“I retired in 1988 and my wife gave me a retirement present of a box of oil paints and brushes…”
I was born in Ayr on 22nd November 1927. At that time, my family was living in Dalry. My father was just an ordinary working man, with no professional qualifications. He was a general labourer with a Glasgow building contractor who commuted daily by train to Glasgow, and the cost of travelling was a drain on his wages.
In 1931, the family moved to Glasgow to be closer to dad’s work and reduce travel costs. The 1930s was a very bad time for most people – they were known as the Hungry Thirties all over the world. Almost every country was in recession and work was hard to find, and harder still to keep.
It was common for workers to be told without any warning that their wages were being cut by 50% and there was nothing they could do about it. If they did not accept this, there were plenty of others who were willing to take the jobs. We had moved into a tenement top floor flat in Glenlyon Street in Dennistoun, consisting of a room and kitchen with a stairhead lavatory which was shared with our neighbours. This move must have been a shock for my parents, moving from a country cottage with an outlook of fields and trees to one of a cotton mill factory and a small back court. This then was the scene for my childhood upbringing.
As children, we never understood the hardship our parents endured in those terrible times, we only did what children normally did. And, with new friends and going to school, we soon settled down to our new life. I was fond of drawing and was developing my own style with pencil drawings and coloured wax crayons. My mother encouraged me, told me when I was right and corrected my wrongs (she was also a good artist). At the end of the decade, I was hoping I might get to go to art school, but a certain Mr Hitler put a stop to that by starting a world war in 1939.
Things were never the same again. Now, there was plenty of work for adults and education was put on hold for a time. I was now attending junior secondary school and left at 14 years of age to start work. My two older brothers were conscripted to the armed forces, and my mum needed all the money she could get to keep the growing family going. So, this was the decade that inspired me to make the paintings to leave for posterity.
When I was 18, I was conscripted to the Royal Air Force where I served for three years. When my service period ended, I returned to cinema projection, but the writing was on the wall for cinemas, so I left and joined the railways as a goods train guard. I served the railways for thirty two years, finishing my career as a Chief Guards Inspector. I retired in 1988 and my wife gave me a retirement present of a box of oil paints and brushes. I had never used oils, but I taught myself through trial and error and persevered – a lesson I had learned from my mum, who taught me to be patient and pay attention to detail. Great advice. These paintings are the result.
Thomas McGoran