The Hidden Glasgow Forums

Hi I am new but had to join having become obsessed with Cumbernauld.

My take on the new town is as follows, it has to be preserved and people need to loosen up on it. People are really ignorant in their classification of the town centre structures, they have simply already written them off and the sooner they are torn down the better, and because of the mentality, they are in a state of no care for the buildings. It's an endless vicious circle.

People don't treat or care for the buildings, making them more grotty and neglected, making them more displeasing to the public, who then care about the buildings less etc.

What has to happen is North Lanarkshire has to recognise that, although currently in a state of hate, the town centre can be redeemed. Money has to be cut from absolutely god awful complexes like the Antonine (which frankly is a terrible wall of loathsome boredom...no architectural merit whatsoever), and has to be spent on the increasingly dilapitated Phase I and II. These are important buildings, simply because they are no longer of public interest does not detract from the fact they are historical landmarks, considered Britains first shopping complex as we know it today for instance.

The Eiffel Tower was loathed for many years after it's construction, now it is loved by many. I am not saying Cumbernauld's Phase I is the next Eiffel Tower, but what the public wants at the current moment must be ignored occasionally. As I stated, there is an importance to the town centre...it's already disgusting that much of Phase I has been demolished for the lifeless shed that is the Antonine, a clone of any shopping centre from "TownsVille"

Anyway I hope to try and start a website that can maybe capture the imagination of an extremely negative public on their town centre and show them that all those years ago Cumbernauld was a fantastic, futuristic and exciting place. People have to be reminded it can be that way again.

pureplepantman This is Cumbernauld: Town for Tommorrow from 1970. A few weeks ago saw the end of a BBC Scotland TV show called "Films of Scotland", in which Town for Tommorrow was highlighted and a significant amount of time was spent on Cumbernauld. No longer available on iPlayer I'm afraid.

http://ssa.nls.uk/film.cfm?fid=2227

New Town (Cumbernauld - Town For Tomorrow)
A Cumbernauld Development Corporation film narrated by Magnus Magnusson

Found this by accident a while back. By that I mean it doesn't show up by the usual "keyword" searching.
Despite having been on youtube for ages, it's hardly had any views - so it's quite unknown.
It is however simply brilliant and worth a look not just from a Cumbernauld perspective but also
just for the sheer nostalgia factor.

It's in two parts..........

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p_4lhaK8 ... re=related

Not sure of the exact date it was made(?)

CUMBERNAULD HIT (1977)
"A James-Bond type fiction film about an evil woman's plans to 'hi-jack' the New Town of Cumbernauld."

This is the most shit film ever made but check out the latter part VIDEO 2
for the chase scene through the town centre......

http://ssa.nls.uk/film.cfm?fid=4294&cid=82803532

purplepantman wrote:

Lucky Poet wrote:Eeeenough! Now one of you get in that bloody mine entrance and tell us what happens
(Assuming it doesn't collapse and turn you into the first batch of HG paté.)

I'm gonna try and get up to the mine for a sniff about tomorrow so if I find anything interesting I'll let you know.
That's if it's not raining, there's not too many flies, the shrubbery isn't too long and I don't get the fear.

Has a Gregory's Girl then and now been done on here? I always thought it would be interesting to go around all the main locations and see how they've changed and try and take pics from the exact same angle as stills from the movie. Of course you can never get the pics at the exact same angle can you. I could always try doing two or three locations and then get fed up like I always do. I know the ash park where they played the main game in the film has recently been astroturfed over and fenced off; Gregory wouldn't even recognise it!

This would also be good for Glesga films like Sense of Freedom (getting into Bar with a camera might be a task) and Every Other Saturday and the like.
This is the bit when someone comes along and tells me to use the search facility.............

Think there is a video here :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y6czti-q ... annel_page

I think it lets you click on the same scene from the movieso that you can compare them side by side.

Quite good i think!

Lucky Poet wrote:Eeeenough! Now one of you get in that bloody mine entrance and tell us what happens
(Assuming it doesn't collapse and turn you into the first batch of HG paté.)

I'm gonna try and get up to the mine for a sniff about tomorrow so if I find anything interesting I'll let you know.
That's if it's not raining, there's not too many flies, the shrubbery isn't too long and I don't get the fear.

