed mezzotint of which I have already quoted the short description given in Mr Britnell’s catalogue. Some more details of it will have to be given, though I cannot hope to put before you the look of the picture as clearly as it is present to my own eye. Very nearly the exact duplicate of it may be seen in a good many old inn parlours, or in the passages of undisturbed country mansions at the present moment. It was a rather indifferent mezzotint, and an indifferent mezzotint is, perhaps, the worst form of engraving known. It presented a full-face view of a not very large manor-house of the last century, with three rows of plain sashed windows with rusticated masonry about them, a parapet with balls or vases at the angles, and a small portico in the centre. On either side were trees, and in front a considerable expanse of lawn. The legend A. W. F. sculpsit was engraved on the narrow margin; and there was no further inscription. The whole thing gave the impression that it was the work of an amateur. What in the world Mr Britnell could mean by affixing the price of £2 2s. to such an object was more than Mr Williams could imagine. He turned it over with a good deal of contempt; upon the back was a paper label, the left-hand half of which had been torn off. All that remained were the ends of two lines of writing; the first had the letters — ngley Hall ; the second,— ssex .   It would, perhaps, be just worth while to identify the place represented, which he could easily do with the help of a gazetteer, and then he would send it back to Mr Britnell, with some remarks reflecting upon the judgement of that gentleman.   He lighted the candles, for it was now dark, made the tea, and supplied the friend with whom he had been playing golf (for I believe the authorities of the University I write of indulge in that pursuit by way of relaxation); and tea was taken to the accompaniment of a discussion which golfing persons can imagine for themselves, but which the conscientious writer has no right to inflict upon any non-golfing persons.   The conclusion arrived at was that certain strokes might have been better, and that in certain emergencies neither player had experienced that amount of luck which a human being has a right to expect. It was now that the friend — let us call him Professor Binks — took up the framed engraving and said:   ‘What’s this place, Williams?’   ‘Just what I am going to try to find out,’ said Williams, going to the shelf for a gazetteer. ‘Look at the back. Somethingley Hall, either in Sussex or Essex. Half the name’s gone, you see. You don’t happen to know it, I suppose?’   ‘It’s from that man Britnell, I suppose, isn’t it?’ said Binks. ‘Is it for the museum?’   ‘Well, I think I should buy it if the price was five shillings,’ said Williams; ‘but for some unearthly reason he wants two guineas for it. I can’t conceive why. It’s a wretched engraving, and there aren’t even any figures to give it life.’   ‘It’s not worth two guineas, I should think,’ said Binks; ‘but I don’t think it’s so badly done. The moonlight seems rather good to me; and I should have thought there were figures, or at least a figure, just on the edge in front.’   ‘Let’s look,’ said Williams. ‘Well, it’s true the light is rather cleverly given. Where’s your figure? Oh, yes! Just the head, in the very front of the picture.’   And indeed there was — hardly more than a black blot on the extreme edge of the engraving — the head of a man or woman, a good deal muffled up, the back turned to the spectator, and looking towards the house.   Williams had not noticed it before.   ‘Still,’ he said, ‘though it’s a cleverer thing than I thought, I can’t spend two guineas of museum money on a picture of a place I don’t know.’   Professor Binks had his work to do, and soon went; and very nearly up to Hall time Williams was engaged in a vain attempt to identify the subject of his picture. ‘If the vowel before the ng had only been left, it would have been easy enough,’ he thought; ‘but as it is, the name may be anything from Guestingley to Langley, and there are many more names ending like this than I thought; and this rotten book has no index of terminations.’   Hall in Mr Williams’s college was at seven. It need not be dwelt upon; the less so as he met there colleagues who had been playing golf during the afternoon, and words with which we have no concern were freely bandied across the table — merely golfing words, I would hasten to explain.   I suppose an hour or more to have been spent in what is called common-room after dinner. Later in the evening some few retired to Williams’s rooms, and I have little doubt that whist was played and tobacco smoked. During a lull in these operations Williams picked up the mezzotint from the table without looking at it, and handed it to a person mildly interested in art, telling him where it had come from, and the other particulars which we already know.   The gentleman took it carelessly, looked at it, then said, in a tone of some interest:   ‘It’s really a very good piece of work, Williams; it has quite a feeling of the romantic period. The light is admirably managed, it seems to me, and the figure, though it’s rather too grotesque, is somehow very impressive.’   ‘Yes, isn’t it?’ said Williams, who was just then busy giving whisky and soda to others of the company, and was unable to come across the room to look at the view again.   