Gay News Issue 115 March, 1977: Extract from Gay Britain. The ninth of our reports on Gay Life in Great Britain: Glasgow. Report: Keith Howes, Photographs: Bob Workman.

Gay News Issue 115 March, 1977: Gay Britain. The ninth of our reports on Gay Life in Great Britain: Glassgow. Report: Keith Howes, Photographs: Bob Workman.

“Glasgow’s much nicer than Edinburgh. Too many English in Edinburgh. “
Hugh Bowman, Librarian
I've lived here for seven years and hated it for four. Glaswegians are friendly on the surface. If you ask directions they 'll probably take you to where you want to go and say ‘There you go, Jimmy! ‘~ And they ‘ll invite you round for coffee but forget to give you their address. They‘re very suspicious. Then suddenly it all clicks— the wry sense of humour, the hardness—and I love it here.
English gay woman journalist
“I don ‘t ‘belong to Glasgow’ I live here through necessity.”
Joyce, Vending company van driver
"Glasgow ‘s a big dirty industrial city but it ‘s an -enjoyable place. There's too much emphasis on the bad side.”
George Cherrie, Student
"It's a very raw city . Basic and a bit dreich (dull). But I went to live in England and came back. Glasgow's got a friendliness along with the roughness."
Bob, Solicitor
“Glasgow’s very democratic. They don‘t put it on here. It feels a lot like Dublin, my home.”
Malcolm Crowe, Maths lecturer
line
Glasgow used to be a quiet fishing village on the River Clyde its name means ‘dear green p1ace’ and its original inhabitants were probably descended from the Scoti tribe and/orthe Picti. later on, the Glaswegian stock was thickened by infusions of Celt, Norse, Spanish (during the Armada) and, in Victorian tunes, the Irish. Today, there is a sizeable Indian, Pakistani and Chinese population as well. By 1889, Glasgow was one of the most prosperous industrial cities in Great Britain as well as “the most drink—sodden” and “one of the most overcrowded in Europe.”

Its fortunes have declined in this century but it is still Scotland’s largest city and main industrial centre (although, to
the irritation of its citizenry, not the capital) and nearly half of the countrys population live in Glasgow and its surrounding areas. Not surprisingly, the crime rate tends to be much higher than for other Scottish cities and, although it has quietened down considerably, Glasgow is still seen—inside and outside Scotland—as something of a one-eyed, shaggy monster, violent, excessive and reckless. Edinburghers and Glaswegians still enjoy (?) the time honoured inter-city rivalry, and the former say that Glasgow’s prime asset is the fast train service to Edinburgh.
Glaswegians, themselves, retaliate by pointing out the many beauty spots which were a product of the Victorian boom, along with the scars: the fifty-eight parks, the botanical gardens the richest art collection outside London, the theatres, the golf-courses. And there’s the natural scenery: the Trossachs to the north, Loch Lomond to the west, the Ayrshire coast to the east and Baloch and Rue to the south. And the landscaped motorways. And—the climate is much milder than Edinburgh’s!

Upon arrival
John Betjeman calls Glasgow the finest Victorian city in Great Britain and it does have a magnificently grimy impact as you step out of the great domed central station. The friendliness will probably hit you immediately: from ticket collectors, shop assistants and waitresses. Probably if you asked them where the gay scene was they’d
probably take you by the hand and show you. But, being cautious by nature, I’d recommend that you consult the Yellow Pages and, although they list the old number, let the post office direct YOU to the Glasgow branch of the Scottish Minorities Group who will tell you about the pubs and the discos—at least the ones they run. You may also get the group’s address from the (many) public libraries, the Samaritans or the Daily Record. Gay News is mainly available through a couple of the gay pubs.

