The Real Gorbals Story: True Tales from Glasgow’s Meanest Streets

Colin MacFarlane was born in the Gorbals in the 1950s, 20 years after the publication of No Mean City, the classic novel about pre-war life in what was once Glasgow’s most deprived district. He lived in the same street as its fictional ‘razor king’, Johnnie Stark, and subsequently realised that a lot of the old characters represented in the book were still around as late as the 1960s. Men still wore bunnets and played pitch and toss; women still treated the steamie as their social club. The razor gangs were running amok once again, and filth, violence, crime, rats, poverty and drunkenness abounded, just like they did in No Mean City. MacFarlane witnessed the last days of the old Gorbals as a major regeneration programme, begun in 1961, was implemented, and, as a street boy, he had a unique insight into a once great community in rapid decline. In this engrossing book, MacFarlane reveals what it was really like to live in the old Gorbals.

Reviews of The Real Gorbals Story: True Tales from Glasgow’s Meanest Streets

"A fascinating portrait of the area, full of detail and colour and memories of characters now long gone" The Herald "An affectionate but honest account of growing up in what was a boozy, brash, brutal part of Glasgow … Colin brings the old Gorbals back to life and paints a vivid picture of the characters who inhabited the streets and pubs" — Lorraine Kelly, from the Foreword