It was by this time rather late in the evening, and the visitors were on the move. After they went Williams was obliged to write a letter or two and clear up some odd bits of work. At last, some time past midnight, he was disposed to turn in, and he put out his lamp after lighting his bedroom candle. The picture lay face upwards on the table where the last man who looked at it had put it, and it caught his eye as he turned the lamp down. What he saw made him very nearly drop the candle on the floor, and he declares now if he had been left in the dark at that moment he would have had a fit. But, as that did not happen, he was able to put down the light on the table and take a good look at the picture. It was indubitable — rankly impossible, no doubt, but absolutely certain. In the middle of the lawn in front of the unknown house there was a figure where no figure had been at five o’clock that afternoon. It was crawling on all fours towards the house, and it was muffled in a strange black garment with a white cross on the back.   I do not know what is the ideal course to pursue in a situation of this kind, I can only tell you what Mr Williams did. He took the picture by one corner and carried it across the passage to a second set of rooms which he possessed. There he locked it up in a drawer, sported the doors of both sets of rooms, and retired to bed; but first he wrote out and signed an account of the extraordinary change which the picture had undergone since it had come into his possession.   Sleep visited him rather late; but it was consoling to reflect that the behaviour of the picture did not depend upon his own unsupported testimony. Evidently the man who had looked at it the night before had seen something of the same kind as he had, otherwise he might have been tempted to think that something gravely wrong was happening either to his eyes or his mind. This possibility being fortunately precluded, two matters awaited him on the morrow. He must take stock of the picture very carefully, and call in a witness for the purpose, and he must make a determined effort to ascertain what house it was that was represented. He would therefore ask his neighbour Nisbet to breakfast with him, and he would subsequently spend a morning over the gazetteer.   Nisbet was disengaged, and arrived about 9.20. His host was not quite dressed, I am sorry to say, even at this late hour. During breakfast nothing was said about the mezzotint by Williams, save that he had a picture on which he wished for Nisbet’s opinion. But those who are familiar with University life can picture for themselves the wide and delightful range of subjects over which the conversation of two Fellows of Canterbury College is likely to extend during a Sunday morning breakfast. Hardly a topic was left unchallenged, from golf to lawn-tennis. Yet I am bound to say that Williams was rather distraught; for his interest naturally centred in that very strange picture which was now reposing, face downwards, in the drawer in the room opposite.   The morning pipe was at last lighted, and the moment had arrived for which he looked. With very considerable — almost tremulous — excitement he ran across, unlocked the drawer, and, extracting the picture — still face downwards — ran back, and put it into Nisbet’s hands.   ‘Now,’ he said, ‘Nisbet, I want you to tell me exactly what you see in that picture. Describe it, if you don’t mind, rather minutely. I’ll tell you why afterwards.’   ‘Well,’ said Nisbet, ‘I have here a view of a country-house — English, I presume — by moonlight.’   ‘Moonlight? You’re sure of that?’   ‘Certainly. The moon appears to be on the wane, if you wish for details, and there are clouds in the sky.’   ‘All right. Go on. I’ll swear,’ added Williams in an aside, ‘there was no moon when I saw it first.’   ‘Well, there’s not much more to be said,’ Nisbet continued. ‘The house has one — two — three rows of windows, five in each row, except at the bottom, where there’s a porch instead of the middle one, and —’   ‘But what about figures?’ said Williams, with marked interest.   ‘There aren’t any,’ said Nisbet; ‘but —’   ‘What! No figure on the grass in front?’   ‘Not a thing.’   ‘You’ll swear to that?’   ‘Certainly I will. But there’s just one other thing.’   ‘What?’   ‘Why, one of the windows on the ground-floor — left of the door — is open.’   ‘Is it really so? My goodness! he must have got in,’ said Williams, with great excitement; and he hurried to the back of the sofa on which Nisbet was sitting, and, catching the picture from him, verified the matter for himself.   It was quite true. There was no figure, and there was the open window. Williams, after a moment of speechless surprise, went to the writing-table and scribbled for a short time. Then he brought two papers to Nisbet, and asked him first to sign one — it was his own description of the picture, which you have just heard — and then to read the other which was Williams’s statement written the night before.   ‘What can it all mean?’ said Nisbet.   ‘Exactly,’ said Williams. ‘Well, one thing I must do — or three things, now I think of it. I must find out from Garwood’— this was his last night’s visitor —‘what he saw, and then I must get the thing photographed before it goes further, and then I must find out what the place is.’   ‘I can do the photographing myself,’ said Nisbet, ‘and I will. But, you know, it looks very much as if we were assisting at the working out of a tragedy somewhere. The question is, has it happened already, or is it going to come off? You must find out what the place is. Yes,’ he said, looking at the picture again, ‘I expect you’re right: he has got in. And if I don’t mistake, there’ll be the devil to pay in one of the rooms upstairs.’   ‘I’ll tell you what,’ said Williams: ‘I’ll take the picture across to old Green’ (this was the senior Fellow of the College, who had been Bursar for many years). ‘It’s quite likely he’ll know it. We have property in Essex and Sussex, and he must have been over the two counties a lot in his time.’   ‘Quite likely he will,’ said Nisbet; ‘but just let me take my photograph first. But look here, I rather think Green isn’t up today. He wasn’t in Hall last night, and I think I heard him say he was going down for the Sunday.’   ‘That’s true, too,’ said Williams; ‘I know he’s gone to Brighton. Well, if you’ll photograph it now, I’ll go across to Garwood and get his statement, and you keep an eye on it while I’m gone. I’m beginning to think two guineas is not a very exorbitant price for it now.’   In a short time he had returned, and brought Mr Garwood with him. Garwood’s statement was to the effect that the figure, when he had seen it, was clear of the edge of the picture, but had not got far across the lawn. He remembered a white mark on the back of its drapery, but could not have been sure it was a cross. A document to this effect was then drawn up and signed, and Nisbet proceeded to photograph the picture.   ‘Now what do you mean to do?’ he said. ‘Are you going to sit and watch it all day?’   ‘Well, no, I think not,’ said Williams. ‘I rather imagine we’re meant to see the whole thing. You see, between the time I saw it last night and this morning there was time for lots of things to happen, but the creature only got into the house. It could easily have got through its business in the time and gone to its own place again; but the fact of the window being open, I think, must mean that it’s in there now. So I feel quite easy about leaving it. And besides, I have a kind of idea that it wouldn’t change much, if at all, in the daytime. We might go out for a walk this afternoon, and come in to tea, or whenever it gets dark. I shall leave it out on the table here, and sport the door. My skip can get in, but no one else.’   The three agreed that this would be a good plan; and, further, that if they spent the afternoon together they would be less likely to talk about the business to other people; for any rumour of such a transaction as was going on would bring the whole of the Phasmatological Society about their ears.   We may give them a respite until five o’clock.   At or near that hour the three were entering Williams’s staircase. They were at first slightly annoyed to see that the door of his rooms was unsported; but in a moment it was remembered that on Sunday the skips came for orders an hour or so earlier than on weekdays. However, a surprise was awaiting them. The first thing they saw was the picture leaning up against a pile of books on the table, as it had been left, and the next thing was Williams’s skip, seated on a chair opposite, gazing at it with undisguised horror. How was this? Mr Filcher (the name is not my own invention) was a servant of considerable standing, and set the standard of etiquette to all his own college and to several neighbouring ones, and nothing could be more alien to his practice than to be found sitting on his master’s chair, or appearing to take any particular notice of his master’s furniture or pictures. Indeed, he seemed to feel this himself. He started violently when the three men were in the room, and got up with a marked effort. Then he said:   ‘I ask your pardon, sir, for taking such a freedom as to set down.’   ‘Not at all, Robert,’ interposed Mr Williams. ‘I was meaning to ask you some time what you thought of that picture.’   ‘Well, sir, of course I don’t set up my opinion against yours, but it ain’t the pictur I should ‘ang where my little girl could see it, sir.’   ‘Wouldn’t you, Robert? Why not?’   ‘No, sir. Why, the pore child, I recollect once she see a Door Bible, with pictures not ‘alf what that is, and we ‘ad to set up with her three or four nights afterwards, if you’ll believe me; and if she was to ketch a sight of this skelinton here, or whatever it is, carrying off the pore baby, she would be in a taking. You know ‘ow it is with children; ‘ow nervish they git with a little thing and all. But what I should say, it don’t seem a right pictur to be laying about, sir, not where anyone that’s liable to be startled could come on it. Should you be wanting anything this evening, sir? Thank you, sir.’   With these words the excellent man went to continue the round of his masters, and you may be sure the gentlemen whom he left lost no time in gathering round the engraving. There was the house, as before under the waning moon and the drifting clouds. The window that had been open was shut, and the figure was once more on the lawn: but not this time crawling cautiously on hands and knees. Now it was erect and stepping swiftly, with long strides, towards the front of the picture. The moon was behind it, and the black drapery hung down over its face so that only hints of that could be seen, and what was visible made the spectators profoundly thankful that they could see no more than a white dome-like forehead and a few straggling hairs. The head was bent down, and the arms were tightly clasped over an object which could be dimly seen and identified as a child, whether dead or living it was not possible to say. The legs of the appearance alone could be plainly discerned, and they were horribly thin.   