THE main domestic political story in those dank days of mid-January 1965 was the deteriorating health of Sir Winston Churchill. Successive front-page headlines in the Evening Times updated readers: “Sir Winston is very ill”; “World waits ... as doctors again visit Churchill”; “Sir Winston a little weaker”; “Sir Winston now worse”; “He’s sleeping peacefully”; “Winston: The end seems near.”
Churchill died on the 24th of the month.
It’s probably a fair bet that the fate of the inspirational figure who had led Britain throughout the Second World War occupied at least some of the conversation of Glasgow’s MPs, who assembled at the City Chambers at lunchtime on the 18th of the month, the guests of Lord Provost Peter Meldrum.
Pictured here with the Lord Provost and Lady Meldum are, from left to right, Richard Buchanan (Labour, Springburn); Mrs Alice Cullen (Labour, Gorbals); Hugh Brown (Labour, Provan); Neil Carmichael (Labour, Woodside); Teddy Taylor (Conservative, Cathcart); Alex Garrow (Labour, Pollok); James McInnes (Labour, Glasgow Central) and William Small (Labour, Scotstoun).
Mr Garrow died in December 1966, aged 43. His obituaries noted that he had caused one of the biggest upsets of the 1964 general election by wresting Pollok from the Conservatives. At the 1966 election he not only held onto the seat but increased his majority, too.
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