JEFF TORRINGTON
Singing: No, No, Yuppie,
Yuppie - NO!
IN EARLY JANUARY, 1968, when the country was being run by a Gannex raincoat
which any political pawnbroker would have rejected as being urgently in
need of Socialist re-proofing, a hurricane, code-named 'Low Q', struck Central
Scotland, causing a score of deaths, rendering hundreds homeless, and inflicting
severe structural damage. How many trees were lost on that wild night was
at the time of small public interest. But, such was not the case last October
when a similar hurricane blasted some blue chip counties in Southern England.
On that occasion arboreal destruction was of prime concern. The Observer
magazine, for example, in a review of 1987 reported that the English storm
"Felled 15 million tress and killed 19 people..."
That the focus of contemporary concern should be on material rather than
on human loss is in keeping with the pernicious yahoo values that pollute
these Ethicless Eighties. In the Filofaxical world of the City, trees represent
long-term investment, whereas ordinary humans (at present being reprogrammed
for drudgery in the Service Sector) belong, financially speaking, to quick
put-through expedience-capitalism.
This was not yet the case back in the Glasgow of the Sixties. On that bleak
January dawn which followed 'the night of the flying lums' Glasgow's Lord
Provost boldly declared that not a single workman would pass through his
own gates to tend to his storm damage until every household in the city
had been made watertight. This went down well with his wind-blitzed citizens,
although a malicious rumour circulated that the City Father's property had
been repaired that same night when a squad of Corporation tradesmen was
lowered onto his roof by helicopter.
During those debris-strewn days, Ross 'n' Mabon (not the comedy team once
so popular in the Old Queens, but the Scottish Secretary and Under Sec.
of State) were to be seen in Glasgow Streets talking to ordinary people
and, when Press-snappers were around, even shaking pensioners' hands and
patting children's damp heads. Also to be seen abroad were House Factors
and sun-tanned Property Owners who scurried around asking directions to
the whereabouts of their life-support systems. Once the damage to their
property had been assessed these Owners withdrew to such grey places as
Miami or the Solomon Islands from where it was possible to take a more objective
view of the catastrophe.
Meanwhile, Joe Public, his morale stiffened, his roof tarpaulined, quietly
went on emptying his morning rain-bucket, confident that the authorities
were doing all they could to promote his welfare. He could scarcely have
been chuffed though if he chanced upon the following letter which appeared
in a Glasgow newspaper at that post-storm time:
"Dear Editor,
Viewed from the flagpole at Queens Park, how picturesque - positively Parisian,
in fact - the city looks with its gaily chequered rooftops. What a pity
we shall, sooner or later, return to drab old slates..." It goes without
saying that if the Glasgow Bucketeers had got their hands on this whimsical
Francophile then the pole at Queens Park would have been burdened by something
more apposite than a flag.
Although Joe Public was not to know it then, this letter with its sheen
of smug self-interest, carried with it a presentiment of the rape of things
to come when, only a couple of decades later, he would find himself betrayed
by the Establishment of his grey and gallus city, find, too, that he was
no longer welcome at the heart of it. In those days to come, when trees
would outrank men, a tribe of mercenaries would occupy the centre of things,
bumptious bipeds the Media would call Yuppies, a species of money-lice which
would issue from the cracks in our fractured democracy.
But in his civic nest at George Square, Mother Kelly, that hatcher of media-speckled
eggs, could be forgiven for underestimating the destabilizing consequences
of the Administration's cow-towing and pandering to the Yuppies' avaricious
needs. Beneath his wing at that time was an imposing clutch of projects
that when hatched would earn him the reputation of having been the most
entrepreneurial Provost ever to have graced his office. These projects included
such sprightly chicks as the Burrell Collection, the GEAR Project, the Scottish
Exhibition and Conference Centre, Glasgow's New Image campaign with its
ludicrous logo about the city's claim - despite rotten back teeth and false
front ones - to be able to outsmirk everyone else. Yes, he was Mr. Happy
all right. But he was also a little puzzled. There was an odd egg in the
batch -nicotine brown in colour. What on earth would hatch from it? So entranced
had he become by this alien egg and its problematic contents that Mother
Kelly seemed not to notice that there were a lot of Mr. Unhappy's parading
before his Chambers' doors. Ironically, it seemed, he had been beguiled
by his own slogan. If Glasgow was really miles better at anything then it
must be at self-deception. For a start, what was miles better about the
housing conditions in the Inner City and on the Urban Rim? In some pockets
of squalor up to 35 per cent of the housing stock failed to meet the legal
minima. It was estimated last year that something like a billion pounds
would be required to effect repairs on up to 80,000 sub-standard homes throughout
the city. We were miles better at producing truly shocking unemployment
statistics too. Last year in the Anderston ward, for instance, 45 per cent
of those under 24 were without work. In July of that year in Woodlands the
total stood at 57.79 per cent.