From five to seven the three companions sat and watched the picture by turns. But it never changed. They agreed at last that it would be safe to leave it, and that they would return after Hall and await further developments.   When they assembled again, at the earliest possible moment, the engraving was there, but the figure was gone, and the house was quiet under the moonbeams. There was nothing for it but to spend the evening over gazetteers and guide-books. Williams was the lucky one at last, and perhaps he deserved it. At 11.30 p.m. he read from Murray’s Guide to Essex the following lines:   16–1/2 miles, Anningley . The church has been an interesting building of Norman date, but was extensively classicized in the last century. It contains the tomb of the family of Francis, whose mansion, Anningley Hall, a solid Queen Anne house, stands immediately beyond the churchyard in a park of about 80 acres. The family is now extinct, the last heir having disappeared mysteriously in infancy in the year 1802. The father, Mr Arthur Francis, was locally known as a talented amateur engraver in mezzotint. After his son’s disappearance he lived in complete retirement at the Hall, and was found dead in his studio on the third anniversary of the disaster, having just completed an engraving of the house, impressions of which are of considerable rarity.   This looked like business, and, indeed, Mr Green on his return at once identified the house as Anningley Hall.   ‘Is there any kind of explanation of the figure, Green?’ was the question which Williams naturally asked.   ‘I don’t know, I’m sure, Williams. What used to be said in the place when I first knew it, which was before I came up here, was just this: old Francis was always very much down on these poaching fellows, and whenever he got a chance he used to get a man whom he suspected of it turned off the estate, and by degrees he got rid of them all but one. Squires could do a lot of things then that they daren’t think of now. Well, this man that was left was what you find pretty often in that country — the last remains of a very old family. I believe they were Lords of the Manor at one time. I recollect just the same thing in my own parish.’   ‘What, like the man in Tess o’ the Durbervilles ?’ Williams put in.   ‘Yes, I dare say; it’s not a book I could ever read myself. But this fellow could show a row of tombs in the church there that belonged to his ancestors, and all that went to sour him a bit; but Francis, they said, could never get at him — he always kept just on the right side of the law — until one night the keepers found him at it in a wood right at the end of the estate. I could show you the place now; it marches with some land that used to belong to an uncle of mine. And you can imagine there was a row; and this man Gawdy (that was the name, to be sure — Gawdy; I thought I should get it — Gawdy), he was unlucky enough, poor chap! to shoot a keeper. Well, that was what Francis wanted, and grand juries — you know what they would have been then — and poor Gawdy was strung up in double-quick time; and I’ve been shown the place he was buried in, on the north side of the church — you know the way in that part of the world: anyone that’s been hanged or made away with themselves, they bury them that side. And the idea was that some friend of Gawdy’s — not a relation, because he had none, poor devil! he was the last of his line: kind of spes ultima gentis — must have planned to get hold of Francis’s boy and put an end to his line, too. I don’t know — it’s rather an out-of-the-way thing for an Essex poacher to think of — but, you know, I should say now it looks more as if old Gawdy had managed the job himself. Booh! I hate to think of it! have some whisky, Williams!’   The facts were communicated by Williams to Dennistoun, and by him to a mixed company, of which I was one, and the Sadducean Professor of Ophiology another. I am sorry to say that the latter when asked what he thought of it, only remarked: ‘Oh, those Bridgeford people will say anything’— a sentiment which met with the reception it deserved.   I have only to add that the picture is now in the Ashleian Museum; that it has been treated with a view to discovering whether sympathetic ink has been used in it, but without effect; that Mr Britnell knew nothing of it save that he was sure it was uncommon; and that, though carefully watched, it has never been known to change again.    

In episode 45 of Janey Godley’s Podcast the mother and daughter duo discuss the fortunes of Blackpool FC and her Ashley’s latest Ian Holloway quote. The ladies pour over the latest news issues regarding Ken Clarke and his ‘rape’ comments (due to unforeseen circumstances our segment on Ken Clarke has been removed) and Nadine Dorries who made horrific comments regarding child sex abuse.   The story of the Dennistoun shootings at the Glasgow fair of 1990 with Wild Bill Hickok from Susie Sioux/Yvonne get an airing and Ashley does a Wayne Rooney! The couple talk about Janey’s funeral and what music will be played and Janey talks of her night in the emergency room.   You can check out all our videos on YouTube.   Order “Handstands in the Dark” Paper Back or in EBook   Please rate us or leave a comment on PodOmatic, ITunes or Facebook   You can find all the info regarding Janey’s live shows by just clicking Gigs!   If you would like to support our podcast then please do so by clicking onto Our Donate Page and donate via PayPal.