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 Sir Alex Ferguson, Football Manager: I was always playing football as a boy. Games would be going on in the streets and in the backcourts of the tenements next to our home in Govan and myself and my brother Martin would get involved. My father Alex loved his football, but he rarely had the chance to play the game with us. Having to work so hard to earn a wage to support the family meant he hardly had the time. But he did get holidays and when the family was able to get away together, it was very different. The ball would come out and Dad would join in with us both. We would play for hours and hours and I took so much from playing together with my brother and father. These were really special moments for me, Martin and Dad as well. I always remember them very fondly.
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 Billy Connolly, Comedian: Sadly, even today, there are children growing up in Glasgow feeling unwanted and unloved - this is not only distressing but also unnecessary when there are families prepared to give children a happy loving home.
If you would consider fostering or adopting a child please get in touch with Glasgow City Council at www.glasgow.gov.uk/memories or phone 0845 270 0609.
One phone call could change someone’s life for the better – and it might just be yours'
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 Bob Winter, Lord Provost: My earliest childhood memory is of eating a mashed up banana on a saucer at the Ground Floor window of the tenement flat in Maryhill where I was born and brought up. This would have been in 1939. I also remember not seeing or eating a banana again until ten years later because they weren’t available during the war and not for some time afterwards.
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 Cat Harvey, DJ, Real Radio: One of my best childhood memories was my dad taking me to my first ever football game at Firhill to see Partick Thistle. I got a cone with raspberry sauce from Jaconelli's and then lifted over the turnstile.
I never watched any of the match because I ended up playing in a 20-a-side game with a squashed quenchy cup carton with all the other kids behind the goal on the terracing.
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 Clare Grogan, Singer and Actress: One of my fondest childhood memories is sitting on my Mum's knee in a very dark cinema - the ABC in Sauchiehall Street watching Doris Day films. My Mum loved Doris. So I recently downloaded a whole selection of her old movies to watch with my daughter Elle Lucia. We cosy up on the sofa with a big bowl of popcorn and laugh our way through them. Elle totally gets it! Creating lovely memories and passing on little rituals and habits I think is such an important and joyful part of being a parent. Helping with homework which me Mum also did, not quite as much fun! |
 Colin Kelly, DJ, Clyde 1: I remember learning to ride a bike in Millport. I went there every summer with my Mum, Dad and brother when I was younger. I’d progressed from stabilisers to a bike with a handle sticking out the back of it so my Dad could run along behind me holding it and stopping it toppling over. One day I went faster and faster until eventually my Dad had to let go and that was it…I was cycling on my own, on two wheels, for the first time.
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 Elaine C Smith, Comedienne/Actress: Being a parent is one of the most rewarding and joyful things that has ever happened to me in my life. My two daughters mean everything to me but they also drive me bonkers. Parenting is just simply the most important role I will ever play.
I remember a secure and happy home when growing up and I am still extremely close to both my sisters and their families. It is awful that so many youngsters do not have the opportunity to experience the warmth and love of a family environment.
It's the most exhausting, demanding and difficult journey to negotiate, with pressure from all sides in this world telling us how to be a perfect parent. My advice to any parent would be to do your best, forgive yourself and get on with loving your children and hopefully one day they'll tidy their room!
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Garry Spence, DJ, Galaxy Radio: The Summer holidays were always ace, it felt like months every time. Building go-karts with my mates, games of kerby lasting for hours, and having an 'empty' during the day - that was the always the big one! |
 George Bowie, DJ, Clyde 1: One of my greatest childhood memories must be my first gig. It was at the Apollo in Glasgow when I was 10 years old my dad took me to see Madness. It was a bizarre experience because I’d never seen so many people all grouped together in the one place at the same time, all jumping about and singing along to a set list of hits that they knew inside out. After an hour or so I realised that I only knew one of the songs, but that didn’t matter. Even though it should have been quite intimidating for a wee 10 year old boy to be standing in amongst this crowd it wasn’t, because I knew my dad was there so I was safe. I was so engrossed in the show that I didn’t even notice anyone else around me. I’ve since taken my son Ross to many gigs over the past 10 years: his first one was The Red Hot Chilli Peppers at Murrayfield, which a special father and son moment for me. Unfortunately my two daughters love Justin Beiber, so wish me luck! |
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 Gray O'Brien, Actor: As a child growing up in the west coast of Scotland, we looked forward, in the summer months, to our Trips 'doon the water' to Rothesay, Arran and Millport. On one such trip, as a six year old, to Rothesay, I was tucking into an ice-cream at the front when a cheeky wee besom of a seagull swooped down and plucked the cone from my hand. The tears didn't have a chance to well up before an elderly gentleman took pity on me and presented with with a fresh 'pokey-hat'. Earlier this summer, as I waited with my son on the Millport ferry, waiting for it to leave. I saw that very same gull, do the very same thing to another unsuspecting child. Perhaps it wasn't the same gull, but the memory made me smile.
