It shimmers like a summer romance.
Glasgow knows that its love affair with last year's Commonwealth Games is over, but it still wants an occasional lingering backward glance at what had been.
Had it really been a beautiful warm sunny start to the Games? Were the streets really full of happy, laughing guides and visitors? Did Glasgow really look that verdant when the cameras panned around the city at cycle races and marathons?
Holding on to the Games dream is the People's Palace on Glasgow Green where modestly corralled on a corner of the top floor is a tribute to the Commonwealth Games entitled Our Games which is a gathering of people's memories of the sporting cornucopia curated by Host City Volunteers. I now know that Host City Volunteers, who were stationed at key points in Glasgow, are different from the Clydesiders, who helped the public at the actual sports venues, but it is a tad esoteric to distinguish between the two.
Anyway, at the Our Games corner of the People's Palace - I tell myself like many other Glaswegians that I really should go to the People's Palace more often - what confronts you is a cut-out model of a volunteer with a television instead of a head on which is flashed the pictures of all the volunteers. Guide Lyndsay tells me that it takes 18 minutes to scroll through all the head shots, and visitors have been known to stand patiently for quarter of an hour until they see their own face flash momentarily before them.
Inside, the warm familiarity of last summer envelopes you like a favourite blanket. Sitting leaning against a pillar, above reaching distance in case anyone felt like trying it on, is the costume of Games mascot Clyde, that green-limbed and purple-haired thistle who always looked a bit demented rather than friendly to me. Up high in another corner are two of the Tunnock's tea cake costumes, survivors of that twee opening ceremony which had many Scots curling their toes involuntarily in embarrassment although on-lookers abroad seemed to like it.
And there, a model of a Scottie dog wearing that distinctive tweed coat which really was a big "awe" moment in the opening ceremony as the little terriers boldly marched in front of every competing nation. Or were carried when they felt like having a sit-down. But don't just take my word for it. In front of the model Scotty is a screen running a continuous loop of an interview with one of the Scottish terrier handlers, Heather Hodgson, who appeared with her daughter's dog Radley. "I was really really proud," says Heather. "When they told me what I was doing I just burst into tears." On screen, recalling it months later, she has to wipe away another tear. Watching it, I'm almost wiping away a tear too. People's Palace! Sell some packets of paper handkerchiefs up there, and earn a bob or two.
Amongst the uniforms, badges and ephemera on display are quotations from the volunteers, trying to explain how Glasgow felt last summer. Pensioner Drina from Castlemilk recalled: "Even though it was raining I was dancing in George Square with an umbrella, singing in the rain 'cause people were looking at you. What else could you do!" That just sums up the daftness of it all. These volunteers, remember, were not professional communicators. A third of them had never volunteered before. Nearly a third were under 25, and a quarter were from ethnic minorities.
At weekends there are occasional tours of the Our Games display coupled with a tour of Glasgow Green's outstanding memorials and structures. I'm joined on one tour by Jim McGuinness from Calton, himself a former Host City Volunteer, and a retired asphalt spreader whose rich Glasgow vowels sound as though he gargled with the asphalt before laying it on the ground.
How did he get involved? "I've always loved Glasgow," says Jim. "I was watching the ceremony on the telly when Glasgow got the Games and I leapt off the couch. I knew then I wanted to get involved. Glasgow's one of the most friendliest places, and everybody wants to do their bit for Glasgow." As we walk across the Green, a cycle race is flying past, and Jim breaks off our chat to clap one of the stragglers and tell him: "You're doin' well son! You're doin' well." Clearly his enthusiasm from last summer has not dissipated.
He recalled: "There seemed to be this aura about Glasgow. It's never looked so good. I've never experienced so much joy in the city." Visitors for the Games would ask Jim where to visit, what to eat. "Haggis, I told them. And fish. We have some of the best fish in the world here." Jim breaks off again to point out some bare trees. "Did you know they were worried about a spate of robberies up in Springburn Park so they discreetly put up cameras in the trees to try to catch who was doin' it? But they put them up in the winter. When the spring came and the leaves grew they couldn't see a thing." Jim, one suspects, has a story for every occasion.
We speak about the Calton Weavers who were shot by troops near the Green for going on strike. Their graves are still tucked away nearby. The imposing Templeton Carpet Factory on the edge of the Green saw woman machinists killed when a wall collapsed early in its life. Not all memories at this historic patch of Glasgow are happy ones.
I say cheerio to Jim. Asphalt laying was not continuous employment and there were many periods without work for him. But not only did he put his all into being a guide and volunteer at the Games last summer, one suspects it also gave volunteers such as Jim confidence and pride. So last year's love affair with the Games inevitably fades. But at least a lot of people were enriched by it.
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