Has a Gregory's Girl then and now been done on here? I always thought it would be interesting to go around all the main locations and see how they've changed and try and take pics from the exact same angle as stills from the movie. Of course you can never get the pics at the exact same angle can you. I could always try doing two or three locations and then get fed up like I always do. I know the ash park where they played the main game in the film has recently been astroturfed over and fenced off; Gregory wouldn't even recognise it!

This would also be good for Glesga films like Sense of Freedom (getting into Bar with a camera might be a task) and Every Other Saturday and the like.
This is the bit when someone comes along and tells me to use the search facility.............

purplepantman wrote:Yes, Gregory's Girl. Now there's a film!
Do you know that was filmed in Cumbernauld?
I played in the fitba team with Gregory so I did.
Well I didn't really but imagine I did, how good would that be.
I've got pics of Dee Hepburn in the bufty having a shower after the game.

Local Hero was also filmed in Cumbernauld. Up at Fannyside Loch's.
Burt Lancaster stayed at my gran's in Seafar while he was here filming.
He still sends her a Crimbo card and still phones her up regularly to talk about how good her stovies were.

Honest!

No way....I love that film. Was it really filmed in Cumbernauld?

Where are all the film locations...do tell?

I read about him staying with a granny from seafar....it was on Wickapedia.

Was any bits filmed in Larkhall?

Yes, Gregory's Girl. Now there's a film!
Do you know that was filmed in Cumbernauld?
I played in the fitba team with Gregory so I did.
Well I didn't really but imagine I did, how good would that be.
I've got pics of Dee Hepburn in the bufty having a shower after the game.

Local Hero was also filmed in Cumbernauld. Up at Fannyside Loch's.
Burt Lancaster stayed at my gran's in Seafar while he was here filming.
He still sends her a Crimbo card and still phones her up regularly to talk about how good her stovies were.

Honest!

Very good Knightmare! Yes, it is a bit creepy! Both the film and the mine.

Wonder if I've found the (possible but unlikely) other entrance that guy (maybe) was talking about...


1922 OS

Mine entrance I was at today circled in yellow.
Possible other entrance circled in red (near a now demolished farm).

Only one way to find out!

PS.
If nobody hears from me again can someone come looking?
I'm a bit feart now - thanks to Knightmare!

Great stuff here - I enjoyed the photos especially because I live in the outskirts of Cumbernauld.

On the subject of walking the Gregory's Girl locations, there are loads I've been to in Cumbernauld for example:

The old YMCA in Seafar (now some kind of religious thing) which was used in the opening scene where the boys play peeping-tom on a young nurse.

The chippy at Abronhill shopping centre where Gregory visits on the night of his date with Claire Grogan.

The trees near Cumbernauld house (in the park everybody calls 'Cumbernauld fields') which feature in the scene at the end of the film where he lies on the grass with Claire Grogan,

and,
the red ash football pitch at Abronhill high school (near Abronhill shopping centre) where Gregory's school football team trains.

Also there used to be the stairs with the huge clock where he waits on Dee Hepburn which was in a part of the town centre partially demolished and now changed into an access point for the new Antonine Centre, sadly the clock has been shifted to the Antonine Centre as well so now the old location which was in the film is gone forever

dimairt wrote:"Hahah Thats sunds like a good day out. Walk the GG Movie"

That would be difficult. As with most movies, scenes are shot all over the place. When we see Gregory walk through an underpass, he's in Abronhill; when he comes out the other side , he's in a different part of town.

Le durachd,

Eddy

And his house was in Westfield - Netherwood Place. I lived round the corner from it and a guy a year or 2 above me at Westfield Primary lived there after filming ended.

At the time the film was made, there were only a handful of houses occupied by the public as Westfield was still getting built. Eastfield wasn't even there yet.

I remember cycling around on my Raleigh Strika that day he was filmed coming out of his house to go to school (Abronhill High) and there were so many kids on the street that they decided to leave them in the shot rather than try to move them all away! At that time most of the families that moved in had young children, including mine

Interestingly, the "Clock in the Plaza" that you see in the movie (outside the old "Woolco") was originally part of St Enoch Train Station which was demolished in 1966.

