Govan
South West Glasgow neighbourhoods feature high up on the Scottish Executive’s Index of Multiple Deprivation 2004 in crime, health, unemployment and addiction, with over half of residents in the South West CHSCP (Community Health and Social Care Partnership) living within Scotland’s worst 15% datazones. This is a harsh reality played out daily on the streets of Govan and its surrounding neighbourhoods and a constant of life in our communities.
Hospital admissions for drug abuse are four times the national average, and seven times for alcohol abuse. In Ibrox, where our workshop premises are situated, the rates of alcohol admission are 300% higher than the Scottish average and South West Glasgow has the third lowest life expectancy in Scotland.
A former shipbuilding community, the area lost 95% of the jobs in this industry between 1951 and 2001. This is further compounded in a society where work takes place increasingly in business and industrial parks where there is limited community engagement. The South West CHSCP area has one of Scotland’s highest levels of children living in a workless household at 37%, 104% above the Scottish average. GalGael’s workshop situates the world of work firmly back in the heart of the community and nurtures positive workplace attitudes.
Place of the Smith
This paints a bleak picture but Govan is known the world over for its shipbuilding. But few today know of the ancient law mound, Celtic stones and primal forests of Govan’s distant past. The site where Govan Old Parish Church stands today is known to have been a place of worship for many thousands of years founded by St. Constantine in 565 AD. The protection of this settlement fostered, among other crafts, a smithy and the word “Govan” itself means; ‘place of the smith’.
An impressive collection of medieval sculpted stones were found at Govan Old Parish Church and can be seen there today. They are noted for their decorative carvings which show Pictish, Northumbrian, Cumbrian, Gaelic and Norse influences. Together with five curious hogback stones in the Church, they indicate that the site was once a major cultural centre. The hogbacks are 10th Century tombstones carved in the shape of a longhouse. Intricate animal carvings adorn many of the end gables. These unique stones evolved in a number of Gaelic-Norse settlement areas of the British Isles, revealing a fusion of the Norse and Gaelic carving style and cultures and a shared reverence for the natural world.
