r/Glasgow Tools

I'm from Easterhouse. Grew up there from being a baby till I was 33 before moving to Wishaw, and I only moved because my partner is from here and works here and doesn't drive.

If I were to be moving back to Glasgow then it would probably be to Easterhouse or one of the other east end areas.

It is very different today than it was when I was a wean. The housing stock has improved. The area has decent enough amenities. Gang fighting is a thing of the past. Easterhouse seems to struggle to shake off it's old reputation, but areas like Brisgeton and Gorbals were bad for the same reasons at the same time (eg. The razor gangs). Today those areas are becoming sought after, while Easterhouse still lags behind. It's a shame that.

One thing that has changed for the worse is this though. Even though Easterhouse had high levels of crime, drugs and poverty, there was a real sense of community, which doesn't seem to exist anymore. I can rhyme off the names of every single person and family that lived on the street that I grew up on. Every wean in the street was pals with each other. Adults all sat in the "verandas" and shouted across to each other and had a laugh and a joke and a convo and visited each other inside when it was pushing down. Back then, your pals didn't live half way across the city. They all the neighbours that lived in the closes around you. If I was being a wee dick outside or if I gave some cheek to someone, it was guaranteed that they would be at my maw's door to make sure I got my arse skelpt.

I remember a time when a woman locked herself out by letting the snib shut behind her. Half the street ended up standing with her while a guy from 4 closes up who was quite handy with tools got the door open for her. I remember the wee group of guys who all spent their time in the street fixing motors they bought and sold. They would be out all day, everybody in boiler suits with mugs of tea. And, if your motor needed work the you just asked them and they would do the work for you for the price of parts, a cup of tea and a few pieces n jam. I remember we had the same beat cops who would walk the streets and kick a ball about with the weans and a few times when there were these massive games of rounders on sunny nights with just about every wean and able bodied adult from the area. Things like weddings and funerals and birthday parties involved the whole street. These days we think to invite family and friends to things, while back then it was ignorant as fuck not to invite your neighbours. I remember a million church hall events. When you get older you find out that the pubs were great. The ones that end up on lists of Glasgow's worst pubs on a subreddit like this, but they were brilliant. Again, real community pubs. Aye, they were rough and ugly and aye sometimes a fight happened, but it was never failed that the two guys that got into a punch up in the pub last week end up drinking again together this week.

That sense of proper community is now gone. But, it disappeared citywide.

Anyway, just thought I'd say. It wasn't all doom, gloom, heroin and chibbings. It was were normal people lived and grew up.

Anyway, aye, I would probably live there again.