Black &White, 1993, 208 p. In Wax Fruit. First published 1947.

Wax Fruit is a trilogy of novels set in the Glasgow of the late nineteenth century. Antimacassar City is the first in the sequence.

We are dealing with the saga of the Moorhouse family, originating from an Ayrshire farm in the mid-1800s, though the setting is mainly Glasgow in the 1870s. The youngest Moorhouse, Phoebe, is the result of her father’s second marriage, to a Highland woman, and the book’s first scene describes the night she was orphaned by an accident. Phoebe is portrayed as a restrained, self-possessed girl and, later, young woman. Her older (half)-brother Mungo is the only one of the family left at the farm, the others have moved to Glasgow and are going up in the world. Her brother Arthur’s wife Bel determines to take her in, even though she is expecting their first child.

Phoebe takes a sisterly interest in the child, Arthur, when he is born. A few years later a maid, taking a shortcut home from a visit to his grandmother, loses him in a slum area when distracted by her sister’s presence there. On her own initiative and though still a child Phoebe sets out to find him, braving the shocking – and frightening – conditions of the overcrowded slums, and earns Bel’s everlasting gratitude for his rescue. McCrone’s attitude to the slum dwellers, couched through the middle-class values of the upwardly mobile Moorhouses, is disparaging and dismissive. They are depicted as depraved and dissolute; there is, it seems, nothing to redeem them.

The rest of the book deals mainly with Bel’s attempts to persuade her husband to move out of the city centre to the more salubrious West End and Mungo’s surprising attractiveness to Miss Ruanthorpe of Duntrafford, the local Big House in Ayrshire.

Henry Hayburn, tongue-tied except when enthusing about steam engines and engineering and a friend of another of Phoebe’s brothers, develops on sight a yearning for her. She is less enthusiastic but his family’s exposure to ruin in the collapse of the City Bank of Glasgow brings out her protective side.

The prose here is efficient but fails to spark. Elements of this are a bit like the works of Margaret Thompson Davis (though of course McCrone was published much earlier) but Davis’s attitude to the poor was more empathetic. But she was portraying the honourable poor.

As a cursory representation of Glasgow (a certain echelon of Glasgow) in the mid-Victorian age this is a good enough primer. Literature, though, it is not.

I still have two instalments to go. Maybe it will improve.

Pedant’s corner:- “Gilmour Hill”, “Kelvin Bridge” (1870s designations? now Gilmourhill and Kelvinbridge,) “‘you’ll can move out to the West’” (‘you’ll move out to the West’ or ‘you can move out to the West’,) missing commas before pieces of direct speech. “‘What way, can she not stay at the farm?’” (no need for that comma, it’s not two phrases,) “begging at he door” (at the door.) “Had she been unhappy here she was?” (where she was.) “Sophia as only too prompt” (was only too prompt,) missing quote marks around one piece of speech, “she turned way” (turned away,) “a coil of barbed wire lying rusty and hidden” (Barbed wire was only invented in 1873. There would hardly have been time for it to have been used on an Ayrshire estate and left to rust.)

Carstairs is a village in South Lanarkshire, Scotland.It is perhaps best known unfortunately as being the location of the State Hospital,* a high security unit for psychiatric patients. The name also refers to the railway junction and village where the main West Coast rail lines from Glasgow and Edinburgh to London join (or split depending on whether you’re travelling south or north.)

Its War Memorial, a Celtic cross, stands at one side of a green area by the side of the A 70 road through the village:-

Dedication and Great War names:-

More Great War names:-

Second World War Dedication and names plus another for the Korean war:-

*Full disclosure. I have actually spent some time in the State Hospital. (I was visiting one of its inmates, a schoolmate of the good lady.)

Despite its (for the time) Hi-Tech modernistic architecture, the Empire Exhibition, Scotland, 1938, was home to a very traditional type of building, that of the turf-roofed dwellings of the clachans of Highland Scotland. I featured a postcard contrasting the new with the old – the Tower of Empire overlooking Highland village cottages – here.

Clachan is Gaelic for a small settlement. A previous such village had been one of the hits of the Scottish National Exhibition held in Kelvingrove Park, Glasgow, in 1911 and the population of Glasgow was keen to see such an exhibit revived.

Three of Brian Gerald’s art-drawn postcards of the 1938 Exhibition focused solely on the Clachan. As well as cottages the Clachan featured a ruined castle, a loch, with a lovely stone bridge over a burn running into it, and the occasional bagpiper strolling about:-

One of the cottages did double duty as the Exhibition’s Post Office:-

I haven’t posted any of these for quite some time.

So here are three views of the North Cascade and Tower at the Empire Exhibition, Scotland, 1938, held in Glasgow’s Bellahouston Park.

