Germiston Glasgow
Not much is known about Germiston Glasgow by those living away from Glasgow.
It gets passed by, by those travelling from west of Garngad to anywhere to the east of Blackhill. On the west to east route through Royston Road it would seem as a row of tenements to the left and old industry to the left. Travelling from the North through the blind tunnel towards Garngad, again it is just passed by.
It is a stumbling block for many of those attending to geneaology matters, and wishing to flesh out their family tree. It is neither the Garngad or Blackhill. It is surrounded by a no-mans land to the north and also the south: in the north an area once occupied by the Glasgow and Garnkirk, railway but now a single rail track, divides Germiston from Balornock and the Red Road flats, which will soon be no more. To the south there are the remains of Blochairn Quarry and Provanmill Gasworks.
Whilst requesting some maps of the area at the The Mitchell Library (The largest public reference library in Europe it would seem) the young lady assisting, stared blankly at me than enquired if I was referring to the small village in the North East of Glasgow.
At this point I was unsure if, in her Milngavie (old gaelic for snooty upstart: PRON. MULGUY) or perhaps Byres Road accent, she was taking the proverbial. Perhaps she had never been further East than Charing Cross, (except maybe to Queen Street Station to catch a train through for the Edinburgh Fringe Festival) and genuinely thought Glasgow's East End consisted of a smattering of sleepy villages and dreamy hamlets. For those of you unfamiliar with the East End of Glasgow, it does indeed consist of a smattering of village-like areas, but it is ill-mannered to refer to them as such. It is proper and correct to refer to these areas by the old Gaelic name of
'schemes' which is pronounced in the same way as the identically spelt English word schemes. Another similarity the 'scheme' has to the village is the notion of the Village Idiot. The village idiot is a real entity. Every village has one. Again in the East End of Glasgow we must respect the Gaelic tradition and refer to the village idiot as a
'bam' or '
bampot' Now, Glaswegians, and indeed most Scots get a little peeved at the idea the English have of being superior to us in most areas of life. However it is in this area under current discussion where us Glaswegians have got one up on those to the South of Hadrian's Wall. Where each English Village only has ONE idiot, each of our Glaswegian schemes has a fair few bams. In fact some of the schemes are thought to be wholly inhabited by bams. So if there are any English reading this with notions of grandeur, we have another Old Gaelic saying in Glasgow, usually capitalised : GIRFUY, (pronunciation: gerritritefukenupye) the meaning when heard in guttural Glaswegian tones is fairly self-evident.
There are a number of theories as to why each Glasgow 'village' has had one up on the English in having more than its fair share of village idiots (GAELIC 'schemie bams') The main theory is that Glasgow Corporation of old was under the impression that the Schemie Bam was a product of the Gaelic speaking Teuchter tribe from the North and similarly Gaelic speaking Irish Tribe from an Island over the Irish sea, forced to descend on Glasgow looking for food, work and housing (the reasons why are complex, but probably have something to do with a band of rich Anglo/Scots landownery type people, who would sell their own Granny to make a fast buck).
Anyway, these people were housed in something called a '
tenement' (GAELIC for shite-hole, though modern 21st century gaelic roughly translates to overpriced-shite-hole-in-the-west-end). Many of these tribespeople were killed off when they were forced to fight on behalf of the English Aristocracy in two 20th century wars. The ones that were left tended to stick together, help each other and in general have what is known as a "strong sense of community" - in Gaelic there are many words for this concept, but the most over-used ones are
'Gorbals' and
'Toonheed'. This 'idiotic' behaviour was seen as dangerous. And as it was idiotic behaviout, it was naturally assumed that they were all idiots i.e. BAMS.
Having too many bams in one place could cause all sorts of unwanted solidarity and it was decided to split them up under the pretence of needing thier living-space to build a RINGROAD. (RINGROAD is GAELIC and roughly translates as
"very, very ,very ,very very long and costly project-spanning-two-centuries").
The BAMS were all split up - some manged to escape the indignity of having their homes and communities flattened by going to a place called North America (OLD GAELIC,
nordh amerigha which translates into the question "if your nostalgia and love for Glasgow is so fucking strong then why don't you come back?") The rest were shipped out to the new villages or schemes. This is a very important junture in the history of Glasgow. Due to this phenomena of trying to disperse the bams and break up their communitys, there was an undercurrent of thought that they were not bams at all, but just decent people in need of a fresh start. This fresh start inspired many of these scheme-dwellers to go forth and set up new communities. Two notable communities, again follow the tradition of being named in Gaelic: Bishopbriggs, which translates into "he who can survive on spiced-ham" and Stepps, which translates similarly into "he who can also survive on spiced-ham". Anyway, move ahead thirty or forty years to present day: many of the scheme-dwellers have moved on. The REAL bams of last century, who were content with keeping the working class divided by running with gangs, slashing each other and robbing, BUT at least looking after their own, have given way to the modern BAM, the ned, the schemie. The modern bam, has much in common with the Anglo/Scots landowners and aristocrats, who unsettled his ancestors, in that he too would sell his granny, but more likely for a
Buckfast rather than a fast buck.
Anyway, back to the wee lassie in the Mitchell library. She could be forgiven for thinking along the lines of Germiston being a little village though, as Germiston is quiite secluded, as well as being cut off to the north and south, the east and west also has definite boundaries, in the form of parks, football grounds, railway lines. I stand to be corrected on many of these geographical matters though as I have been away from the area for a long time.
I understand now that the quarry I played in as a child has been landscaped and forms part of an industrial estate. It would seem tenements to the North and Northside of Forge street have been demolished to make way for pretty little houses, perhaps more fitting to the 'village' scenario' of the posh librarian.
BTW if yer fae the West End, Milngavie or any of them places, I don't really think yir aw snooty - that wiz jist a wee stereotype fur effect. Efter aw its no' aw us eastenders that are short ae a few strands u DNA, but admittedly, aye, wur probly mer Glesga than Glasgow, and proudly so!