The pubs
There are two very good gay pubs. The Duke of Wellington in Argyle Street is all red flock and Victorian booths and The Vintners in Clyde Street is all Beardsley prints and mirrors and Seventies’ chic. The former is nearly always packed to the doors—often with the more conservative gays as well as students—and the latter is more popular with the young trendies and one gay sniffed: “It’s like a hairdressers’ convention in there. There's also the Waterloo Bar, a couple of doors away from the Duke, and this tends to be for the overflow. It’s very noisy and a bit rough. “Exciting, though,” I was told.
Although an hour’s extra drinking time has been granted to the Scots since last year—stopping the mad rush to drink as much as possible before ten which was, say observers, “real animal stuff”—pubs still don’t open on Sundays and Sunday gay drinking is mostly done (without the encouragement of the management) at Beacon’s Hotel in Park Circus Place—the Downstairs Bar and, when that gets packed, the Gun Room. The Beacon’s is only gay on Sunday and a word of warning about the Strand Bar in Hope Street from one of the people in Glasgow Gay Advisory Service (GGAS): “it’s rough and some of the people there are rent.”

Discos
Glasgow is disco mad. SMG had been organising discos in some of Glasgow's many corporation halls and also in hotel suites for the past four years. The Duke of Wellington and the Vintners also have occasional discos and recently the Western Hotel has introduced strong competition with the first licensed Sunday gay discos - the Shadows Sunday Disco Club which offers free membership and opens from 7 o’clock until midnight. The Western also tries to encourage gays to have their 21st birthday parties there on Friday and Saturday nights. Another recent entry on the scene is The Sunday Club which is run by an ex-member of SMG.
Unlike Edinburgh, Glasgow is very well off for disco accommodation but, in general, the discos thend to be quite small-scale although, on April 5th, SMG is hiring Tiffanay’s ballroom in Glasgow, which accommodates 800-1000 people. Once the full effect of the licensing laws comes into effect during the summer, SMG hopes to get a licensed Sunday disco.

Glasgow SMG
When Peter Cowan went along to a Scottish Minorities Group meeting in 1969 he discovered “a funny wee club, not worth bothering about” in two rooms and a kitchen in a back street with seven members. He returned several years later to find a hefty group of gays meeting in the Iona Community House and involing itself actively in gay rights as well as organising discos and holding weekly meeting.
Today, Glasgow SMG is still suffering from from the bad image— "a closeted picking-up place"—of the early years, as well as a surfeit of discos which meant that meetings and campaigning tended to fall by the way-side. Now the group is taking a long, hard look at itself: is it too middle class? should its committee members be completely out? does it• ignore gay minorities? This heart- searching is necessary at a time when Glasgow SMG is just about to move into a permanent home in Sauchiehall Street which will accommodate the GGAS as well as being an informal meeting place—"offering coffee and a chat, rather than tea and sympathy," as one member describes it. At the moment, all the talk pivots on "when the premises are ready" ; at the moment, the place—a former youth hostel office—-is in pandemonium, a mass of wood and stray wires. But, within two months, thanks to a £2000 government grant for renovation—and members' contributions — architectural, interior design, and electrical help, as well as money—the centre will provide something tangible and luxurious (fitted carpets, central heating) for Glasgow's gays, and an alternative, right in the centre of the city (Sauchiehall Street is Glasgow's Regent Street), to the pubs: a coffee lounge, with colour television and electronic amusements. And no discos!—it's a residential area.
For the time being, the group continues to meet at the Iona Community House in Clyde Street only a hundred yards away from the gay bars. The local bars around Sauchiehall Street can expect to find a subtle change in clientèle and atmosphere once the centre opens its doors from 7-9 every evening.

Women
Glasgow SMG has a women's group (which meets every 1st and 3rd Thursday) but Sandra Marshall, the Glasgow Gay Advisory Service's only woman, says that "the women don t really get down to things. We don't have the force of numbers. Also a lot of women have to rely on lifts to come to the very little we have to offer because Glasgow is so spread out." The general feeling towards women in Glasgow SMG tends to be grudging: "Why do they have to be so bleeding butch? " snorted one— formerly married—member. The women's social scene tends to centre around the Duke of Wellington although Sandy Ferguson, a cook, says "there's more social life in the suburbs. People are scared to come in at weekends."
There is a "very good" lesbian feminist group which meets at the Women s Centre in Miller Street which, says Sandra Marshall, "has more depth to it than 'the scene'."