First one of Brain Gerald’s art-drawn postcards:-

This is a very similar view but is a colourised photograph:-

This one, also a colourised photograph, omits the fountain:-

Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve (in two World Wars,) Gulf War 1990-1991, Falkland Islands 1982, Bell of HMS Glasgow 1938:-

Scots Guards Memorial. The plaque commemorates those who died in Northern Ireland or due to terrorist activity. The upper plaque states a nearby window was dedicated in 1950 by the Duke of Gloucester to Scots Guards who died on active service in earlier conflicts:-

Memorial to Highlanders. The names are legible but the inscription below them is all but unreadable. At the time of visiting I was given to understand this was a memorial to men who died in service in India but it seems it is a Great War Memorial. There is a memorial to campaigns in India nearby.

Glasgow Police Memorial. “To the glory of God and in memory of the men of the Glasgow Police who gave their lives in the War 1914 – 1918.”
“Go tell our city living we guarded thee, dead we guard thee still.”

Lowland Field Ambulance Memorial. “157^th Lowland Field Ambulance. In proud memory of those who died for their country. 1914 -1918. 1939 – 1945. In arduis fidelis.”

Royal Army Medical Corps Memorial. “1914 – 1919. In memory of the ranks of the ranks of the Glasgow units Royal Army Medical Corps (Territorial Force) who lost their lives in the Great War. Erected by their comrades.”

Glasgow Cathedral Congregation Memorial:-

Memorial to “men of this church.” “Sacred to the memory of the men of this church who gave their lives in the Great War. Their name liveth for evermore.”

Memorial to Four Brothers of the Great War. “To the glory of God and in memory of four brothers native to this city who died for their country and in the cause of honour and freedom.
Capt Charles H Anderson, HLI, Givenchy, 19/12/1914.
Lt Alexander R Anderson, HLI, Vielle Chapelle, 8/10/1915.
Capt Edward K Anderson, RFC, Winchester, 16/3/1918.
Lt Col William H Anderson VC, Mericourt, 15/3/1918.”

Highland Light Infantry Memorial. “In memory of the Officers, Warrant Officers, Non-Commissioned Officers and men of the 23 Battalion HLI who fell in the Great War 1914 – 1918. Their name liveth for evermore.”

Roll of Honour, Parish of St Mungo High, 1914 – 1919:-

There were two busts near the Cathedral’s entrance of a woman in nurse’s uniform and a man in military uniform, presumably set in place for the 100th anniversary of the Great War:-

Highland Light Infantry, Indian North West Frontier 1863:-

Memorial to Sutherland Highlanders of the Crimean War:-

Boer War Memorial to Sappers James Hunter and Thomas Money of First Lanarkshire Royal Engineers, February 1901:-

Royal Army Medical Corps Boer War Memorial. Private W Munro, Erlandsfontein, 7/4/1901 and Corporals G G Penman, Bloemfontein, 12/11/1900 and J Howat,Bloemfontein, 1/12/1900:-

We’ve passed this many times on our way into Glasgow, to the People’s Palace, the Barras or the city centre but had never stopped for a look till December 2018.

If you look closely you can see a lamppost in the above photo. This is a close up showing the Glasgow Coat of Arms in the loop at its top:-

The Cathedral is dedicated to St Mungo otherwise known as St Kentigern. His tomb is in the cathedral crypt:-

Stone rood screen – unique we were told:-

Ceiling:-

A rather ornate side altar:-

Kneelers Glasgow and Highland Light Infantry Coats of Arms:-

Kneelers, Highland Light Infantry and Church of Scotland Coats of Arms.

One of Charles Rennie Mackintosh‘s designs for Miss Cranston’s Tea Rooms.

I featured the exterior and lower tea room with one photograph of the Chinese Room here.

Mackintosh chair halfway up stair to Chinese Room:-

View of Chinese Room from stairs:-

Alcove above stairs:-

View from above stairs:-

View back to stairs:-

Mackintosh print, tea-room tables, menu and chairs:-

Demi-lune chair opposite till:-

Not the Chinese Room:-

On that trip to Halifax we ended up at the Piece Hall. We both thought at first it would be Peace Hall but of course it wasn’t. It’s a Georgian building in the shape of a quadrangle and dates from 1779.

We visited in November hence the Christmas sign:-

One side (the north one?) is higher than its opposite. You can see this if you compare the number of floors on the side to the left below compared to the one on the right:-

As can be seen from the photo below Halifax lies in a bowl of surrounding hills:-

The Piece Hall was used as a market for fabric, mostly woven wool. The spaces where individuals sold their cloth are now taken up by a variety of traders including sweets, toys, antiques, books, clothes, curios, art reclamations etc.

This is one of the four colonnades:-

Pre-Christmas entertainment was provided by a brass band:-

The massive and elaborately decorated pair of iron gates at the Piece Hall’s entrance were made by the Sun Foundry in Glasgow. When we were there they were set back against the wall to allow entry to the Hall so were difficult to photograph but they can be seen here along with more photos of the Piece Hall.