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 Kaye Adams, Broadcaster: I guess one of my favourite times with my girls is Saturday morning. We are never in a rush to go anywhere so Daddy gets kicked out to go to work then the three of us watch some kids' tv or an old episode of Total Wipeout if we can find it and generally giggle our way through the morning. Eventually, we get up and invariably make pancakes before wandering out to get stuff done.
For me, it's bliss and I wouldn't trade it for anything.
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 Lorraine Herbison, Head of News & Sport, Radio Clyde: I'm a true city girl but as a farmer's daughter from Northern Ireland I think I might be a country girl at heart. As a youngster I loved helping my dad herd cows down country roads as he moved them from one field to another. En route we would stop at an orchard to pick apples and plums and I can remember the lovely smell of the fruit and the grass. l now love getting out of the city at the weekend whether it be to the coast or other beautiful parts of Scotland. |
 Louise White, STV Newsreader: I remember walking up the Sgurr on the Isle of Eigg under the baking hot sun. My seven year old legs didn't stretch that far then and it seemed to take an age. However the rewards at the top were worth it - great views of the next door island of Rhum enjoyed while quenching our thirst with a can of juice and munching squashed and squidgy jam sandwiches.
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 Councillor Matt Kerr, Executive Member for Social Care: I grew up in Saltcoats, down by the Firth of Clyde coast. During the summer I'd spend a lot of time down by the beach, especially when the sun was shining. My mother would take me to the beach with my little sister and we'd spend all day there, just playing and running around. At lunchtime, my dad would come and join us. He'd park up his works van, get his trunks on and go swimming with us. He always said he was going to swim to Horse Island which is some distance off the coast. But there was no way he could swim that far. And certainly not there and back before he was due back at work.
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 Michelle Mone, Founder of Ultimo Lingerie: I loved performing when I was a wee girl and I used to go to stage and dance classes and compete in lots of competitions.
My mum would sometimes take me to get sausage and onion and Irn Bru from the chip shop afterwards and I used to look forward to it so much. |
 Paul Harper, DJ, Real Radio: My best childhood memory was visiting a relative’s farm and feeding the lambs when I was four. I even got to sit on the combine harvester and really wanted to be a farmer after that. As I got older it all looked like too much hard work though so I became a DJ!
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 Peter Capaldi, Actor: My family lived in a set of smoky tenement buildings in a lively road in Springburn. When I say my family, I mean all of them: my uncles, aunts, cousins, and both of my grannies either stayed in our building, the one that faced us, or the one across the back court. I know with hindsight that life had been unkind to Granny Soutar, but she seemed to me a mirthful woman. When she babysat, she gave us unique treats, encouraging us to join her at the window to watch the pubs coming out in the hope of seeing a fight, a sing song or a drunk man wobbling his way home. This was fine entertainment and I always looked forward to it.
Granny Soutar loved the telly and in particular "The Fugitive". David Jansen starred as Dr. Richard Kimble, wrongly accused of murdering his wife. His sighting of a one armed man at the scene of the crime was ignored and he was found guilty. However, the train carrying him to prison crashed, he escaped, changed his identity, dyed his hair Elvis black and set about trying to clear his name while staying one step ahead of the Feds. And that was just the title sequence.
The story of a good man wronged – a doctor no less – forced to wander across the States in disguise, never able to settle down (although love often found him) was dynamite in the Sixties. So it was an enormous shock when people learned that it was to end. However it would not end unceremoniously, and there would be a final episode in which the story would be resolved. There could be no more important appointment in my Granny’s diary and she prepared for it with the gravity it deserved.
Fistfuls of confectionery were procured from our very own cafe and we all went to Granny Soutar’s to gather round the big blue box in the corner. As the hour approached the streets emptied, and an eerie, apprehensive silence fell across Springburn.
And then, the doorbell went.
Nothing could prepare us for the horror of discovering who was standing on the doorstep. Father Martin. The priest.
We were not a devout family, but the priest was the priest. We lived in his parish. It was his church we reluctantly showed up in when my mother took sudden attacks of piety. And we were taught in his school. Furthermore, Granny Soutar ‘s people were Irish. So there was no argument. He had to come in.
He had to have a cup of tea and, in a time without YouTube, iPlayer, DVDs or any means whatsoever of re-viewing a tv programme, the telly had to go off. My Granny had turned the colour of greaseproof paper. If we’d been a trauma team we would have gone in, but all we could do was sit and stare helplessly as the priest was settled down into the best chair. If he was surprised at the large amount of confectionery available to him he didn’t say. He clearly had weightier matters in mind and launched into the special whispery Irish accent they teach them at priest school. “How are you doing Mary? And how is your health? And the girls, how are they all doing? And you’re still cleaning at the school?"
