| Comment | One key bit to add to this Gen X love-in: how fucking cheap everything was
I came to Glasgow about '96 with literally nothing but a hundred quid in cash ~~and a pocket full of dreams~~ and for that I got set up with a place to live and walked into a job, all cash in hand, no references, flat shares and bedsits anywhere you wanted
I'm going to disagree on empty businesses - huge swathes of the city centre were derelict (and no-one ever believes me that Byres Rd was a hole), but the thing was that building regulations barely seemed to exist, and this was the key thing - any fucker could start up their own business and find some space to rent for peanuts, and that's *why* all the stuff like the Arches and underground bars and internet cafes were able to exist, everything was so casual, it was easy to get stuff off the ground
And then you could go out and have a decent night out even if you were majorly skint, pints for less than a quid, cheap food everywhere (by fuck I miss the old grovesnor cafe), so easy to get in places without paying
Some negatives to balance it: heroin fucking everywhere, getting burgled on a monthly basis, sectarian shite was an order of magnitude bigger than today, trying not to die from carbon monoxide in winter cos gas safety hadn't been invented |
|---|