Monday, 3 November 2008
A Walk Around Glasgow Necropolis
Amy Anderson takes a break from the busy Glasgow city centre life and heads for the City’s Necropolis.
Glasgow Necropolis is perched dramatically on the eastern edge of the city centre on a steep outcrop of ground near St. Mungo’s Cathedral. Now surrounded by urban modernity, the necropolis dates from the 6th century and it does have the feel of an ancient naturalised ruin, and somehow manages to ignore the thrum of the Tenants Lager factory that intrudes on to the moist quiet of the cemetery’s lower reaches.
The main parade of gravestones sit in rows on well kept lawns on the exposed top of the site. Walking up the slope it has an eerie, Wuthering Heights feel about it. And it really is a parade - no modest rounded heads of weathered slate or sandstone here. Instead, I go back in time to the heyday of Victorian egos. Several rows of huge polished granite shapes emerge on the horizon and vie for attention. Obelisks ten feet high, gravestones the size of church altars, stone spikes, truncated triangles, gothic shapes all bruise the steely Sunday sky, all shout in gold leaf letters of these dead men’s achievements in banking, manufacturing, ship building and religion.
An ambulance wails from somewhere down in the city but its siren seems distant and unimportant up here in this place full of ghosts and its urgent sound is absorbed by luminous lawns and rhododendron bushes. Fittingly perhaps, my mobile can’t find a signal here and I get the feeling the place wants me gone, so I walk down the steep roughened track towards the main entrance, past a host of other vaults and mausoleums, completing my circular walk and return to the land of the living.
Glasgow Necropolis is perched dramatically on the eastern edge of the city centre on a steep outcrop of ground near St. Mungo’s Cathedral. Now surrounded by urban modernity, the necropolis dates from the 6th century and it does have the feel of an ancient naturalised ruin, and somehow manages to ignore the thrum of the Tenants Lager factory that intrudes on to the moist quiet of the cemetery’s lower reaches.
The main parade of gravestones sit in rows on well kept lawns on the exposed top of the site. Walking up the slope it has an eerie, Wuthering Heights feel about it. And it really is a parade - no modest rounded heads of weathered slate or sandstone here. Instead, I go back in time to the heyday of Victorian egos. Several rows of huge polished granite shapes emerge on the horizon and vie for attention. Obelisks ten feet high, gravestones the size of church altars, stone spikes, truncated triangles, gothic shapes all bruise the steely Sunday sky, all shout in gold leaf letters of these dead men’s achievements in banking, manufacturing, ship building and religion.
An ambulance wails from somewhere down in the city but its siren seems distant and unimportant up here in this place full of ghosts and its urgent sound is absorbed by luminous lawns and rhododendron bushes. Fittingly perhaps, my mobile can’t find a signal here and I get the feeling the place wants me gone, so I walk down the steep roughened track towards the main entrance, past a host of other vaults and mausoleums, completing my circular walk and return to the land of the living.
BAE Govan Ship Building Success
A sense of confidence bounces off the expanse of tarmac at BVT Surface Fleet shipyard in Govan. HMS Dragon sails motionlessly on her berth as pin sized engineers install technology fit for a spaceship while news of the £4bn Royal Navy carrier contract sinks in. “It’s our golden egg,” beams Jamie Webster, the genial Trade Union Convener at the site, “and it will secure shipbuilding here until at least 2012, probably beyond.” The course of recent shipbuilding history at Govan is jagged with triumph and disaster; two near closures and 6 changes in management since 1965. Why then, has the Clydeside shipyard become such a Glasgow success story?
Jamie Webster, an intrinsic part of the Govan Yard was a young apprentice when the yard was sold it to the Norwegian shipbuilder, Kavaerner, in 1988. The process of privatisation was “cold and calculating” but, as Webster recalls, did the workforce a huge service by banning the practice of demarcation, and bringing in a multi skilling agreement to compel staff to work together more effectively. "They took us to a new level of excellence”.
As HMS Dragon, one of five T45 Royal Navy destroyers currently on order, awaits her completion, blocks of her sister ships lie in the warehouse like giant airfix pieces waiting to be glued together. At half past twelve on a Friday afternoon, the haunting boom of the shift siren signals the end of the working week. Men thread towards the front gate with holdalls slung over their shoulders, knowing their foreseeable future is secure. Managers are, however, ever mindful of the need to keep work on order beyond the Carrier project and this means exceeding expectations on current orders. “We want people to keep saying we’re brilliant,” smiles Webster serenely with the steely self-confidence of a consummate Govaner.
Jamie Webster, an intrinsic part of the Govan Yard was a young apprentice when the yard was sold it to the Norwegian shipbuilder, Kavaerner, in 1988. The process of privatisation was “cold and calculating” but, as Webster recalls, did the workforce a huge service by banning the practice of demarcation, and bringing in a multi skilling agreement to compel staff to work together more effectively. "They took us to a new level of excellence”.