Gaysoc
At the beginning of this year, all the Gaysocs in Glasgow amalgamated as the Glasgow Alliance of Gay Students (GAGS), because it was felt that the people in the smaller colleges were not being properly represented . One of GAGS 's immediate concerns is to set up a welfare group for lonely or disturbed gay students.

Information and counselling
The Glasgow Gay Advisory Service is quite separate from the Scottish Minorities Group although it now shares the same premises in Sauchiehall Street, and one of its drawbacks is that its name has become linked to SMG's, which in some gay quarters, is not very popular, and often information about commercial discos is not forthcoming. However, it has strong links with the Samaritans and the VD clinics at the Royal Infirmary and Western Infirmary.
Although GGAS is more like Gay Switchboard than its counterpart in Edinburgh (which is more closely linked with Friend), it is also a counselling agency and in the same evening may deal with the problems of a transvestite and someone who would like a photograph of his rugby club in the nude. There are about 15 volunteers at the moment (only one of them is a woman), and double that number are needed.

Violence
The statistics~ say that there were 38 murders or attempted murders in Glasgow in 1974—-compared with Edinburgh's 7 and one each in Aberdeen and Dundee. But, one must remember that the Strathclyde area is huge—2.4 million people—and there is a strong tradition of sectarian (Orange and Green) and sporting (Rangers v Celtic) strife (fired by booze) in the city. However, things have improved : in 1967 there were nearly double the amount of murders and the new licensing laws have helped to curb some of the wilder excesses. Stuart Nicolson has been selling Gay News in the Duke of Wellington and the nearby Waterloo for 4 years and he's only been threatened once and this pattern of non-interference was borne out by most of the people I spoke to. As for the police: "they turn a blind eye as long as you're not blatant" and Glasgow SMG's complaints about police harassment in two (minor) cases were answered by David McNee, the Chief Constable of Strathclyde. He said that the complaints had been investigated and that, in one of the cases.. the policemen had been reprimanded. He also stressed that the police force was there to protect the rights of all minority groups.
McNee's even handed attitude to gays and interest in community relations will be a source of some comfort to gays in London because he has just succeeded Sir Robert Mark as Metropolitan Police Commissioner.

Motor Sports Club (Scotland)
Quite a number of people I spoke to were members of the Scottish branch of the Motor Sports Club and most found it a welcome relief from the prevalent, in their view, campery of the Glasgow and Edinburgh scene~ "the high—pitched voices of the West of Scotland types," as one put it.
MSC members are to be found in both the Duke of Wellington and the Vintners on a Saturday night and would welcome new recruits. Hugh Bowman, one of their members, says that, contrary to popular belief—and somewhat disappointingly— ' 'we don't have orgies in Scotland. We have booze-ups instead. The Scots are a very repressed people."

The baths
Apparently, Glasgow has the highest number of Turkish baths per head of population but there are no specifically gay ones. However, the White Inch and Eastwood baths were recommended: it depends on who happens to be there at the time."
The cottaging scene is quite healthy or unhealthy, depending on how one views it, and the new bus station in Buchanan Street is said to be busy from sun-up to sundown.

Summing up
Glasgow is a very potent city and one in which I felt at home immediately. The people I met—gay and non-gay—were almost embarrassingly friendly and they are performing a terrific public relations service for what. must be one of the most maligned cities in Great Britain.
The city's gay scene appears to be very much on the upswing with its commercial and non commercial discos being held all over the city, a couple of really comfortable (before 9 o'clock at least) pubs and a gay centre which should attract all kinds of people and provide a further stimulus for Glasgow SMG and the city in general which superficially adopts a live and let live attitude towards gays, but when pushed tends to be rather parochial.
Which did I prefer—Edinburgh or Glasgow? As one gay man said: "we don't want to start another Edinburgh-Glasgow war, so any diplomacy in this matter would be much appreciated.