THE Glasgow 800 celebrations in May 1975 began not only with the procession mentioned here yesterday but also with a sun-drenched, multi-denominational ‘Songs of Praise’ Sunday gathering (pictured) in George Square.
Some 10,000 worshippers took part in what was at that point BBC TV’s largest-ever production of the programme. It was broadcast nationwide on BBC1 that same evening; the 25-minute-long package was sandwiched between ‘Anno Domini’ and an episode of the ‘The Brothers’ series.
The George Square service featured more than 600 highly coloured banners mounted on 12ft high wood crosses. They were auctioned the following weekend, the proceeds going to Christian Aid.
It was, all told, a hugely successful service, though this newspaper did remark on one sour note – a small group from the Twentieth Century Reformation Movement, led by Pastor Jack Glass. They were banned from the square but from a nearby street they kept up a steady chant of ‘No Popery’.
‘Songs of Praise’ was not the only broadcast made to mark Glasgow 800. The BBC did an outside radio broadcast from Sauchiehall Street later that week, and hundreds of people gathered in Buchanan Street to watch a live Radio Clyde show.
The celebrations took in scores of events, including popular daily bus tours, a Glasgow 800 exhibition at the People’s Palace, and a Scotland v Portugal match at Hampden (the Scots won 1-0, thanks to an own goal by Portugal’s Artur).
To coincide with the celebrations Glasgow University staged an exhibition, ‘The University and the City’, which looked at the social, economic and the environmental welfare of the community, by 10 people associated with the university.
The 10 were William Hunter, Adam Smith, Joseph Lister, Joseph Black, James Watt, William Hooker, William MacQuorn Rankine, Lord Kelvin, John Biles and John Glaister.
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