As this particular memory plays a very large part of my early memories of Gorbals Glasgow. I would just like to give some background supporting those by gone days.
From the mid to late 1800s in Czarist Russia, Jews were fleeing pogroms that incorporated being barred from partaking in many every day trades and professions, expulsion from their established residential areas and forced into already overcrowded cities. Many were forced to migrate and often America was the chosen destination although South Africa and Palestine were also popular countries to settle. Where America was the intended destination many who bought sailing tickets were duped and off boarded at the Broomielaw, adjacent to the Gorbals, so had to seek accommodation and work there. These newcomers would have had little money and no understanding of the English language. By 1900 the area had around 6000 such Jews sharing the local tenements mainly in Thistle Street, Crown st, Gorbals (Main) St, Rutherglen Rd, Adelphi and Hospital Street and others.
My parents owned a greengrocer shop at 88 Gorbals St, west side right at Gorbals Cross Clock. They opened 7 days a week from before 9 in the morning until around 7 30 at night. On Sunday they closed around 3 in the afternoon. Despite the early closing this was by far their busiest day as Sunday mornings in 1940s and ‘50s Gorbals was when most Jewish people did their weekly shopping at the butchers and whilst there, would also visit the local bakeries for bread and cakes etc. All Jewish people owned businesses that were open on Sundays as they too had their busiest day of the week, It follows, the pavements were busy with shoppers and people meeting others who they knew for by then second generation Jews who had received a good Scottish education had prospered and moved out to the suburbs of Shawlands, Giffnock and Newton Mearns and in time, as far as Whitecraigs for the really wealthy. Such customers were car owners and would make the regular Sunday morning drive to the Gorbals for their weekly needs but equally to meet up with old friends.
The area absolutely buzzed as Catholic and Jew went about their Sunday morning duties with the former packing into their Chapels and the latter attending to their weekly shop. The Catholics in all their Sunday best clothes and the Jews identified as being local or from the outskirts, by the clothes they were wearing.
In our shop, I wasn't allowed to serve the customers from the suburbs as they would be the big spenders and may qualify for the latest exotic fruits coming in from abroad as the end of the war became more distant and supplies of oranges, bananas and seedless grapes slowly appeared for the first time in nearly ten years.
Peaches and nectarines would have to wait a bit longer. Veg would be placed straight into the customer shopping bag but fruit and tomatoes would be placed in papers bags and if a carrier bag was asked for there as a charge of three old pence. In those days to spend a pound in a fruit shop you would have to fill a carrier bag. However, customers spending £1 or more would not be charged for a carrier bag.
Incidentally, only two varieties of potatoes were sold and they were Kerr's pinks and the dearer Golden Wonder. That was it except for during the summer months we had the famous earthy tasting Ayrshires - new potatoes. By the way the earliest ·sweet' tasting tomato was the small Scotch tomato about the size of today's cherry but hard as rocks and the larger variety with the green tinged skin at the top. They were years ahead in flavour like Ayrshires of other UK produce.
Finally, with the passing of time and as the Jewish population moved South, the remaining Irish population were joined by the incoming Asian migrants and suddenly our shop was selling different variety of red and green peppers, garlic etc.
The Corner Boys
Back in the 1930s parts of Glasgow were awash with violent gangs such as Tim Malloys, Tongs, Redskins and others. They continued their turf wars during and after the war until the 1950s. One of the main weapons brandished by these thugs was an improvised razor used with a view to leave a perpetual scar on the face of anyone they chose to attack. Young men with scarred faces, usually diagonally across one or both cheeks was a reasonably common sight in the appropriate areas of Glasgow where they frequented.
Where our shop was situated at Gorbals Cross we also had a group of such young men who would congregate on the corner. However, I do have to say that in all the time we had that shop we never once felt any threat and indeed when the odd gang member would come into the shop to buy a penny or two's worth of 'chipped fruit' they always showed great respect to my family. By the way chipped fruit was damaged fruit where we removed the damaged blemish and just outside the door of the shop there was a basket of such damaged apples, oranges, pears etc. on sale for a copper or two for each piece.
The damage would probably be damaged whilst unripe and in transit and in due course the damage would appear.
The rats
Being adjacent to the river Clyde together with insanitary and poor living conditions in many of the tenements, the Gorbals had a bad rat infestation problem. Being a food and provision business and with a pavement grill our shop was regularly visited by rats, usually confined to night visits. It followed that we had to take steps to stop the vermin from damaging and contaminating the fresh fruit and vegetable produce we had in stock. This meant that after closing the shop to customers we spent up to half an hour taking steps to cover all such items as best we could to stop them getting at the produce. We also prepared 2 or 3 rat cage traps which if successful ended up in a sink full of water and death of the rat by drowning.
But the main rat catcher was a mongrel terrier type dog called Ginger. Any rat he sniffed out had no chance. I recall on one occasion, Maurice Corse who had a kosher butcher business just 3 premises from ours, asked my brother Gerald if he could borrow Ginger over night to help him with his rat problem. Well, Ginger not only had a bumper night but next morning when Gerald went to collect Ginger, the butcher explained that when he opened up there were 5 dead rats laid out both in front of and behind the counter. A total kill of 10!
Ginger's downfall or indeed demise was his hatred of motorbikes. Whenever one passed he was out of the shop like a bat out of hell, chasing it. One day Ginger just disappeared. Whether he was stolen in view of his rat killing record or by chasing a motor bike, we never did find out.
Tobacco
Glasgow in the 18 and 1900s was one of the Country's major ports in addition to being the second city in terms of population. Only London had a larger population. Being one of the closest major ports to the east coast of America, exports of tobacco from Virginia made both Bristol and Glasgow major importers with factories producing vast amounts of cigarettes at a time when the health implications had not been thought about. Indeed in the 1940s and 50s in America adverts for cigarettes included Doctors openly recommending a particular brand as being good for you!
One of the factories in Glasgow was that of Stephan Mitchell, a subsidiary of the Imperial Tobacco Company. The general manager was an Austrian Jew called Jacob Kramrisch. It follows that many Jewish immigrants at the turn of the Century found work making cigarettes as did my great uncle who, arriving in the Gorbals around 1900 found lodgings where one of the daughter's got him a job in that factory where she was already working. Sometime later they became husband and wife.
Dixon Blazes
This was a massive steel works on the further South side of the city. Every night they had to clear out the massive furnaces. In the winter when it was dark at the time this would take place the whole sky would light up and was a regular sight viewed by thousands of Glaswegians on a regular basis. Probably changed the procedure during the war as such a beacon of light would be a direction finder for German bombers.