As HMS Dragon, one of five T45 Royal Navy destroyers currently on order, awaits her completion, blocks of her sister ships lie in the warehouse like giant airfix pieces waiting to be glued together. At half past twelve on a Friday afternoon, the haunting boom of the shift siren signals the end of the working week. Men thread towards the front gate with holdalls slung over their shoulders, knowing their foreseeable future is secure. Managers are, however, ever mindful of the need to keep work on order beyond the Carrier project and this means exceeding expectations on current orders. “We want people to keep saying we’re brilliant,” smiles Webster serenely with the steely self-confidence of a consummate Govaner.
Back to Back to Leeds
In this article Amy Anderson visits Leeds to find out what life was like in back-to-back housing during the 1930s depression and assesses how things have changed.
Walking around central Leeds, a stranger would be struck by the obvious economic success of this great northern city, with its tall office blocks with tinted windows, colossal apartment complexes, and a steady flow of sports cars hurling themselves around the ring road. The water front to the south adds an impressive dimension to this confident City, transformed from it’s lonely dereliction to a warm-toned developments of luxury flats and lifestyle business units. There was little to tell me about Leeds before the war, before economic prosperity, the welfare state and modernity. Since 1945, generations of planners have recreated the City’s character and now Leeds is a odd mix of architecture styles, like it has never been satisfied with itself, always needed to move on, move forwards. Art deco buildings squash up against 1970s blocks, themselves backed onto Victorian edifices. The pleasing curves of the Town Hall and Corn Exchange soften the jagged angles of the high risers on the horizon.
Leeds in the 1930s
Leeds was luckier than some of the other North England towns during the 1930s depression. It’s economy was relatively diverse and was home to industries in general engineering, furniture production, and clothing, food, cigarette, screw and chemical manufacturing.
Leeds didn’t escape the downturn of course and unemployment in the city doubled between 1929 and 1931. One of the main casualties of the depression was the Leeds Waterfront. Falling demand and the growth of investment in road transport led the Leeds Liverpool Ship Canal that was once a thriving and noisy port and waterway in the heart of the City became quiet, derelict and abandoned.
Working conditions in factories had improved by the 1930s thanks to employment reform and a more politically organised labour movement. The average working day was still long, cramped and noisy and exploitation from employers was still a common experience. Advancing technology enabled mass production techniques to be used but had the effect of lowering the overall skill levels of factory jobs, which became particularly vulnerable during the economic crisis.
Walking around central Leeds, a stranger would be struck by the obvious economic success of this great northern city, with its tall office blocks with tinted windows, colossal apartment complexes, and a steady flow of sports cars hurling themselves around the ring road. The water front to the south adds an impressive dimension to this confident City, transformed from it’s lonely dereliction to a warm-toned developments of luxury flats and lifestyle business units. There was little to tell me about Leeds before the war, before economic prosperity, the welfare state and modernity. Since 1945, generations of planners have recreated the City’s character and now Leeds is a odd mix of architecture styles, like it has never been satisfied with itself, always needed to move on, move forwards. Art deco buildings squash up against 1970s blocks, themselves backed onto Victorian edifices. The pleasing curves of the Town Hall and Corn Exchange soften the jagged angles of the high risers on the horizon.
Leeds in the 1930s
Leeds was luckier than some of the other North England towns during the 1930s depression. It’s economy was relatively diverse and was home to industries in general engineering, furniture production, and clothing, food, cigarette, screw and chemical manufacturing.
Leeds didn’t escape the downturn of course and unemployment in the city doubled between 1929 and 1931. One of the main casualties of the depression was the Leeds Waterfront. Falling demand and the growth of investment in road transport led the Leeds Liverpool Ship Canal that was once a thriving and noisy port and waterway in the heart of the City became quiet, derelict and abandoned.
Working conditions in factories had improved by the 1930s thanks to employment reform and a more politically organised labour movement. The average working day was still long, cramped and noisy and exploitation from employers was still a common experience. Advancing technology enabled mass production techniques to be used but had the effect of lowering the overall skill levels of factory jobs, which became particularly vulnerable during the economic crisis.
Sunday, 24 August 2008
Poetry To Services - May 2007
The Weston Auditorium at the University of Hertfordshire campus in Hatfield showcased the laconic but articulate poetry foursome Aisle 16 on May 17th 2007 on their ‘services to poetry’. Conceived in the back of an Escort in 2006 and inspired by John Betjemen’s Trebethernick they asked ‘can there poetry at the English motorway service station?’ The hour long gig presented their metered tongue-in-cheek results from 3 days of travelling up and down our motorways, “two chevrons apart” A husky home spun video of motorway monotony led us in to the performance that was somehow sad and mesmerising for its familiarity, lines, lanes, signs and symbols. The paradox of service stations as centres of humanity yet as soulless, replicable, where users find and forget and the rip off burger culture was tasted in “the salt of the cost” was both whimsically and poignantly drawn and fitting for an anthology on the synthetic texture of service stations, where history and human attachments are elusive and where jaded modernity rules.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)