Jean Hart

I was fifteen when my parents got our house in Cranhill.

It was a four apartment house with a coal fire. The coalman came every week.

The houses were big and cold and we had a lot of stairs to climb to get to our house.

There were no lights in the streets and no pavements.

We had no buses and no schools.

There was a farm at the bottom of Bellrock Street and fields.

A canal separated Cranhill from Ruchazie.

We had Sugarollie Mountains: all the boys had great fun sliding down them.

Sunday mornings we heard the Church bells.

Sometimes the Boys Brigade band would play as the Boys and Girls Brigades marched to Church

All the streets in Cranhill were named after lighthouses.

After a while we had buses going along Bellrock Street.

The bus service was awful!!

When the bus got to our stop it was full up, so we had to take a bus to the terminus, get off, and board another bus into town.

Later we had a Tenants'’ Hall and a Scout Hall.

The Tenants’ Association organised a Gala Day and dances.
We had our own Pop Group, the “Bellrocks” who won a talent competition in the Pavilion.

We then got our Park with a Bowling Green, a swing park, a tennis court and a Pitch and Putt.

By this time we had two churches, two secondary schools and four primary schools.

I almost forgot, we celebrated the Queen’s Coronation.
Flags and bunting were everywhere.

As time passed the Sugarollie Mountains were removed to make way for the maisonettes and the high flats.

By this time I was married and had a family. We were lucky and got a maisonette.

I loved that house. The neighbours were wonderful.

It seemed we had everything we needed.

We eventually got a Community Centre and clubs were formed. We had Table Tennis, Badminton, Football, Discos and pantomimes.

The Community Council had been formed. They organised a Gala Queen and princesses, Pipe Bands and majorettes.

We had lots of competitions from swimming to dominoes.

In the evenings we had dances, discos and ceilidhs.

Everyone enjoyed themselves.

We printed a newsletter called “The Beacon”. It was delivered to every home in Cranhill.

The Credit Union was formed, followed later by the Women's’ Forum

There was a lot of happiness, but there was sadness too; especially for our young people who lost their lives so tragically.

We have had a lot of good people who worked hard to make it a good place to live and I am very proud to be associated with them.