Re: Scottish people emigrating to Canada.
 

Good point. This could explain the mythology. But it's not true any more.

Re: Scottish people emigrating to Canada.
 

I think you've almost hit this one on the head. It's not Scotland that's a shithole but Glasgow.

Re: Scottish people emigrating to Canada.
 

What? The 1991 European Capital of Culture? What happened in a couple of decades?

Re: Scottish people emigrating to Canada.
 

That they can't return home with Native wives? True, not in the societal censure of marrying outside one's ethnic group. That's not applicable to the same degree today. We could probably argue that in a small sense, the outsider feeling that some expats comment upon as present in their daily lives still lives on though.

I've often wondered, if some of that mythology of Canada as place to make one's fortune and way in the world, wound its way almost subconsciously into generations of Scottish families who remained behind. I imagine even more so once relatives came back to the UK in their retirement during the 1700 and 1800s with their company pensions and well embellished tales of living in the wilderness. There might very well have been a centuries-old influence on people's decisions to emigrate that started off as an old half-remembered family history told by some male ancestor that subsequent generations of grandsons and great-nephews then decided to take up and the cycle continued. Interesting.

Re: Scottish people emigrating to Canada.
 

I probably exaggerate, though I did have a grim stay there 4 years ago where I got my wallet nicked as well. We did go to a fine restaurant called 'The Ubiquitous Chip' - thankfully before the wallet walked...

Re: Scottish people emigrating to Canada.
 

I guess you can take the Englishman out of England... but not the English out of the Englishman... :rofl:


Glasgow does have areas that are shitholes inhabited by people that waste the air... Find me a city that doesn't...

However it also has been invested in and cleaned up a lot over the past 3 years or so and the city centre is genuinely a nice place to be now. With some stunning architecture and a long rich history. Places to visit like George Square, the Merchant City, Kelvingrove Art Galleries, Pollock Park and the Burrell collection, the Necropolis, the west end and University Avenue etc etc ....its a hard working University city not a holiday camp, it certainly has plenty to see and do and a high population of hard working friendly and culturally interesting people. I am proud to be Glaswegian and proud to be Scottish... Kilts, Bagpipes, Irn Bru & Haggis the whole bit!! Scotland has soul... Like it or loath it you can't deny that.

As one of the Glaswegians on the forum looking to move to Canada I can categorically state I am not running away, I am not seeking a "better life" and I am not rejecting my cultural background. I'm just approaching 40 and want to experience something different, something new and somewhere that the weather isn't grey 90% of the year! Canada is my new home of choice, yes parts of it remind me of home, but with an interesting newness thrown in and just a different outlook and attitude... not better or worse... just different.

I'm away to make myself some Porridge and then go up north search of Nessie...

"They may take our lives - but they will never take our FREEDOM!!"

Re: Scottish people emigrating to Canada.
 

Ah, the recipient of the 2001 Carbuncle award for Worst Place in Scotland. Way to set the tone for the thread.

I don't (yet) know any urban place in Canada as visually pleasing to me as Edinburgh although admittedly I've still loads to see. Ottawa does well. Old Montreal also does alright. Toronto, not so much.

All of those win over Glasgow pretty easily for me on the visual front, but Glasgow has its own pockets of magic as well, I just find you have to go looking for them, they're not all slap bang in front of you when you step off the train.

Glasgow tears Edinburgh up for arse paper when it comes to arts and music. Some you win, some you lose.

I think what I am trying to say is Glasgow is really not a bad place, it holds its own.

Everywhere has its good and bad but it'd be a pretty short and boring thread if we all just acknowledged that. ;)

Re: Scottish people emigrating to Canada.
 

A voice behind me says "Glasgow? I always thought of Glasgow as a fun and safe place, somewhere to go drinking without fear".

Re: Scottish people emigrating to Canada.
 

Good one! The SNP insisted on having drinking as an event within the Glasgow commonwealth games in 2014 to guarantee one Gold for the host city.

Re: Scottish people emigrating to Canada.
 

Not "Biggles" then? I thought you might have been a pal of "Aviator" ;)

Re: Scottish people emigrating to Canada.
 

Impressive stuff from the Geordie. That was some year for the drinkers and the "E" possy. Pubs open to 2am and clubs to 6am, all for the cause of "culture". Unfortunately, by the summer of 1992, that culture of extended swallying resulted in a curfew being enforced which forbid anyone being on the city streets after 11pm.

Re: Scottish people emigrating to Canada.
 

Glasgow isn't called No Mean City for no reason. It has been a tough and rough place for many years. Within the past few years pubs in the city centre were forced by legislation to serve beer in plastic glasses because of the propensity of many drinkers to use the glass ones as weapons.

Re: Scottish people emigrating to Canada.
 

Walked the proverbial beat in Glasgow and outlying area such as Easterhouse, Barlanark etc for almost 28 years....yes it is a bit of a dump, particularly when you get off the 'Tourist Route'..in the City proper...as is the case with most, if not all mayor cities in the UK.

Re: Scottish people emigrating to Canada.
 

The ban on glass tumblers removed my right to defend myself! Seriously though, Glasgow has escaped the recent media reporting of binge culture in the UK. Maybe it is the benchmark. Newcastle, Cardiff, Liverpool, Nottingham and Bristol are on the hot list of cities with vibrant and lucrative drinking tourism.

Re: Scottish people emigrating to Canada.
 

Yet Newcastle is a good place to live these days. My father-in-law still lives there and so did my mother-in-law and my mother until they recently died, so we know it well. If going down the Bigg Market or the Quayside very late on a Saturday night isn't your preference, the binge drinking issue is fairly irrelevant to all but redtop press readers. I imagine it's the same in Glasgow.