The multi-faceted project will offer opportunities for former and current residents to record their memories of Glasgow’s older housing stock and their experiences of living in extensive housing schemes and high-rise tower blocks. GSC also wants to explore how the schemes changed and grew over time.

The project is funded by The National Lottery Heritage Fund with additional support from Communities Past & Futures Society. 

GSC will recruit local volunteers from diverse backgrounds to work with the project, including jobseekers, young carers and people with disabilities, who are often unable to access a career in the heritage sector, and people with an interest in history. Volunteers will receive training and be supported to work with GSC and its heritage experts to research the history and record testimonies.

The project will create a unique digital oral history archive of interviews that will be presented as an open collection on the project website; trained volunteers will continue to add more recorded interviews to that collection over time.

Jennifer Morrison, chair of Glasgow Story Collective, said: “Some older residents recall living in ‘wonderful tenements’, with high ceilings and gloriously tiled stairways, fantastic neighbours and close-knit communities; others talk about slum dwellings no longer fit for habitation, which had poor sanitation, communal toilets, and outdoor plumbing.

“They all talk about being moved away from relatives and friends to new housing developments, including modern high-rise flats and schemes, though these appear to have been either loved or loathed by occupants, hence our project title, ‘Marmite Housing’. Whilst these ‘shiny’ new developments were modern and spacious compared to earlier working-class housing stock, they often lacked basic local amenities, such as shops, community spaces, and regular, affordable transport links.

“Many of those new ‘schemes’ later became notorious for having poor quality housing and dampness, high unemployment, crime, and notorious gang culture and violence; residents have since worked hard to regenerate their neighbourhoods. This project will reveal and preserve all of those lived experiences, good and bad, happy and sad, and probably much more.”

“We are deeply grateful to The National Lottery Heritage Fund and National Lottery players for their financial support, and to the many groups and individuals who are and will support the project as it progresses. GSC has egalitarian and inclusive values and is not affiliated to any political party.”

To record your lived experiences or volunteer with the project, please email: GSCollective@outlook.com.