Keeping Glasgow in Stitches was published in 1991 by Glasgow Museums, it was edited by Liz Arthur and there’s an introduction by Clare Higney. You can see the banners here.
The title is obviously a sort of pun on the fact that Glasgow had/has a ‘hard man’ reputation, supposedly a dark and violent place where you might be expected to need your face stitched up – in times gone past anyway! Come to Glasgow for a laugh, go away in stitches, supposedly a joke, possibly put around by those Edinbuggers!
The stitches referred to in the book are in the shape of a huge embroidery consisting of 12 banners, one representing each month of the year and they were stitched by all sorts of people from the communities of Glasgow. Hundreds of Glaswegians were involved in the project which charts the social and political history of the city. The designs were inspired by Malcolm Lochead’s work and stitched by all sorts of people , in fact anyone who wanted to contribute, including special needs schoolchildren.
The end result is a thing of beauty and I just wonder where it is now as I would love to go and see it, I hope it is displayed somewhere, and isn’t mouldering in a series of boxes in a basement.
Of course in 1990 Glasgow was the European City of Culture and the place was even more ‘jumping’ than usual. It’s incredible to think that that was nearly 25 years ago and this whole embroidery went completely past me unnoticed at the time. It must have been in the news but I was obviously too engulfed by small boys to notice much of what was happening in the outside world. I was in an Oxfam bookshop recently when the word ‘Glasgow’ caught my eye – and it was this book which turned out to be a really interesting read, not only about the making of the banners but it also has lots of old photographs of Glasgow from the 1900s on, lots of social history which is really my favourite sort.
