DEEDEE CUDDIHY on a tenement testament that pulls no punches

IT'S often claimed that kids these days are out of control and have no

respect for their elders, but according to a new exhibition at

Springburn Museum in Glasgow, it has always been that way.

The Tenement Folk examines a boy's life in Springburn during the

period 1911-1926 when youngsters were expected to make their own

entertainment.

This was a challenge that Andrew Lillie and his pals apparently rose

to with gusto. Now aged 84, Mr Lillie spent the first 15 years of his

life in Springburn and had such happy memories of the place that on his

retirement from Glasgow Corporation, where he worked as an architect, he

decided to make a meticulous record, in words and highly detailed

watercolour paintings, of his Springburn youth.

The paintings and manuscript along with lists of what had been sold in

local paper, toy and sweetie shops, lay undisturbed in his south-side

home until Eileen Gordon of Springburn Museum heard about them and

decided to investigate.

''I was stunned when Mr Lillie showed me his work,'' she recalls.

''There, in a corner of the sitting room, were the makings of an entire

exhibition -- including the title, The Tenement Folk, which is what he

had called the project.''

A year later, Andrew Lillie's childhood has come to life in the museum

in Atlas Square, where a selection of his watercolours plus accompanying

descriptions has been complemented by a tenement kitchen (including an

aspidistra plant ordered specially for the show), a ''cludgie'' and a

classroom, re-created from the museum's own collection of period

objects.

In The Tenement Folk, Mr Lillie doesn't gloss over the fact that while

he may have been willing to go a message for his pipe-smoking old

granny, he was no angel when it came to the rough and tumble of everyday

Springburn life.

The exhibition recalls schoolbag bashing; the chucking of stones,

clods of earth and snowballs at a variety of targets including girls,

rival gangs and the school;attacking ''the enemy'' using a battery of

weapons fashioned from lumps of wood and metal umbrella spokes; the

constant lighting of bonfires; spitting water at adults; kicking muddy

footballs into clean washing and what Mr Lillie fondly refers to as his

first ''jellie-nosed, black-eyed'' fight.

And you thought your kids were badly behaved.

A series of workshops where people of all ages can have a go at making

their own wally close tile -- as once found in superior Springburn

tenements -- is being held at the museum this month. Contact Eileen

Gordon on 0141-557 1405 for details.