Civic crowing about a new Glasgow which was rising powerfully from the debris
left by the collapse of the traditional chimney stack industries made a
mockery of the privations being endured by those in the peripheral schemes
like the Drum, Castlemilk and Easterhouse where those forerunners of social
collapse - apathy and resignation - were to be seen with growing frequency.
While the City Fathers were busy persuading themselves that 'the Bird that
never flew' was in fact a phoenix that would rise to signal the birth of
the Service Sector Renaissance, Mrs. Unhappy was on the lookout for something
more mundane, perhaps a joiner, plasterers, or plumber who would do something
to avert the collapse of her crumbling household. It would be of no comfort
to her at all that once she was under the auspices of the new Housing Agency
- Scottish Homes -she would be able to select her own landlord. This is
tantamount to being told that although they are still going to hang you
the choice of executioner is yours. It was surely obvious from the start
that the provision of executive flats in the Merchant City, the wholesale
conversion of derelict warehouses, factories and lofts into yup-market homes
would inaugurate obnoxious 'zones of exclusion' consequences, or, in street
parlance, 'no-dough-no-go' areas, Yuppiedoms in fact, ghettos for the greedy,
customised to cater for its inhabitants' taste for the good life. There
would be, of course, no official, declaration of such a divisive policy
but astronomical housing costs, and the inflated consumer goods prices would
in the long run prove more effective gates or watchdogs at keeping 'the
great unwashed' at bay. The working class citizen would be made to feel
intimidated in this world of wynds, mews and shopping malls. The Briggait
Market, for instance, with its toffee-nosed ambience is but a fore-runner
of the snob-shops to come. Up in Buchanan Street, which is to be the focal
point of the Glasgow Renaissance, the Princes Square development is knee-deep
in ambience. All very ornate, yes, a cathedral dedicated to consumerism,
imbued with the holy hush of money where the goods on offer are so pricey
even the cheapest of them should carry a government wealth warning.
By now, of course, the city council, the SDA and the GA (Glasgow Action,
a group of prominent business men) had got into their entrepreneurial stride.
With their hands on their wallets GA pledged itself to assist in the economical
and environmental regeneration of the city. It is well to remember, that
some business men tend to think that the real Glasgow extends no further
than Mother Kelly's well-scrubbed doorstep, i.e. Merchant City and Environs.
The tacky bits, those beyond the pale like the inner city dole-traps and
the ruination on the rim, well, these again in the street sense of the expression,
have been well and truly scrubbed.
It is no surprise that a group like GA, whose chief aim is a 'dynamic and
cosmopolitan city centre' should advocate a strategy of civic implosion,
i.e.
energy flowing from rim to core, a centripetal force, and the direct opposite,
in fact, to that centrifugal explosion triggered back in the Sixties by
those poliscidal maniacs who called themselves Planners. The trashing of
half the city in the name of 'slum clearance' was like the Dresden bombing
- an unforgiveable act of community overkill.
Is this to be remedied, then? Is St. Mungo, with open arms, now calling
his scattered children home? Yes, he is, but there are a few provisos: don't
bother to come unless you are equipped with a blankety-blank chequebook
and pen. Very expensive place to work, live and play in is Yuppieland. It's
this ambience stuff, of course - it has to be specially imported. Another
thing, don't bother to come if you are not young, adventurous, and willing
to display shirt-sleeved heroism at the frontiers of Finance, or to demonstrate
business courage above and beyond the call of lucre.
While, as befits an implosive strategy, the city's commercial core will
draw upon its indigenous skill-banks to power the needs of the Service Sector
Renaissance, it is acknowledged that there will have to be imported expertise.