Dimly the sound of The Fugitive title sequence began to drift in from our neighbours’, the Free. The drama was being beamed out into the ether never to be recovered. As the polite conversation moved into deeper and more spiritual waters her eyes began to signal complex asides to us: what was she to do? Would he never shut up? This is Hell. Her face was a master class in tragi-comedy. An encyclopaedia of signals, twitches, frowns and gapes.
Finally, and to everyone’s utter disbelief, she said, "Father, would you mind if we put on ‘The Fugitive’? It's the very last episode and we're all here to see it."
I don’t know how familiar Father Martin was with the almost supernatural phenomenon of ‘The Fugitive’ but something clicked in his pastoral instinct, the good father nodded his approval, and the telly went back on. I can't remember whether he stayed till the end, or excused himself quietly during the adverts, but I like to imagine he stayed, settling back with a Cadbury’s crème egg, and benevolently watching justice finally done for Dr. Richard Kimble.
I was surprised to discover that the last episode of The Fugitive was broadcast in 1967. Sgt. Pepper was released that same year, Elvis married Pricilla and the war escalated in Vietnam. However in my memory it seems a time much further back. But the point of the story is not the when, but the who. Granny Soutar provided a safe place to be, a home full of love and security. And that is the greatest gift she, or anyone, could give a child: to provide a home where he, she, or they can feel safe and loved, and that will be there for them always.
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 Ricky Ross, Singer and DJ, Radio Scotland: Me and My Dad
When I left primary school I also had to leave my then piano teacher, Mrs McPherson.
She suggested that she could take me for private lessons on a Saturday at her house now that I was going to a different school. This would have been good if had not been for two factors:
1. The time was just before Dundee United’s home game kicked off
2. Her house was achingly close to Tannadice Park.
The next result was I couldn’t concentrate much for the last 15 minutes of the lesson as I was looking out the window for my Dad’s car pulling up and rescuing me from my torture.
In those days Dundee United didn’t win much but they won the battle of the piano versus football. Eventually I gave up the lessons but my Dad and I kept going to the football. It was our weekly ritual. We supported United but also went to see Dundee. He paid me in and I slipped out 5 minutes before half time to get in the pie queue early. We walked from the car together talking football and we walked back. We sat in traffic listening to the radio (it’s from my Dad that I inherited my love of that medium) and he consoled me when the team got turned over. “They weren’t humiliated, Son.”
Looking back now it’s hard to remember whether I loved going to the football and we both coalesced around that or whether (and I now think this is more likely) I remember the time so warmly because it was just me and my Dad. All I know is that despite the disappointment of occasional results Saturdays with Dad were the times I remember best. Now I take my son to the football with me. Recently we (with his mum too) saw Dundee United win the Scottish Cup together, something my Dad never lived to see. It was a very special day for us all.
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 Robin Galloway, DJ, Real Radio: I was convinced my mate Simon Ruddiman had Orange squash freely flowing from his kitchen taps! I used to go round to his to play and his Mum would always supply juice. I used to watch her filling up the cup straight from the kitchen sink. It was years later that I finally worked out that she was putting cordial in the cup first and serving us diluting juice! Doh!! |
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 Steve McKenna, DJ, Real Radio: We had midwifes, doctors and nurses with us throughout my wife’s 12 and a half hour labour. When she finally gave birth, a midwife handed my daughter to me and the seven or eight medical staff in the room wheeled my wife to theatre. We were all alone in the middle of the room. I was cradling her tiny head in one hand with her body on my forearm, not even reaching my elbow. For the first time that day there was complete silence. I stared at her. She had blonde hair. My hair’s brown. She had blue eyes. Mine are hazel. She was perfect but didn’t resemble me in anyway. Then I noticed her tiny little fingers. The top half of her pinkies were bent in at a forty five degree angle…..just like her daddy’s and her grannies. I tasted salty tears running into the corners of the biggest grin I’ve ever had in my life. ‘Oh my God’, I thought ‘I’m a dad!’
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 Suzie McGuire, DJ, Clyde 1: I will always remember taking Millie and Daisy to Disneyland, Florida for the very first time! Millie was 5, Daisy was 3 and it really was the most magical time as their wee faces just lit up the first time they saw Cinderella's castle! Cinderella herself came out and spoke to them and I had tears rolling down my cheeks as they truly believed everything was so real and just stood there amazed, taking everyting in! We were able to visit behind the scenes as well and the girls to this day still talk about having a tea party with Cinderella, Tinkerbelle, Winnie the Pooh and Sleeping Beauty!!! Wonderful memories to treasure always. Suzie x x x |