DAVY Welsh is 70 and suits his tartan bunnet better, perhaps, than any man who has ever lived. He’s sitting on a collapsible chair, by a row of second-hand bikes, down Shipbank Lane. This is Paddy’s Market, an iconic sliver of Glasgow, a skelf of the city’s soul. Like a lot of the people who work here, Welsh has got the place under his skin. “If it shuts, I’ll be lost,” he says, quietly. “I won’t know what to do.”
Paddy’s Market, named for the Irish immigrants who were the first traders, has been on this spot since 1935, and elsewhere in the Bridgegate area for a century before that, but may be in its last days. The city council has asked owners Network Ra
il to lease it the site. The deal is expected to be concluded by October, after which the lane will be sub-let to artists, and to immigrants selling “ethnic wares”.
The council has said that “reputable traders” may be allowed to continue their businesses, but the people who work here believe the council despise them, and point to the language used by councillor Gordon Matheson as proof. He called Paddy’s “a crime-ridden midden” and has said that the market has become blighted by drug dealing and the selling of contraband goods. This will no longer be tolerated; the council is getting tough on middens and the causes of middens.
But is the market as grim as all that? Well, on the Thursday I visit there are drug dealers working in plain view at one entrance to the lane. They come into the market itself, occasionally, using the bustle as cover, but the traders don’t stand for it. “Right guys, you’ll need to shift,” says Hazel McGeachin, 48, breaking up a deal outside the railway arch from which she sells cheap packets of biscuits and so on. “Gie us a tenner and we will,” says the dealer. “I’ve no even got a tenner,” she replies. “If I had a tenner I’d have the polis guardin’ it.”
Tolerant of this backchat, they move on, sweet as you like. But negotiations don’t always go so smoothly. Patsy Woodward, 57, says dealers she told to leave returned and set her premises on fire. She runs C’mon In, the market café. Woodward explains that the dealers are here because a nearby hostel is full of addicts. This is what I hear from everyone: it’s not the market causing the drug problem; closing the place down will cause more misery than it prevents.
“See if I have to leave here?” says Woodward. “I’ll lose my house. I’ve worked up from nothing and now I’ve got a mortgage on a lovely house in a lovely area. So what am I to do go on the buroo?”
I talk to one of her customers, a 74-year-old man called Joe Pyke, who has eyes of bright Sinatra blue. He comes here every day for his dinner. It gets him out. His wife died 14 years ago, and he spent a lot of time after that just sitting in the house drinking. He’s chucked the drink now, though. These days he makes a point of going to Paddy’s to meet old pals. He likes a bargain too. “Oh, I’ve got a lot of stuff out of here,” he nods. “I bought a pair of shoes last week. Three quid I paid. Brand new black brogues.”
Do you have them on, I ask, looking under the table. “Naw, they were too tight. So I was doon at the Barras and selt them for six quid.” He laughs. “That’s how it works.”
It’s an easy assumption that the people who work at Paddy’s run rather transient businesses. You put down a blanket and pile some junk on it. What could be more ephemeral? Yet, often, the roots go deep.
Betty Mullen, 80, is the third generation of her family to trade in the market. Her grandfather started in 1917. She’s been here since she was seven and now sells clothing within an arch. There’s a fantastic display of posh hats on one wall. “To think this is happening to me, a war widow,” she says. “Why can’t they close that hostel and give us a chance to see how it goes? I’m upset. My nerves are bad with thinking about it.” She starts to cry. “I’ll miss it. What will I do in the years I’ve got left?”
There’s a lot of passion here and a lot of anger about the plans to close the market. One leaseholder, Brian Daly, describes it as “ethnic cleansing”. Another, Michael Burns, says the council are turning their back on Glasgow’s working class heritage. Lots of traders believe that what’s going on is yuppification ahead of the Commonwealth Games. Many also link the situation with recent protests about land use in Pollok Park and the Botanic Gardens.
The traders are not giving up without a fight. A petition is being launched at
www.savepaddys.org, and everyone is keen to be part of cleaning the market up. It should be closed off by gates at night, they say, and policed better during the day. One browsing punter believes Paddy’s should be “heritage listed” – protected and sold to tourists as a must-see. “It is important as part of Glasgow’s history,” agrees Hazel McGeachin, “but what’s more important is that it’s needed. A lot of my customers are pensioners, asylum seekers, foreign workers. They need a place as cheap as this.”
It’s not just for the poor though. Lawyers, architects, even pop stars come down. Alex Kapranos from Franz Ferdinand was here recently. “Oh, we get a lot of famous faces,” says Cora Pringle. “Mo Johnston’s mammy comes here.” Betty Mullen nods. “I’ve a photo of Tony Roper standing over there.”
The other thing you hear, when you ask about the significance of Paddy’s is that it’s great for characters. And you don’t have to look far to find such people.
I bump into Davy Welsh again on my way out. He and a skinny man with a quiff and leather jacket are discussing the price of a Chopper, but the man wanders off, bikeless and quiff-first. “I call him The Man In Black,” Welsh laughs. “He paints everything black. His shoes, the inside of his jacket. I once sold him a bike and he painted every bit, the saddle too. Then he jumped on before it was dry, and when he jumped off again, his troosers stuck and ripped clean off. So if you’re going to write aboot Paddy’s Market, son, don’t forget to mention The Man In Black.”