Financial planners, corporate lawyers, accountants, computer software personnel,
etc. Such people will be in high demand as the city changes its economic
pattern from a branch-office enterprise to one that will be sufficiently
robust and expansive enough to attract and support corporate headquarters.
This huge operation would perhaps not create a jobs bonanza but it would
most certainly cause an upsurge in vacancies for domestics, hotel staff,
shop assistants, barmen, waitresses, security men, etc., though, as is the
trend nowadays, much of this employment would be on a part-time basis.
Ten or so years ago it was difficult to persuade tourists that Glasgow was
more than a grey launch-pad from which one took off to sample the delights
of the real Scotland. This attitude has changed dramatically as the city
has geared itself, both by an acceleration of hotel building and the creation
of places of interest within Glasgow itself, to the promotion of a major
tourist boom. The renovations and innovations taking place at present in
the Merchant City itself is spearheading this tourist operation. Already
in situ is the Tron Theatre, and a short distance from this is to be found
the Briggait Market where lonely stallholders can be seen tossing herrings
to catch a sprat. On now to St Enoch Square where there will be so much
overhead glass they should have called it Pilkingtons Place. When this canopy
is completed it is believed Glasgow will have the largest Starling Conference
Centre in the world. It is the planners' intention to create a mini-village
in this location where its higgledy-piggledy squares, wynds, and crooked
passageways will be lit by the soft lantern-like glow of quaint shoppes
and arty boutiques. Muggers? No, muggers are not to be allowed. Definitely
not! Still under glass we cross from St Enochs into Buchanan Street were
the opulent lure of Princes Square proves difficult to resist. But, since
we are rather low in gold ingots we will proceed past it to where Gordon
Square will be in the future with its exciting mixture of pavement cafes,
restaurants, casinos - it will be quite Parisian, in fact.
No longer is the Clyde going to be allowed to slouch through the city like
an old grey tramp - soon it is going to have work for its passage. Close
by Kingston Bridge plans are being studied for the provision of a weir.
This will, of course, eliminate tidal problems and it is hoped that floating
restaurants can be moored here; accommodation for river craft will be provided,
too, which could mean a place for the Waverley - if they can find out what
keeps making it stop. There are big plans afoot for the adjacent Broomielaw
- shops, bars, luxury homes - these will transform it into a desirable city
location.
This year, of course, marks the city's Garden Festival. If the prices for
admission to it prove to be accurate then no doubt it will come to be known
as -'The Dear Green Place'. Also this year the city will be host to the
Baptist Youth Conference - an event which will accommodate some 10,000 delegates
and will pump an estimated £4 million into the local economy. Another
unusual event will be the Orchid Conference which is pencilled in for 1993.
Glasgow and orchids might seem a strange mix but it is just another indication
of the city's change of image. Maybe they will name one of the exotic blooms
'The Wee Hard Man' as a reminder of the infamous past.
1990, of course, is a year writ large in the Civic Diary - the year when
Glasgow becomes a City of Culture. What an honour! Perhaps they will even
throw an official Barmecide feast and invite all the no-jobbers and no-hopers
to attend. Pardon? Call yourself cultured and you don't know what a Barmecide
feast is! Of course you know, brother - you've been at such a feast ever
since this Glasgow's Miles Better fantasy began. Yes, now you remember.
That's it - a Barmecide feast is one where all the dishes are empty, an
imaginary banquet. It came, as you say, from an Arabian Nights tale, the
one in which the Barmecide prince gives the starving Schacabac such a feast
for a jest. The ravenous man pretends to eat and relish the empty dishes
set before him. But after he has consumed copious draughts of illusionary
wine he feigns drunkeness and assaults the prince. The latter, seeing the
humourous side, forgives Schacabac and provides him with food to his heart's
content.
A cautionary tale perhaps for super-optimistic City Fathers and Yuppies
imbued with an overweened sense of their own importance. The moral? Well,
things might not work so amicably as in the story, for this time Schacabac
will not be coming to the feast. Out there on the Urban Rim he will watch
and bide his time. His brother will watch too from his Inner City wilderness.
Both have had enough of feasting from empty plates and from equally empty
promises. It would be wise to remember that a City which can work the miracle
of changing violence into orchids also knows how to reverse the process.
From:
Workers City "The Real Glasgow Stands Up"
Edited By Farquar McLay Clydeside Press