The little train to Glasgow was nearly empty and the countryside lushly scenic. We went through Aviemore, Pitlochry, Perth and on to Gleneagles, with a pretty station, now sadly boarded. And then at last, some eight hours after rising from my bed that morning, we were in Glasgow. It seemed odd after so many long hours of travelling to step from Queen Street Station and find myself still in Scotland.
At least it wasn't a shock to the system. I remember when I first came to Glasgow in 1973 stepping from this very station and being profoundly stunned at how suffocatingly dark and sootblackened the city was. I had never seen a place so choked and grubby. Everything in it seemed black and cheerless. Even the local accent seemed born of clinkers and grit. St Mungo's Cathedral was so dark that even from across the road it looked like a twodimensional cutout. And there were no tourists none at all. Glasgow may be the largest city in Scotland, but my Let's Go guide to Europe didn't even mention it.
In the subsequent years Glasgow has, of course, gone through a glittering and celebrated transformation. Scores of old buildings in the city centre have been sandblasted and lovingly buffed, so that their granite surfaces gleam anew, and dozens more were vigorously erected in the heady boom years of the 1980s more than .l billion of new offices in the previous decade alone. The city acquired one of the finest museums in the world in the Burrell Collection and one of the most intelligent pieces of urban renewal in the Princes Square shopping centre. Suddenly the world began cautiously to come to Glasgow and thereupon discovered to its delight that this was a city densely endowed with splendid museums, lively pubs, worldclass orchestras, and no fewer than seventy parks, more than any other city of its size in Europe. In 1990 Glasgow was named European City of Culture, and noone laughed. Never before had a city's reputation undergone a more Dramatic and sudden transformation and none, as far as I am concerned, deserves it more.
Among the city's many treasures, none shines brighter, in my view than the Burrell Collection. After checking into my hotel, I hastened there now by taxi, for it is a long way out.
'D'ye nae a lang roon?' said the driver as we sped along a motorway towards Pollok Park by way of Clydebank and Oban.
Tm sorry,' I said for I don't speak Glaswegian.
'D'ye dack ma fanny?'
I hate it when this happens when a person from Glasgow speaks to me. Tm so sorry,' I said and floundered for an excuse. 'My ears are very bad.'
'Aye, ye nae hae doon a lang roon,' he said, which I gathered meant Tm going to take you a very long way around and look at you a lot with these menacing eyes of mine so that you'll begin to wonder if perhaps I'm taking you to a disused warehouse where friends of mine are waiting to beat you up and take your money,' but he said nothing further and delivered me at the Burrell without incident.
How I like the Burrell Collection. It is named for Sir William Burrell, a Scottish shipowner, who in 1944 left the city his art collection on the understanding that it be placed in a country setting within the city boundaries. He was worried not unreasonably about air pollution damaging his artworks. Unable to decide what to do with this sumptuous windfall, the city council did, astonishingly, nothing. For the next thirtynine years, some truly exceptional works of art lay crated away in warehouses, all but forgotten. Finally in the late 1970s, after nearly four decades of • dithering, the city engaged a gifted architect named Barry Gasson, who designed a trim and restrained building noted for its airy rooms set against a woodland backdrop and for the ingenious way architectural features from BurrelPs Collection medieval doorways and lintels and the like were incorporated into the fabric of the building. It opened in 1983 to widespread acclaim. Burrell was not an especially rich man, but goodness me he could select. The gallery contains only 8,000 items but they come from all over from Mesopotamia, Egypt, Greece and Rome and nearly every one of them (with the exception of some glazed porcelain "gurines of flower girls, which he must have picked up during afever) is stunning. I spent a long, happy afternoon wandering through the many rooms, pretending, as I sometimes do in these circumstances, that I had been invited to take any one object home with me as a gift from the Scottish people in recognition of my fineness as a person. In the end, after much agonizing, I settled on a Head of Persephone from fifthcenturyBC Sicily, which was not only as stunningly flawless as if it had been made yesterday, but would have looked just perfect on top of the TV. And thus late in the afternoon, I emerged from the Burrell and into the leafy agreeability of Pollok Park in a happy frame of mind.
It was a mild day, so I decided to walk back to town even though I had no map and only the vaguest idea of where the distant centre of Glasgow lay. I don't know if Glasgow is truly a wonderful city for walking or whether I have just been lucky there, but I have never wandered through it without encountering some memorable surprise the green allure of Kelvingrove Park, the Botanic Gardens, the fabulous Necropolis cemetery with its ranks of ornate tombs and so it was now. I set off hopefully down a broad avenue called St Andrews Drive and found myself adrift in a handsome district of houses of substance and privilege with a comely park with a little lake. At length I passed the Scotland Street Public School, a wonderful building with airy stairwells that I presumed was one of Mackintosh's, and soon after found myself in a seamier but no less interesting district, which I eventually concluded must be the Gorbals. And then I got lost.
I could see the Clyde from time to time, but I couldn't figure out how to get to it or, more crucially, over it. I wandered along a series of back lanes and soon found myself in one of those dead districts that consist of windowless warehouses and garage doors that say NO PARKING GARAGE IN CONSTANT USE. I took a series of turns that seemed to lead ever further away from society before finally bumbling into a short street that had a pub on the corner. Fancying a drink and a sitdown, I wandered inside. It was a dark place, and battered, and there were only two other customers, a pair of larcenouslooking men sitting side by side at the bar drinking in silence. There was noone behind the bar. I took a stance at the far end of the counter and waited for a bit, but noone came. I drummed my fingers on the counter and puffed my cheeks and made assorted puckery shapes with my lips the way you do when you are waiting. (And just why do we do that, do you suppose? It isn't even privately entertaining in the extremely lowlevel way that, say, peeling a blister or cleaning your fingernails with a thumbnail is.) I cleaned my nails with a thumbnail and puffed my cheeks some more, but still noone came. Eventually I noticed one of the men at the bar eyeing me.
'Hae ya nae hook ma dooky?' he said.
'I'm sorry?' I replied.
'He'll nay be doon a mooning.' He hoiked his head in the direction of a back room.
'Oh, ah,' I said and nodded sagely, as if that explained it.
I noticed that they were both still looking at me.
'D'ye hae a hoo and a poo?' said the first man to me.
'I'm sorry?' I said.
'D'ye hae a hoo and a poo?' he repeated. It appeared that he was a trifle intoxicated.
I gave a small, apologetic smile and explained that I came from the Englishspeaking world.
'D'ye nae hae in May?' the man went on. 'If ye dinna dock ma donny.'
'Doon in Troon they croon in June,' said his mate, then added: 'Wi' a spoon.'
'Oh, ah.' I nodded thoughtfully again, pushing my lower lip out slightly, as if it was all very nearly clear to me now. Just then, to my small relief, the barman appeared, looking unhappy and wiping his hands on a tea towel.