His feeling for the city is displayed in the dedication that is at the beginning of his fourth book, Vet in Harness. It reads simply, ‘With love to my mother in dear old Glasgow Town’.
He was not alone in his great affection for this charismatic city. Many Glaswegians reminisce about their origins with great pride, despite the city having, over the years, developed something of an unenviable reputation. Between the wars, many of the big cities of Britain had a poor image but Glasgow’s was the worst of all. Later on, Alf used to observe, with ill-concealed anger, television programmes portraying it as a sordid mass of filthy slums inhabited by gangs that would slit your throat first and ask questions later. ‘No one bothers to speak of Glasgow’s finer qualities,’ he would exclaim. ‘There is no mention of the warm and friendly people, nor of the splendid buildings, parks and art galleries. And what about the wonderful country all around that can be reached so easily?’
Glasgow used to be described as a ‘dirty picture in a beautiful frame’. Many parts, admittedly, were not particularly edifying but where else in Britain was there a massive city with such magnificent scenery so close at hand? The residents of Glasgow are fortunate indeed to have such a beautiful playground on their doorstep and this was not lost on the young Alfred Wight. When he was older, he would escape the bustle and grime of the city whenever he could to head out for the hills and glens that were so accessible. Those happy hours he spent in Glasgow’s ‘beautiful frame’ were to instil in him that great appreciation of the wild and unspoilt landscapes about which he would write with such feeling so many years later.
One of the most dominant features of the architecture of Glasgow are the tenements. These gaunt, multi-storey buildings stand over the city streets like giant sentinels and have been the epitome of Glasgow’s appearance since well into the last century when huge numbers of immigrants flooded into the city to find work. Glasgow, known at that time as ‘The Second City of the Empire’, was a booming city, and the tenements provided the answer to the housing problem; they were, in effect, one of the earliest examples in Britain of the high-rise blocks of flats.
Yoker is a suburb of Glasgow, on the east bank of the River Clyde, and it was here, in a ground-floor flat of a tenement in Yoker Road (later re-named Dumbarton Road), that the Wight family had their first of three homes in the city.
The tenement buildings of Glasgow have a terrible reputation of being the embodiment of all that is to do with poverty and squalor. In fact, they varied widely in their degrees of respectability. The black tenements of the Gorbals, on the other side of the River Clyde, were undeniably some of the most depressing buildings imaginable, both outside and in. There was a central passageway, the ‘close’, through which access was gained to the dingy flats on either side – with dark, forbidding stairways snaking up to the higher levels of the building. These tenements were often damp, dirty and appallingly overcrowded. Many families in the slum areas of Glasgow, like the Gorbals or Cowcaddens on the other side of the city, lived squashed together in one or two rooms. Toilet provision was rudimentary, with up to twenty or thirty people sharing one privy which, commonly, was not even within the building. Poverty and disease were rife. Many children developed rickets through malnutrition and I can remember a young woman who worked for my grandmother, having the bowed legs that betrayed a childhood of deprivation and hardship. No wonder the people living in these awful conditions would often turn to violence and drink to seek some escape from their squalid existence.
However, other tenements, such as the one in which Alf was to spend his earliest years, were in a different category altogether. Although not very prepossessing from the outside, they were perfectly respectable within. To walk inside one was often a revelation. The uninspiring, sometimes grim exterior belied a pleasant, roomy interior with high, sculptured ceilings in the living-rooms and ample space everywhere.
The ground-floor flat in which Alf spent the earliest years of his life, although not exactly the finest example of the Glasgow tenement flat, was perfectly sound and respectable, so much so that the entrance to his home was known as a ‘wally close’. These were quite special in that, having tiled walls, one was considered to be a few rungs up the ladder of affluence living ‘up’ one of these. Each flat consisted of three or four rooms – a large living-room with an adjoining kitchen and one, sometimes two, bedrooms and a bathroom and lavatory. There were recesses set into the sides of the living-room across which curtains could be drawn, thus providing extra sleeping accommodation.
Milk and coal were both delivered by horse and cart. The milk was left in a jug outside the door, and the coalman would clatter into the house to dump the coal into a bunker situated in a corner of the kitchen. The coal was used for heating and, in many flats, it was also the means of fuelling the cooking ranges that were the dominant feature of the tenement kitchens. As well as cooking and heating the home, these imposing black steel fireplaces provided all the hot water the family needed. Alf’s first tenement home may not have been a palace but it was comfortable and adequate.
One of the myths that has grown up around Alf Wight and his success is that of his dragging himself up from the ‘grinding poverty’ of his youth. The fact is that his Glasgow days were exceptionally happy – with the cold finger of hardship rarely felt by young ‘Alfie’ Wight. The Yoker area of Glasgow – a respectable, working-class part of the city – was one in which many Glaswegians aspired to live. There was certainly heavy industry, shipyards and steelworks – and there were parts of Yoker where faint hearts would fear to tread, especially on Friday and Saturday nights – but much of it was inhabited by solid citizens who were well above the poverty line.
Only a few minutes’ walk from Alf’s home would take him out into green fields and farmland, backed by the Kilpatrick Hills and the Campsie Fells in the distance – a very different picture from the Yoker of today. The stage upon which Alfie Wight played out the happy hours of his childhood has been replaced by a scene of neglect, dominated by drab buildings and wasteland. Boarded-up shops are a testimony to the crime that, as in most other big cities, seems to be a constant threat. As he played on the streets and in the nearby fields with his friends, young Alf without doubt enjoyed Yoker’s better times.
His parents were dedicated workers who ensured that the family was always well catered for. Pop held down a good job as a ship plater in the big Yarrow’s shipyard which was close to the family home, and he supplemented his earnings by playing the piano in the local cinemas. He was the leader of an orchestra which provided the sound tracks for silent films as well as music for the intervals between the shows.
Pop took great pride in his musical ability. In the evenings, when most of his workmates were having a drink in the bars of Yoker, Pop would be found seated in front of the beloved grand piano he had brought with him from Sunderland. He would practise happily for hours. I can clearly recall my grandfather seated in front of his cherished piano, eyes closed and with a look of sheer pleasure on his face as his hands danced over the keys. He had lost the forefinger of his right hand when he was a young man but this did not seem to hinder his ability. He used to compose his own music and, in his later years, accompanied a group known as the ‘Glenafton Singers’ who performed at many concerts in Glasgow. Pop was a truly gifted musician whose enthusiasm spread to his son ensuring that he, too, would discover that the love of music was one of life’s greatest joys.