Baths attendant in Calton Glasgow?? Steamies?

[RJ_Paton]

There was also the Parkhead Steamie (Parkhead Public Baths and Washhouse) which was near the city end of  Tollcross Road

http://parkheadhistory.com/?page_id=510

[heywood]

Hello,

I hadn't read this thread but noticed it because I remember watching the play The Steamie a few years ago and enjoying it very much.
I would have thought that James was either one of the chaps at the swimming pool - ensuring good behaviour/general cleaning duties etc and/or similar duties at the public baths- used for personal cleanliness.
I think most of our local swimming pools had a washhouse and personal baths attached when I was younger.
regards
heywood

[maggbill]

Am I right in thinking that Scottish television (STV) - or someone did a programme years ago - same as "The play - The Steamie"... I have only ever seen snippets of it years ago, though think I have an old dvd somewhere.  Gave a good idea of the atmosphere of it all - and it was for many a real "social event".  It was such a common thing to see the wives "hurling" their prams full of washing - covered with a big rubber apron -... And of course no-one had a bathroom  at home so the actual bath facilities were very important too.  How pampered and spoiled we are these days!

[purplekat]

I've got that DVD somewhere, it was really good made you laugh and made you cry.  Peter Mullan  played the attendant, it was set on a New Years Eve in the 1950s and Peter Mullan's character ended up drunk because the women where giving him drinks from the whiskey bottles they had bought to take home for the celebrations at midnight 

PS If I remember correctly giving him whiskey was bribery for letting them jump the queue for clothes dryers and I got the impression that as the attendant he collected money and opened and closed the building.

[sancti]

http://www.flickr.com/photos/castlekay/2534008789/

http://niminyfingers.blogspot.co.uk/2010/03/steamie-glasgow-childhood-in-1920s.html

[tumbleweed]

There was a steamie in Shettleston too. My mother went there hurling the pram like the others and I remember my new glasses..first time worn that day spitting in half as I entered the steamie. LOL
 

[Lodger]

I can remember the Maryhill Steamie very well, it was attached to the public baths (I think it was the same for all of the "Glasgow Corporation Washhouses"). It was at the foot of Gairbraid Avenue, behind the Burgh Halls and, if my memory is correct, you got all the hot water you wanted for a penny. My brother and I, before we were in our teens, used to carry the bundles of washing down for my grannie and I can still hear her voice after more than half a century, saying, "come 'ere you loddies this watter's fine an' hoat yet" and she had our clothes off before we could protest (aw grannie) and we were 2 small boys in after the blankets!
Skoosh was right about "The talk o' the Steamie". Many a conversation in my grannie's house began with "Wait tae ye hear whit I heard in the steamie the day". That part of Maryhill was like a village, it had the Forth & Clyde canal on 2 sides and the river Kelvin on another side so the streets were quite isolated. Gairbraid Ave, Burnhouse St, Collina St, Niven St, Stirret St and Guthrie St, (all tenements) were grouped together and anything that happened there was talked about in the Steamie.
One of my uncles supposedly got a "girl into trouble" (she lived in Burnhouse Street) and my grannie heard about it in the Steamie. There was fun & games when he came home from work that day! He was our favourite uncle too, he had all the Teddy Boy gear and was a dead ringer for George Cole.

[murphydog]

I can remember the Maryhill Steamie very well, it was attached to the public baths (I think it was the same for all of the "Glasgow Corporation Washhouses"). It was at the foot of Gairbraid Avenue, behind the Burgh Halls and, if my memory is correct, you got all the hot water you wanted for a penny. My brother and I, before we were in our teens, used to carry the bundles of washing down for my grannie and I can still hear her voice after more than half a century, saying, "come 'ere you loddies this watter's fine an' hoat yet" and she had our clothes off before we could protest (aw grannie) and we were 2 small boys in after the blankets!
Skoosh was right about "The talk o' the Steamie". Many a conversation in my grannie's house began with "Wait tae ye hear whit I heard in the steamie the day". That part of Maryhill was like a village, it had the Forth & Clyde canal on 2 sides and the river Kelvin on another side so the streets were quite isolated. Gairbraid Ave, Burnhouse St, Collina St, Niven St, Stirret St and Guthrie St, (all tenements) were grouped together and anything that happened there was talked about in the Steamie.
One of my uncles supposedly got a "girl into trouble" (she lived in Burnhouse Street) and my grannie heard about it in the Steamie. There was fun & games when he came home from work that day! He was our favourite uncle too, he had all the Teddy Boy gear and was a dead ringer for George Cole.

Hi Lodger

We're obviously from the same parts.  I used to live in Kelvindale Road and went to Gairbraid School.  I used to go to school wearing my swimming costume!  so I could run across the road straight into the baths (swimming pool) after school.  Spent many a Saturday morning at the steamie with my mother - love it - it was fascinating!

[AllieElsokary]

A 14 year old ancestor of mine 'drowned while bathing' in 1872
On his Calton death certificate it names St Andrew's Swimming Baths as the place he died. Family living at 95 King St.
I can find no reference at all to a baths named St Andrew's in Calton.
Does anyone have any clues at all please?