The Hidden Glasgow Forums

There was a ship capsized at Greenock/Port Glasgow, a dredger or hopper I think.
I lived opposite Knightswood bus garage and there were large temporary wooden huts beside the main red brick building. The wind got underneath them and they floated across the Boulevard. My wee mini was buried under a pile of wood.
Our flat was at the top of the four storey buildings and my bedroom was in the attick. It was unbelievable how much they shook, it must have been terrifying in the multis.
There was a story about a chimney head coming down through several floors of a tenement and stopping on somebodys bed, they were underneath it sheltering and survived. Must have been a good strong bed!
I'm positive we didn't get disaster status like they did after the south of England.

January. Quite mild. There was some unexpected light snow in southern central England on Saturday 6th. There was a notable snowstorm in the south on the 8-9th, affecting a large area of the country from North Wales down to the southeast of England Snow started in Southampton just before 2 pm. By the next morning in some areas there were drifts 3 m deep, with strong SE winds, and level snow of up to 30 cm in mid Wales, with 10 cm of cover over a wide area. The Clyde Valley storm in Glasgow on the night of 14-15th killed 20 people and injured 300 hours; a gust of 117mph was recorded on Tiree. Tornadoes reported. Pressure dropped very quickly on the 14th as mild Atlantic air met a cold block over Europe, and as the depression passed, pressure rose very quickly (18.5 mbars in three hours at Stornoway). Much structural damage.

from here

http://www.personal.dundee.ac.uk/~taharley/1968_weather.htm

Interesting find

Remember quite a bit about this...

1) My uncle had a lucky escape when the chimney fell through the roof of their house in Drumchapel, "escaped" with a broken leg.

2) My Dad was a postman, and used to go to work about 5 AM - by that time, the storm had passed, and he was walking to work at the Post Office in Motherwell (West Hamilton Street at the time). As he got near Motherwell Cross he saw what looked like someone who had been blown through a shop window. and ran up to help. The shop in question was Claude Alexander's tailors, which sat right on the corner and had a curved window. You can guess the rest......

3) My hamster escaped from its cage (evidently had enough of listening to the wind), and subsequently emerged later in the day from the chimney (we had one of those gas fires with the vent at the bottom). He wasn't too keen on the bath afterwards, but was otherwise unscathed. My Mother christened it "Johnny Ramensky", as it wasn't the first escape he had managed.

tobester wrote:As you look at the police station from where thornwood park is now, youll see a row of tenements with Lenas (chippy) on it, its at the lef end of this block, i think the last shop was/is a fieplace shop.

I passed by there today and my placement of 555 was correct, the first shop after the Sandy Rd Clinic is 557A. Also the tenement you're referring to Tobester is a strange shape at the gable end probably to accomodate the railway line sweeping in to the junction which was where the park is across the road.

I checked the numbers myself the other day, and i got it wrong, but im sure my dad said the tenement i was talking about was pulled down after being damaged

I was just coming up for two when this happened but I remember my mum lifting me up to the bedroom window in our Barrhead flat and trying to explain to me why the man over the backdoor's pigeon hut wasn't there any more and was now five gardens away.

Does anyone remember this? I was 14 and remember watching the Red Road Flats swinging about like crazy. I also remember tenement buildings having tarpaulins on their roofs for years afterwards, the maisonettes at Fountainwell road lost their roofs as did Kirkie baths. Substantial loss of life and damage to property all around yet I can find very little on the internet.

I remember it well. despite only being 6! I lived in Kirkie at the time, and remember not being able to go swimming for months after. Not that we could get out the bottom of our street for 2 days anyway, as a tree fell right across the road!

I seem to recall the Luggie bursting it's banks in major fashion too - though not as bad as in the late 80's.

I lived on the outskirts of Kirkintilloch, and slept right through the storm!

In the morning there were scenes of devastation, roofs missing from neighbours outbuildings, trees down (you can still see some at the back of Milton of Campsie which have kept growing), and lots of roads closed.

We lost a few slates from the roof, it must have been hellish where there were lots of tenements and high chimneys.

I remember having lots of wood to burn and my dad being busy as a joiner with all the repairs.

I was 11 at the time, living in Barmulloch and also slept through the night and missed all the action. I didn't tell my mates though!I told them tales of seeing dogs, huts and even cars flying through the air

hungryjoe wrote:Does anyone remember this? I was 14 and remember watching the Red Road Flats swinging about like crazy. I also remember tenement buildings having tarpaulins on their roofs for years afterwards, the maisonettes at Fountainwell road lost their roofs as did Kirkie baths. Substantial loss of life and damage to property all around yet I can find very little on the internet.

I was 8...... an enormous picture on my bedroom wall fell off, smacked onto a tallboy, the glass all smashed onto the floor along with the broken picture frame etc.... & I slept right thru it!.... our chimney also blew to bits... I still sleep good

^^ actually stupid me was really 7, now that I do the maths.....

I remember it very well. The farm up the road from us had their hen house and hens all blown away. The hens mostly survived but the henhouse was torn to shreds. Their dog kennel flew 1/2 mile across the field, Dog wasn't in it at the time though, and I couldn't get out in the morning for fallen trees. I was without electicity and water for nearly a week. Yup, it was quite a storm.

Bankie Boy wrote:I was 11 at the time, living in Barmulloch and also slept through the night and missed all the action. I didn't tell my mates though!I told them tales of seeing dogs, huts and even cars flying through the air

Brilliant BB. I would have done the same but I lived in Canada at the time.