There are three Gillespie, Coia and Kidd buildings extant in the town.
Our Ladies High School in Seafar is currently under refurbishment so now might be your last chance to see the Pill Box inspired entrance, complete with gun slits! It's a huge slab laid flat and jutting out over playing fields, overlooking the A80 and appearing more like the headquarters of some secretive Geneva based Drugs Manufacturer than a Scottish local authority school. Right across the road is that strange sewerage outfall feature mentioned earlier in these forums. In the woods behind this you'll find a number of Art Installations in the manner of Tim Stead of Café Gandolfi fame. Don't know if they're anything to do with him- seem to recall it was a schools project but still – they’re there and worth a look..
Sacred Heart Church in Kildrum is an unusually shaped Chapel which sits on a slope and features a confusion of stairs. Its modernist interior is remarkable and well preserved and it's uber-modernist art glass windows are worthy of a visit in themselves. Sadly, the central courtyard has now been roofed over but the wee shop’s still there.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Sacred_Heart_RC_church_cumbernauld.jpg
Cumbernauld College is a bastardised version of itself nowadays but still features at least one brutalist elevation worthy of note. It looks like the Eagle spacecraft from Gerry Anderson’s Space1999.

Worth noting too that not far away is Sir Basil Spence's Kilsyth Academy - surely one of only a few Spence buildings left around Glasgow.

There’s a film here
http://www.bestlaidschemes.com/moviezone/new-towns
about New Towns.

Means we are visionaries. They'll catch on.
My Kitten showed an interest, and you aint seen the piccies Im plannin! Im just glad to bore strangers rather than Mrs Jamesie and my Maw, who as we speak is sorting through the family archive. She may still have the resdents handbook from circa 1967...

Re "Cumbernauld: Town For Tonorrow"...
http://www.bbc.co.uk/scotland/history/s ... =new_towns

And this may interest...
http://www.bestlaidschemes.com/moviezone/

Im sure Ive seen a map of proposed new town sites somewhere, might be in that second film, Im not too sure where Stra'van is on the map though...

Corking picture. I'm not entirel;y sure about the fella "George". I met him once or twice cos we used to park the car in his street when we were going for a session in the cottage (regulars known hilariously as "cottagers"). He took me and Mrs Cyclo round his garden after we'd engaged him in conversation once or twice. Claims to have met Hans Wegner, more, to have known him - and Aalto, too.
Haven't been to the theatre since an incident a while back (over a year) but thinking of returning. I'll see if I can speak to the man again.
Can't help but reflect that so far Hidden Cumbernauld consists of Jamsie and ol'Cyclo though.
I don't have a membership for the architectural sites that hold some of these reports. It'd be interesting to see some of 'em. Similarly, Town for Tomorrow as well as some other films used to be available for download but only if you were in Education or somesuch. Scottish Film, I think...
Tell a lie
http://www.screenonline.org.uk/film/id/681646/index.html

There's links to other films too.
Side issue but relevant...
I grew up in Stra'ven as any fule no, and the next village along was Stonehouse. Their used to be a big sign about a mile and a half outside Stonehouse, at Glassford Bridge in fact, proclaiming it as "Stonehouse New Town" I've never met anyone who knows a thing about this plan.

This might work at home, my office PC won't play it.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/scotland/history/scotlandonfilm/media_clips/clip_display.shtml?topic=newlife&subtopic=new_towns&clip_name=town_planning_cumbernauld_v&media_type=video

Cyclo2000 wrote:Late June you say. I refer the gentleman to the post I made regarding the 29th of June just on the previous page...

And before I get beaten to it, the Theatre are showing Cumbernauld:Town for Tomorrow on the 24th of June.

Ha! You were beaten to it!

Posted: Mon Apr 30, 2007 12:55 pm Post subject:
Cyclo2000 wrote:
Interesting...one of the architects still lives up beside the theatre. Name of George somebody or other. Lovely house he has too.

Didnt know that.
Cant think who he is either.
Im gonna follow up that introduction though. Its through a friend of my Mother who told BM about my anorak tendencies.
The theatre has a film evening June 24th showing some interesting things for the 50th birthday of the new town. Not just Gregory either.