Event: Storytelling Workshop: West Enders

Glasgow on Thursday, 22nd September 2005

Who Came?

People living in and around the West End working in creative occupations. E.g.  Writers, Architects and Designers.

What happened?

The purpose of the event was to explore the feelings and beliefs held by participants about the West End of Glasgow. They looked at the past, the present and the future. This was used as a basis for developing stories

The Lowdown

The group discussed their relationship to the past and their expectations for the future, using this framework . You can look at how they filled it out here.

They used this exercise as a prompt to describe characters living in the West End in 2020….

David is one of the West End villagers. His loyalty to the West End means that hew is willing to fight for the area. He is opinionated and picks on people who drop litter. David is voted onto committees regularly. In the West End people are too polite to ask people what they do, so they never know what people are up to.

Yvonne is 60, has a cat and is a secretary part time. She is detached from relatives and has a network of friends, but does not see much of them. On the periphery of the West End, Yvonne is lonely and depressed, drinking too much. She is a West-ender by accident, not design. She is thinking of moving into a retirement home, but is afraid of alienation.

Duncan is balding and doesn’t look after himself. He has a ponytail. Duncan works as a musician and a playwright, and hangs out at Oran Mor, or the tramway. He wears a hat, and seems to bumble along fine without making a lot of money. He isn’t really happy, and isn’t getting to where he wants to be, but he isn’t a Merchant City type, and this is important to him.

Angela has a portfolio of properties which were bought after a divorce settlement from a (German) Rangers footballer. She sees the West End as a means to make more money. She is 35, glamorous, and has been divorced for 5 years.

Monica is a single, trendy 30-something. She is Italian, and came to Glasgow a few years ago. Monica has a flat in the West End (that’s all she can afford) and has a trendy bike. The cosmopolitan west end makes her feel at home.

Jane is 30 and a single parent who has come to Glasgow. Childcare is difficult and expensive so she relies on a friends network (this is good in the West End), as she cannot afford to buy it. Her life is a rush, she is HE part time and teashop waitress part time. She really wants/needs to stay in the West End, so, while she does everything to improve the life of her daughter, she feels guilty about the lack of time she spends with her.

Amy originally came from Cambodia and was adopted by a single mother. She went to school in the West End where people were lovely, and pleased to know someone from Cambodia, but now she is 17 and has started to experience racism. She is thinking of going back to Cambodia. Amy wants to become a doctor.

Hugh is 40 (and will know David) but litter is not a problem in 2020. He is competent, clever, skilled and knows everyone as he walks down the street. He has no sense of the social deprivation outside the West End, and is quite happy.

Andy is 35, he was a naughty kid at school but pulled it together for Highers and got into Glasgow University. All other social climbing can be done in the West End. He is now an accountant in Park Circus, where high flying people like him live in Church Towers, with  BMWs. Andy makes it to Ikea every weekend. He isn’t very clever but does not think much about social areas.

Andy has a middle class background. He was behaved un till secondary school where he became rebellious and got into drugs, which messed him up. He cleaned up at 20. Now Andy does odd jobs, and is quite happy but with a couple of slates loose. He is witty, intelligent and clever, but is not as happy as he thinks he should be. When he sees the other Andy he realises he could have done so much more.

The group have started to use the characters to develop a story. Here’s how it goes so far…

Duncan has met Amy at a bus stop, where Amy started a conversation. Her passion and need to be Cambodian again has stirred something in him, which was disturbing and although he though he was getting material for a play he now realises it is something he wishes for himself. He realises he has not dealt with his own past. He cannot cope with it.

Monica meets Angela at an entrepreneurial breakfast. Angela has capital, they put a plan together but Monica does most of the work. Angela sees it as an interesting dinner. Jane meets David in a coffee shop. The relationship builds late in the evening. David wants to marry her and offers her a flat, but she decides that this is like being in the sex industry, so if that’s the case, she would just as soon become a lap dancer.

Yvonne finds Angela who has been mugged. Yvonne takes her to Casualty and stays with her. It turns out that Yvonne is the only visitor. They develop a mutual dependency and Angela moves in. Angela provides money enough for both. Andy meets Andy searching through a skip. They start talking, for the first time in 15 years, since school days. They go to a tea room (rejecting McDonald’s). Rich Andy is jealous of bohemian Andy because Rich Andy has always had a predictable life. He wishes he had some excitement. Poor Andy is vice versa!

They suggest a house swap for a week but rich Andy does not like this. Poor Andy then loses his job.

Like that? Think you could do better? Could you write 500-1,500 words on the West End in 2020. Christmas Day 2020? A West End Hogmonay? Better? More exciting? Send a story, with your contact details, to Glasgow 2020, Oyster Arts, 100 Beith Street, Glasgow. G11 6DQ. Or e-mail Gerry Hassan. We will publish all stories on the website, and especially good ones on hoardings around Glasgow and in a forthcoming book.