Glasgow Transport Museum
As noted in Part 139 of this blog, I’m a big fan of Dali and always like to view St John on the Cross in the Kelvingrove Art Gallery in Glasgow whenever I can. I managed to fit in another visit, before heading over to the Transport Museum. This is one of these not so hidden gems, and if visiting Scotland and making it over to Glasgow, I can thoroughly recommend a visit.
Alongside the dozens of cars on display covering the history of automobiles, there is a steam powered traction engine which is one of my favourite exhibits, a couple of steam locomotives, a fire engine, buses and trams. You can climb aboard and look into a number of the exhibits, including a carriage from the old subway. There is a penny farthing on display. This is a form of bicycle that has a seat perched on top of one large wheel, with a small, guide wheel at the back. I’m not surprised these didn’t become widespread. The scale of it is quite daunting.
Upstairs the exhibition continues with sailing boats, with a large number of models of various craft. Moored on the Clyde at the back of the museum is a fully restored sailing ship called the Glenlee which you can visit.
An interesting feature is the cobbled street, complete with numerous shops that were typical from the nineteenth century. The street also has a funeral carriage with full-size replicas of black horses, which makes for a striking moment on first seeing it.
Further on there is a row of shops from the nineteen sixties. My favourite is the record shop and you can go in and browse the vinyl. It really makes you feel you have stepped back in time.
The shops on display are quite striking in the sense that this is from a time when you visited individual stores in order to obtain goods or services. It illustrates what the pre-digital age looked like. In a news article on BBC Scotland this week, it notes there are now 72 tourist gift shops in Edinburgh’s Royal Mile, all selling similar items. The issue for local residents is that shops such as hairdressers, butchers, grocers etc, the type of shops they would find useful, have long since gone. Clearly the debate is complicated, given the jobs and money that comes in via tourism, but as with all things there is a balance to be struck. The situation in Edinburgh is an extreme case, given the vast numbers of tourists, but looking at what has happened more generally, the shops on display in the transport museum provide a look into a world that has largely disappeared. During the 1980’s to mid-1990’s, Glasgow had around 130 record shops. These were more than just places to buy music; they were social hubs for culture and creativity, places to meet like-minded folk, and catch up with new and emerging sounds and trends. You didn’t always go to buy but went to hang-out. Today I can think of only two shops in the city-centre that sell records. For me, this progress hasn’t been for the best.
The Fiction Factory 