POVERTY!

Lost Glasgow group
John Mc Quillan · ·

I just really remember the Glasgow I grew up in. The supposed hardships we went through never seemed like that to us. It was our home and our environment. We never knew we were poor because there were poorer people than us. 

I remember a little boy with dark red hair and a pale face and his coat buttoned up to the neck and he invited me to his house.

I stepped in and it was one room and not a stick of furniture.

And his mother was lying on the floor ill and her face was as pale as her son's. 

She had a blanket on her and she raised her head and smiled at me and welcomed me. Now there was real poverty. 

We lived in a slum but we had a recess bed. Of course we never had a toilet or a bathroom etc and there was 5 of us but my dad had a job. 

I realised how lucky we were when I saw how that mother and her child lived. This would be about 1949 and I was 10 years old.