– Arrived 8:30 a.m. and the first thing I saw after coming through customs was a pair of police officers dressed in Kevlar and carrying automatic weapons. Flashpoint notwithstanding, I’ve never seen police in Toronto walking around with artillery like this.
– Found a payphone & called Mark Johnstone who was driving in circles around the airport parking lot. The phone ate my £1 coin. No change for a one minute chat. Think I’ll buy shares in the telephone company here.
– Mark drove me out to Kirkintilloch which calls itself the canal capital of Scotland, which seems odd given the Falkirk wheel. Entering town, I noticed that someone had scratched out the “c” in “canal”. “Kirkintilloch: anal capital of Scotland.”
– Among other things, we talked about homelessness. Mark chairs the board of the Lodging House Mission in Glasgow. Founded in 1909, the LHM provides services to the homeless but doesn’t provide shelter. Around the corner is James Duncan House, the last council-run men’s hostel in Glasgow, closed in 2008. Overall, beds for the city’s homeless have been cut from 600 to 60. The bed closures are rationalized by saying that the shelters are unfit for clients. The Scottish Government has pledged to eradicate homelessness by 2012, probably motivated by the fact that Glasgow is hosting the Commonwealth Games in 2014. The reality is that the homeless just get pushed to the fringes of the city. Meanwhile, the services remain at locations like the LHM and the homeless have to commute to take advantage of them.
– Napped for a couple hours, had an early dinner, then into Glasgow to visit the LHM. Mark had a meeting, so I took photos both inside the LHM and then in the neighbourhood. The plan is to make a DVD about the LHM, so I’ll be returning next week to take photos during operating hours so we can have images of real people using real services. The building used to be a church. Years ago, they raised the floor of the sanctuary so that the ground level—where all the services are provided—is now underneath the sanctuary. The sanctuary had fallen into disrepair, but even since my visit last year, it appears that work has been done to spruce things up. I get the impression that there was a time when the church viewed its mission as saving people from the streets by saving their souls, and so the sanctuary had a more prominent role in the LHM’s activities than it does today.
– While the meeting continued, I went for a walk through the neighbourhood. I was cautioned (after the fact) about wandering through the seedier parts of Glasgow, but really, it’s issues are the issues of any urban centre. Below are photos of the entrance to the LHM, a gate to one side of the building, & beer cans tucked in a corner – evidence of the continuing struggle many of its visitors have with substance abuse.
– Returned to St. Mary’s Parish Church in Kirkintilloch where I climbed the bell tower in the dark. I found one light switch that took me up the circular stone staircase to the bells, but had to feel my way up the open wooden staircase to the roof. Going up was fine, but coming down … I nearly crapped my pants.
– Took photos from the roof of the bell tower: St. David’s in the neighbouring parish, and the Forth & Clyde canal which passes right in front of St. Mary’s.
