More photos commissioned by the homeless charity, Shelter. This time they show life in the slums of the Scottish city of Glasgow, in relatively modern times. Once again, it is the total lack of hope in the faces of the people that affected me so much. They break my heart, and make me ashamed to be British.
This small boy is tough, and that can be seen in his face and his attitude. He is playing in the streets, unsupervised. 1969.
The view from a tenement window, 1970. Although this is a colour photograph, the surroundings are so drab, it appears to have been photoshopped.
A family living in one room, 1971.
A young mother and her baby living in awful conditions, 1971.
This young couple seem to have given up. 1970.
Another family in one room, 1971.
Tenement living in the Gorbals district, 1970.
This young schoolgirl appears to be in total despair. 1971.
Children playing in abandoned tenements, 1971.
This child was waiting for his parents to come home from work, 1971.
Two sisters share the only chair in their tenement flat. 1971.
This glum-looking family living in one room, 1971.
Unsupervised small children playing while their parents were at work, 1971.
What worries me most about these photos is that if our current right-wing government has its way, we will be seeing many similar images during 2023.
“Let them eat cake”.
beetleypete 
You do find some interesting sets of images, Pete.
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I like to spend time looking at collections on Pinterest. The more recent photos that look much older strike a chord with me.
Best wishes, Pete.
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Ah, OK
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Hi friend! I am quite behind . I read your posts and always look forward to them, but can barely leave a comment. These photos humble me, anger me and break my heart-all at once. x Michele
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It’s always a delight to see you here, dear Michele.
Best wishes, Pete. x
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Very touching photos, Pete! Don’t rant about your government, because here in Germany we will get such former situations much earlier. Here only one percent of the citizens have an own property for living. This is reflected in the surveys for a new property tax. According to this, 63 million declarations must be submitted. This includes agricultural and commercial property on land. But Germany has 83 million inhabitants. ;-/ xx Michael
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Reblogged this on NEW BLOG HERE >> https:/BOOKS.ESLARN-NET.DE.
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Hi Pete, very touching pictures. When I visited Birmingham in 2018, we toured the back-to-backs which was very enlightening and interesting. Liz Truss seems to be trying to very hard to improve the economic outlook for the UK. https://theconversation.com/liz-truss-faces-a-financial-whirlwind-will-her-plans-for-the-economy-work-189900. Her policies seem to be crashing the Pound and are not being well received in economic circles.
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Liz Truss is only trying to improve the economic situation for the big corporations, bankers, foreign investors, and rich people in Britain. Don’t be fooled by anything she says in an interview or a speech, Robbie.
Best wishes, Pete.
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Thanks, Pete, I can’t say she would have been my choice as PM. Or either of the last two you’ve had either.
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(1) “I”m so tough, I’m going to be an Expendable when I grow up. Wait till Stallone and Statham see what I can do!”
(2) The Tenement, starring Oliwia Dabrowska. (Known for wearing a red coat in Schindler’s List)
(3) “Our guest cottage is a shipping crate.”
(4) “Mommy, why is the photographer hanging upside-down from the ceiling?”
(5) “Please stop saying, ‘C’est la vie.’ And keep your imaginary bowl of cherries to yourself!”
(6) “Go ahead and pick your nose. It ain’t classy, but we don’t care.”
(7) Tenement II, starring Marley Shelton. (Known for wearing a red dress in Sin City)
(8) “I’m going to sneeze. I know it. Wait for it. Wait for it…”
(9) “Hey, come over here! The queen’s carriage is passing by!”
(10) “I don’t need to grow two feet to reach the keyhole. I just need a really tall stool.”
(11) “I’m done with Twister. Can we play another game?”
(12) “We’re not glamorous. We’re Glum Я Us.”
(13) “Okay, here’s the plan. When the vampire down there opens the coffin lid, we take off running like a bat out of hell.”
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(13) was fun. I wouldn’t have expected that! 🙂
Best wishes, Pete.
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And yet some Brits live in luxury and are called “royals” which is truly barbaric to me how these are THEIR people/serfs.
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Exactly. That’s one of the many reasons I am not a Royalist, Lara.
Best wishes, Pete. x
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These photos are very sad.
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They certainly are, Molly.
Best wishes, Pete.
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Very interesting photos Pete. 1969-1971 was at the tail end of six years of Wilson’s Labour government I do believe. 😉
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Oh it was you, Keith. I replied lower down, under the ‘Anonymous’ comment.
I hope all is well mate.
Pete. x
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Very interesting photos Pete. 1969-1971 was at the tail end of six years of Wilson’s Labour government I do believe.
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Sorry, you have come up as Anonymous. Wilson was indeed PM from 1964-1970, and from 1974-1976. He didn’t do much for living conditions in the Gorbals, it would seem.
Best wishes, Pete.
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One of my arguments against their God is that if he is so good, why would he want to create people just so they can suffer? I was in Catholic schools but I never could accept the religion.
