There was a group from the Glasgow Folk Centre
who went around and did good deeds for charity. The group was
more or less run by Matt McGinn and comprised of himself, Hamish
Imlach, myself and various other folk who's faces I can remember
but not their names.
Matt McGinn was a great little fellow. I think he was born
in the Gorbals of Glasgow. He had a very tough childhood but
managed to serve an apprenticeship in one of the upper Clyde
shipyards. While working there he went to night school and
successfully studied to become a Primary School teacher. He
really loved kids. He wrote many songs that became standards
around the folk clubs in Scotland. He was especially famous
for his humorous songs. He usually sang unaccompanied and
didn't have a great voice but still managed to command attention.
Matt was a very complex character and though he could get
on with people and kids from all walks of life, he had great
difficulty in facing up to his personal problems and life
in general. Sadly, Matt died in a tragic accident in 1977.
His songs live on and I still enjoy singing them.
One of Matts projects was the "Adventure Playground"
which was situated in the Heart of the Slums in Glasgow. This
was a spare piece of ground at the end of the tenement buildings
where the Glasgow Corporation used to dump broken concret
sewage pipes and left over sand and gravel. The Corporation
planned to clean it up and put a nice little park in its place.
The locals would have named it "Five minute Park"
because that's about how long it would have lasted. Matt managed
to persuade them to leave it as it was and put a fence round
it. He also managed to persuade them to put an old Nissen
hut on the site. With the addition of somerope ladders and
all sorts of things which would nowadays be cosidered too
dangerous for our modern children, This became the first ever
official "Adventure Playground"!
Round the inside of the hut paper from left over Newsprint
rolls (donated by the Glasgow Evening Times) were used for
graffitti training. Paints and crayons were supplied and the
little animals could write and draw to their heart's content
and the supervisors shock. The parts with the obscene language
and drawings were removed and replaced at the end of the day.
In other words, it was all replaced!
Back to the Folk Group. Matt persuaded (read Forced?) us
to go and entertain (?) the children (read animals) once a
month at the playground. We would set up and sing to about
30 or so scruffy little kids from about 4 to 14 years old.
Some of the dirtiest ditties I know were learned from these
kids. These were real tough kids from a real tough area and
we were always being theatened with "Ma big brother'll
get you when he gets oot o' Barlinnie!"
A fairly normal conversation would go like this: Wee Jimmie,
"Gie's two bob to look after your guitar, mister"
Me, "I'll look after it myself, it won't be leaving my
side." Wee Jimmie seriously, "OK mister. But a half
brick wouldnae smash it if I was lookin' after it."
I suppose it was two shillings well spent.
We would sing songs and more often learn songs from them.
I am sure the Children enjoyed these sessions as much as we
did. They are worth a memory or two. There is a website (still
under construction) on Matt McGinn to be found at www.btinternet.com/~sarsen/matt.
Have a look at it!
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