Product Description

This best-selling book dispels the image of slums and destitution which clings to the Glasgow tenement. Working-class home life is explored through the recollections of people who grew up in these cramped one and two roomed houses.
Narratives full of vitality and detail record the routines and rituals of previously disregarded lives, covering everything from shopping and housework to childbirth and death.
Though the tenements were by today's standards unfit to live in, there are important lessons here about the kinds of housing that enable close-knit communities to flourish.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #187821 in Books
• Published on: 1990-10-20
• Format: Illustrated
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 176 pages

Glasgow Herald
a very readable book, well-produced and containing many beautiful illustrations a monument to the tenement mums who made ends meet

Kaleidoscope (BBC Radio 4)
this fascinating book

Customer Reviews

How to bring up a family in only 2 rooms
If your interest in history is how people actually lived, then this book is a must. It provides a detailed account of virtually all aspects of tenement life.

Tenement flats now provide "starter accomodation" for young couples and the young free and single. How on earth did mothers manage to bring up a family of four in a one bedroom, two room flat? There were no bathrooms, no toilets in the flats, and no washing machines. The answers are here.

Read this book if you live in any of Scotland's towns or cities with tenements flats, or if you have an interest in social history - it's excellent!

good book
if you like reading about Glasgow and the old Gorbals this is fine but also try colin macfarlane's The Real Gorbals Story who brings the 1960s Gorbals alive.

Up Oor Close
This was a good historical account of life in the Glasgow tenements taken from those who experienced family, work and pastimes that shaped their lives and beliefs. It provides an insight into the culture, traditions and social lives as well as the hardships and values instilled in families and neighbours. Could be used as a starting point for social history in schools as there is a great deal of detail of the lives of those in the Springburn area of Glasgow which is neatly subdivided into those areas that were important for the narrators. A worthwhile purchase