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I never accepted any religion,. Carolyn. When I was 13, I told my RE teacher at secondary school that it was, ‘a legend created by people scared of death’. He left me alone after that, but I passed the ‘O’ level when I was 16.
Best wishes, Pete.
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You are right. It’s heart-wrenching to see children with dead eyes and it’s hard to believe this could happen in our society. I never understand why people have children in such circumstances but then maybe they cannot even afford birth-control. Here, of course, the Republicans want to take away a woman’s right to birth control. But you always have to have poor folk that can be sent to fight wars and do the dirty work (although here those jobs go to the immigrants they are so keen to keep out). I am very cynical and very disgusted…like you I think.
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Yes, we do share opinions, Carolyn. Birth control was free of charge here by then, but many people in Scotland are Catholics.
Best wishes, Pete.
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Oh gosh, Pete. What sadness
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Hard to believe this was happening when I was enjoying such a comfortable life 400 miles away in London.
Best wishes, Pete.
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I agree that these images do reflect the highest aspirations of a right wing government to keep their poorer people as poor as they can keep them and I wish Americans were more aware that these photographs depict their own condition if they cater too closely to our own right wing here at home.
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Exactly right, John.
Best wishes, Pete.
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These are heartbreaking. I remember my dad talking about the same grinding poverty and horrendous living conditions in Vermont in the 1960s and 1970s–but the state kept it well-hidden so as not to offend the tourists.
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Tourists to Scotland would never have visited those terrible housing estates in Glasgow either, Liz.
Best wishes, Pete.
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Poverty is truly an ugly side of humanity….sad so sad chuq
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Some parts of Britain were simply ‘overlooked’, chuq. People left to their own devices, living in terrible conditions.
Best wishes, Pete.
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The pictures are showing an awful situation. We also went out and played more or less unsupervised from school age. Before that my mother insisted that we stay in sight range of the flat, which we not always did, she couldn’t look all the time, could she? There was still a lot of damage after the war, and we played in places we shouldn’t have played and never told our parents, but we had enough food to go around and clean clothes.
I was in Glasgow in 1974 and somehow ended up walking in an area where lots of men of all ages were just standing around, no jobs, and the houses were one story shelters with stamped earth as floor (I could look inside through an open door), and a water well outside. I was totally shocked that dwellings like this still existed at that time in Europe.
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Thanks for adding your own memories and experiences, Stella.
Best wishes, Pete.
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had to be tough to survive
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You certainly did, Beth.
Best wishes, Pete.
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Very sad pictures, Pete. After the elections in Italy, it is worrying to think about what might happen and spread around. Take care.
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Hard to believe that Italy has chosen to go back to the extreme politics of the 1930s. Do they never learn anything from the past? Obviously not.
Best wishes, Pete.
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The hope & optimism brought about by Attlee’s government after the war was totally squandered. Cheers, Jon.
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You got that right, Jon. Then Thatcher ruined everything.
Best wishes, Pete.
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Maybe some of the kids had been told to pose? Young kids don’t know any different and adapt to their surroundings. I grew up in a tough/poor district too, but didn’t know it at the time.
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I’m sure that Shelter’s photographers did ask the subjects to pose, but I doubt they could have made up those expressions on their faces. I was living quite a good life when these were taken, so seeing them now makes me realise just how desperate some people were.
Best wishes, Pete.
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Yes, the parents of these children were probably as desperate as you could get, but kids went out to play as kids do. I played in bomb shelters, demolition sites and condemned houses and had a whale of a time. It’s only when I grew up and moved out of London that I realised what awful surroundings I’d been brought up in. It hits you when you see the leafy lanes and green fields of Suffolk.
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Stevie, I know what you mean – if it’s what you know, it just is. In those days, all children played unsupervised – I grew up in the 1960s and we used to go out after breakfast and didn’t return until lunch time when I was really quite young.
On the other hand, nobody should have to live in those appalling conditions. There are so many ways of looking at this, though alas such poverty exists all over the world and always has. What we really need is to go back to year 0 and have a do-over. Come on, God, do your stuff!
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It as the same for me in the 1950s, Terry. Playing out with my mates until I had to go home for dinner. But we didn’t live in such awful conditions, even though I was brought up in a very poor district of London.
Best wishes, Pete.
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Indeed. I played outside all day in the 1960s too. We were lucky I think, even though we didn’t have much.
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You can go to Glasgow for a laugh & come home in stitches. You can see why! One cop for every 320 Scottish – one cop for every 420 English – one for every 500 Kiwis.
There are parts of Glasgy that has culture & many entertainers I’ve worked with rate the town as having an amazing arts & entertainment vibe.
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My only (two) visits to Glasgow were for work, in the early 1970s. I felt uncomfortable there, and found a lot of aggression directed at Londoners like me. I was happy to get out of the city, to be honest.
Best wishes, Pete.
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