Toby Symonds

GARDENING isn’t everyone’s calling. That much can be seen in this photograph of 10-year-old Jacqueline Murdoch prodding the freshly dug up ground of 11-year-old Alan Graham in the grounds of Castleton Primary School, in Glasgow’s southerly district of Castlemilk. from 1988.

As much fun as the pair are so obviously having in this blissfully harmonious scene, there was a wider goal to these proceedings. This so-called gardening was all part of the Castlemilk Environment Programme of the late-eighties, itself key to a bigger scheme still.

Largely the product of a fifties housing project to redistribute Glasgow’s overcrowded slums (such as Gorbals), in 1971 the population of Castlemilk stood at 37,000. By 1988 this number had almost halved. Thus, regeneration was the buzz word of the moment, with the implementation of a strategy to improve amenities for the Castlemilk community and develop activities and arts in the area.

Activities including the art of gardening at the local Primary School.

The Herald’s reporter, somewhat optimistically, captioned this image as “planting young trees” in 1988. Whether anyone would have been prepared to bet on said trees’ chances come 1989, however, remains as doubtful as the chances of Alan’s pristinely white trainers making it through the activity unblemished.

Jacqueline’s footwear too seems doomed; she, unlike Alan – dressed rather splendidly in a (now) vintage Adidas pullover and corduroys, apparently missed the memo about that day being a none-uniform day. No wonder she looks so glum.