Saturday Saunter: Clock towers, maps and virtual experiences

Good Saturday to you,

Welcome to another Saturday Saunter, this week being written on Wednesday night. The last few weeks I’ve been making a rough plan for these posts and this week I have a full slate of things so let’s dive in. I often write here about maps and I got a new one this week. An organisation called Urban Good has produced a map of the green spaces in Glasgow and surrounding districts, minimising the roads to emphasise walking and cycle routes as well as parks, playing fields and sports facilities. Interestingly, the key not only features places of interest but also what land is for, food spaces, blue spaces (water to you and me), and skate parks. The back of the map has a wheen of information about elevations, canals, rivers, how we can contribute to nature, figures about how our city’s land is used and ideas about exploring urban nature. I just had it folded out on the carpet and it’s quite a resource, the size of an Ordnance Survey map but trying to do more, to promote and encourage people to explore their local area. When we can’t go beyond our local area, as now, it’s good to see just what is out there, how many parks, gardens and green spaces there are in Glasgow. We are after all the Dear Green Place.

Hampden Park: looking up wet steps towards the back of a football stadium with a red wall, silver grille and grey roof.

Keeping in Glasgow, I’ve watched quite a few digital events in recent weeks, all from the comfort of my living room. Celtic Connections still provides great music through the sessions on the BBC iPlayer and I know Anabel Marsh and Down By The Dougie have both written about that in recent weeks. We watched an author event with Ann Cleeves interviewed by Steph McGovern last week and that was excellent, going into the Vera books and Ann Cleeves’s approach to writing. I also watched an online tour of Hampden Park live on Zoom last Saturday lunchtime, which was excellent. The tour, from Lindsay Hamilton, was superb and covered a whole load of history of the third Hampden and its predecessors. I had managed to avoid using video conferencing software until recently but I am now a convert as they make things more accessible, not just right now when we can’t go anywhere but for people who might not be able to travel for whatever reason. I watched quite a few Celtic Connections concerts because I bought the festival pass and I know I wouldn’t have been able to attend more than one or two in real life. I hope as many events can stay online in some way as possible after all this, including providing PPV feeds for football matches, as more people can access them and ultimately the organisers might make extra revenue, which in these times is also important.

Talking about accessibility, I read recently about Crewe railway station, which has a Calm Corner specifically for people with hidden disabilities, including those with dementia. They have old photographs of the station to encourage memories, which is commendable. I’ve never been to Crewe but know it’s a particularly busy railway station in normal circumstances so anything to help people travel safely and happily is undoubtedly a good thing.

Anabel Marsh wrote the other day about clock towers and I was inspired to add a couple of pictures from my own collection. The first is Dunbar Town House, a clock I know well. It also has a sundial next to one of its faces. The second is quite topical, this week being the 25th anniversary of the release of Trainspotting, featuring the old Leith Central station. The third is from Stirling, the Tolbooth, to be precise, another of those clocks with a blue face and golden letters.

Dunbar Town House: a white clock tower with a grey top. The shadow of a gable end with chimney pots is being cast on the side of the building to the right.

Leith: a clock tower on the corner of a building on the corner of a street. At street level there is a doctor’s surgery with a To Let sign on the corner.

Stirling Tolbooth: a clock tower with a blue and gold face below a tower. In the foreground are some older buildings, the centre one with a weathervane on the top.

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed that. That’s the Saturday Saunter for today, Saturday 27th February 2021. Thanks for reading. Our post on Wednesday is about the Water of Leith. Cheers for now. Peace.