Toby Symonds

Malcolm Campbell was open all hours and had it all

THE Beatles’ own George Harrison appears to have been working in Malcolm Campbell’s Byres Road grocery store in 1978; or, rather, his likeness of the decade before. We can now only guess at the contents of his bottle, although Scotch Broth seems a likely suspect given the quantity of tins to be found in the shop.

Bananas too seem amply available. Not content with solely occupying their own slot on the counter, the fruit can be found amid the melons, apples, oranges and cauliflowers.

This photograph was taken one hundred years on from the year a young Glaswegian greengrocer, Malcolm Campbell, purchased the business that would adopt his name.

Under Campbell’s guidance, the shop expanded to wholesaling, becoming a limited company in 1899. At its peak, the chain had an impressive seventy sites across Glasgow.

The effluence of bananas within this 1978 shot is not, in fact, all that surprising. Indeed, Campbell is the man credited with introducing Scots to the fruit in the 1880s, when he displayed a banana tree in the window of his Gordon Street shop.

Campbell remained at the heart of his business until his 1935 death, aged 87, with descendants picking up the mantle across the rest of the century.

In a bizarre twist, the rise of supermarkets has led to a change in direction for the company. Malcolm Campbell Ltd. no longer sell fruit and veg but trade as commercial property investors and developers.