I go a wandering

As I noted in my previous post, after exiting the Necropolis on my first full day in Glasgow I went in search of the St Mungo and St Teneu murals, but beyond that didn’t have any particular plan. I thought I would just take a wander through the old town streets and make my way towards the River Clyde, see what I would see. I saw a modern angular building with lots of glass that looked quite striking in the late afternoon sun (the Inovo building). And, one of a plethora of such things, an old church tower also stood out. A temporary partition wall had some wheatpaste posters on it—I always find these a bit interesting in farflung places as they provide some background color, speaking to local events and culture.

Harry

Walking west along Wilson Street I stopped, arrested by the distinct presence of the glowing white Hutchesons’ Hall building up at the end of Hutcheson Street. In the process of taking a few snaps of this a friendly voice intoned “I always want to take a picture of that if I had a good enough camera!” Taking the viewfinder away from my eye, a strong young man with close cropped blond hair and a mischievous grin introduced himself as Harry. He allowed as he was something of a stranger to Glasgow himself, having only moved to the city two months ago from Orkney. We traded some friendly banter, and he happily posed in the middle of the street with the Hutchesons’ Hall building behind him when I asked if I could take his picture. The immense “Keeper of Light” mural was visible off to the side, and he asked another passerby how long it would have taken to paint it, his guess being a year. Both I and the passerby demurred, but it was a friendly disagreement. Exchanging email addresses Harry and I parted, and I promised to send him a file of his portrait (which I later did).

Duke of Wellington Statue

Making my way over to Ingram street I was struck by the lowering golden light reflecting off a large glass office building before me on my right. At the end of the block was the classical portico of the Gallery of Modern Art. It was a Friday night, and many young people and fashionably dressed folks were milling about for a night out on the town. Before the gallery was a prominent black metal statue of a military man on a horse, the requisite orange traffic cones emplaced atop both his and the horses heads (this apparently originated as a late night student prank in the 1980s, and is now an entrenched cultural tradition). I found a nice angle on what I’ve since learned is the Duke of Wellington statue, offset against the curving glass wall of the office building.

Buchanan Street

Onwards from the Duke of Wellington I made my way over to Buchanan Street. This is a major open air pedestrian street running down towards the River Clyde, fronted by fashionable shops on both sides along its length. This Friday night it was the scene of a major open air rolling party, throngs of young people and tourists surging up and down its length. Many of the young folks were clearly dressed up for a night out on the town. I saw a staggering few for whom the party was already well in progress. Open air DJs collected knots of people around them with amplified throbbing house beats. I found it all a bit overwhelming, and just surrendered myself up to the energy, being swept along with the flow of the crowd down towards the river.

I paused for a moment across the street from the facade of the Princess Square Shopping Centre, which was adorned with elaborate Art Nouveau ironwork workings of leafy vines, topped by a dramatic peacock themed iron crown.

Near the bottom of Buchanan Street the crowd had thinned out some, and I turned to look back up it and just catch my breath for a minute. As I framed a shot up the street a couple of bicyclists approached me. One, a widely grinning black man with an orange cone floppy hat atop his head, wove towards and past me, a glinting spark of the wild spirit of this place.

Frank

Crossing Argyle Street I entered the plaza containing the entrances to the St Enoch subway station. Throngs of youths were milling about. Off to the side I spied a middle aged man seated on a bollard block wearing a long black puffy jacket and homburg hat playing a soprano saxophone. I gestured at my camera, and he nodded back allowing me to take some portraits of him playing. Pausing his playing he asked what my name was, and I answered “Ward, as it turns out.” “Oh, my names ‘Frank as it turns out’!” We shared a chuckle over that, as we must then be related.

He told me he also was a tourist, having the habit of picking one foreign city a year six times a year and just spending a month there. He then motioned to me to sit, and began crooning a smoky song of his about lost love, a theme he allowed anyone should be able to relate to. He suggested I should twirl around and dance while he sang this, which I thought was odd, and didn’t take him up on it (although I did sit and take a few more portraits).

He told me he had had a wonderful conversation with a beautiful woman the other day who’d expressed interest in singing with him on the street, but that when she’d seen what he characterized as an innocuous post about the encounter on his blog had responded to him angrily over what she perceived as an invasion of her privacy. He shook his head ruefully over this.

The youths had now arrayed themselves on both sides of the plaza next to us, and were hurling large plastic bottles of water at each other and yelling and shouting. He fumbled for his phone, but it was out of juice. “You should dial 111” he implored (for the police), “this isn’t good, someone’s going to end up getting their face cut.” I pulled out my phone, but then hesitated, not seeing the exact need to be involved in what still looked to be a largely harmless bit of boisterous interaction.

Peevishly Frank noted that “I was here first!” Then abruptly he blurted “Oh, I’m going to change your life!,” and he proceeded to tell me about an authentic Scottish pub with live music he had discovered the night before (the Scotia Pub), and that I should go there, that he would be there later tonight.

I was getting a little turned off by his low key attempts to control me: telling me I should sit down, that I should do a twirling dance, that I should call the police, that I should meet him later at some random pub. I’ll confess he had cast a bit of a charismatic spell on me, but now consciously breaking that I bid Frank farewell and continued on towards the river.

I did finally look Frank up this morning, and found his post for September 11. I’m amused to see that he described me as looking like an old hippie, as I would have thought my orange and black Revolution Race pants, forest green vest, buzz cut hair and thick rimmed glasses would more suggest scruffy hipster, but busted I guess?!

Sunset, The River Clyde

Finally I made my way down to the esplanade on the River Clyde. The sun had just set, and a dingy orange glow emanated from behind the industrial ironwork of the Glasgow Bridge. Still, it was a moment of calm and reflection for me, thinking back over my explorations of the day. Wandering back up towards Argyle Street I casually saluted Frank (still playing), and was surprised to see two gleaming perfect classic American cars convoying past, one bright red, the other a vibrant pink.

I made my way all the way back up Buchanan in the gloaming, then followed a few throngs of young people out and about on Sauchiehall Street, before finally peeling off to the Cowcaddens Station and boarded the subway back to my West End neighborhood.