This week the People's Palace at Glasgow Green will close for a refit. I wanted to go and take a last look around and document some of it.
Hopefully when it reopens at some point I can do the same to show a before and after.
I had an event photo job coming up and I had to get a specific lens to use for that. It was unfamiliar to me so I wanted to spend a bit of time testing it out before the paying job to make sure I was familiar with how it handled. so I needed a subject to test it out on. Had the weather been nice maybe I’d have found myself elsewhere. But the weather has been atrocious so I went to indoor places.
This isn't a museum that I've visited very much over the years and it seems different to how I remembered it from my last visit. Back then the winter gardens were still open and accessible. They closed because of problems with the glass house. It needs major repairs and was threatened with closure for a long time. Theankfully funding has been secured and it is set to be saved. You can see that the museum building is in need of some maintenance but it’s not broken.
The People's Palace was purpose built as a museum for the East End and really tells the social history of Glasgow. From the Tobacco Merchants to the Suffragettes and the Socialists. From the Tenements to the High Rises and from Wally dugs to the Nintendo Gameboy. Incidentaly they filmed ‘Tetris the Movie’ in Glasgow.
The exhibits do need updating as there are some pages from the social history missing.
There's no mention of the 2014 Commonwealth Games or the Indyref or of those tall flats being pulled down. There's a whole load of other big things that left a lasting effect on the city that need to be added to the story.
Obviously Tenements and the Steamie have left a lasting cultural impact on the city of Glasgow. When I was taking this photo I had some visitors come over to me and tell me that they remember helping out their mothers at the Steamie.
The Steamie was a communal wash house for those of you unfamiliar with the term.
There are little places and scenes that are recreated in here. There’s a wartime dairy shop. Upstairs there are photographs from the Partick Camera club taken about a hundred years ago. Some of these photos show recognisable places today. Many don’t.
There's a section that talks about "The Dancin" and it shows clothing that folk would wear to go out to the dancehalls along with a video presentation of what it'd be like.
I'd like to see an update that shows the discos of the 70s & 80s and the clubs of the 90s and 2000s.
Why aren't the Arches & the Subclub in there alongside the Barrowlands? (or Bonkers, Archaos & Clatty Pat's? - if you know you know. And if you don't, you don't want to. Trust me!)
They're just as important but for a different generation.
“Are ye dancin?”
“Naw it’s jus the way ahm stauning”
That was the catchphrase of Francie & Josie. The comic creations of Jack Milroy & Rikki Fulton. The latter went onto huge fame on his TV comedy shows at Hogmanay and his Bafta award is displayed here.
There are some subtle funny little touches in there too which most visitors probably won't notice. The Gulls at the Doon the Watter seaside recreation for one.
I hope the refit retains that sense of fun.
And of course what will happen to the crown jewels of the People's Palace?
I'm talking of course about Billy Connolly's Big Banana Boots.
I filmed everything as well as taking photographs. I feel under pressure to make video these days. At least if I have the files then I can always make something out of them in future even if I don’t use them right now.