{"id":63752,"date":"2018-01-05T22:44:57","date_gmt":"2018-01-05T22:44:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.scotclans.com\/?p=63752"},"modified":"2022-03-05T12:03:09","modified_gmt":"2022-03-05T12:03:09","slug":"the-vampire-of-the-gorbals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/project1-m9gb2xku8.live-website.com\/?p=63752","title":{"rendered":"The Gorbals Vampire"},"content":{"rendered":"

A short distance from Glasgow city centre on the\u00a0south bank of the Clyde is an area known as The Gorbals. \u00a0The origins of the Gorbals are quite surprising \u00a0– most people, myself included just think of the history of\u00a0slums associated with this area, but The Gorbals\u00a0started off as a small village centred on one street, \u00a0parts of The Gorbals\u00a0were even considered fashionable. \u00a0It was designed in\u00a01872 on a Parisian diamond style\u00a0centred around a\u00a0fountain. \u00a0The design of The Gorbals was never set up to house the amount of people that lived there. \u00a0This was an area that covered just 2% of Glasgow and by\u00a01931, 85,000 people were living here. \u00a0It didn’t take long before The Gorbals was bursting at the seams.<\/p>\n

It was Glasgow in the 1950s, a time effected by industry and recovering from the effect of war. It was a dark time – literally, the buildings were all stained black with soot, thick smog covered the streets blocking out the natural light, often it was hard to see more than a few feet infront of you.<\/p>\n

The destruction and disruption and from the war meant that by the 1950s there was a massive housing crisis, overcrowding had reached it’s peak. WWII saw house building stop completely, and now there was a baby boom.<\/p>\n

The tenements were built quickly and cheaply and were designed to pack in as many people in as possible. \u00a0There were no gardens, or lawns. Definitely no playgrounds.<\/p>\n

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The Gorbals<\/i><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Appalling conditions came with it and it was not unusual for houses to have no water facilities and for sewage to run through the rat riddled streets. This was one of Europe’s most deprived neighbourhoods. \u00a0It was not uncommon for up to eight family members to share the same single bedroom. \u00a0In many parts of the Gorbals, up to 30 people would have to share the same toilet and more than 40 residents would have to use the same tap. Life was tough.<\/p>\n

Here there was a horrendous amount of poverty, gangs ran amok, and there was sectarian violence, this was a notorious area. To be fair there was\u00a0another side to The Gorbals\u00a0in-spite\u00a0of all of this – it\u00a0was famous for its community spirit which could not be crushed.\u00a0Kids would fill the streets, all ages,\u00a0playing football, hide and seek and building dens,\u00a0and even hunting vampires as this story of The Vampire of The Gorbals\u00a0tells.<\/p>\n

There was one place that was the exception in The Gorbals, a beautiful green open space – this was Glasgow\u2019s largest and oldest municipal graveyard, the Southern Necropolis. A beautiful graveyard that covered many acres. The cemetery can be found on Caledonia Road.\u00a0 The Southern Necropolis provided much needed burial place for the Southside of Glasgow as many of the other cemeteries were filled to capacity.<\/p>\n

It must have been such a contrast to the dark bustling slums filled with noise, the impressive entrance to The Southern Necropolis with it’s gothic gatehouse. \u00a0For kids growing up in The Gorbals this must have been the equivalent of their fields and woods, somewhere to escape … somewhere to imagine a different life.<\/p>\n

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A group of boys from the Gorbals play amongst the gravestones \u00a0Picture – The Forgotten Gorbals – pub. 1948 (Photo by Bert Hardy\/Getty Images)<\/i><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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The entrance to The Southern Necropolis<\/i><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Stories had been circulating in the Gorbals about missing children, believed killed, the culprit was said to be a seven-foot vampire, lurking in the Southern Necropolis. The vampire\u00a0was described as having iron teeth, which it used to kill and eat up children. The stories spread like\u00a0wildfire, everyone knew someone who knew someone who had fallen victim to the vampire.<\/p>\n

The adults wouldn’t believe the kids, so the kids decided to deal with this monster once and for all – by themselves. Secretly they passed messages, arranged meetings, made weapons and plotted their attack. \u00a0In 1954, hundreds of young kids from the Gorbals area of Glasgow swarmed into the creepy Necropolis graveyard on the hunt for a vampire with “iron teeth” . Armed with sharp sticks and even dogs they hunted for hours upon hours, more and more kids came over the next two days. \u00a0The police were called but couldn’t move the children, it took a local head teacher to finally disperse the crowd.<\/p>\n

The following day, pupils were lectured on the folly of vampire hunting. The story of the missing children had been\u00a0unfounded.<\/p>\n

Everyone now wanted to know how this had happened? \u00a0Who was to blame?<\/p>\n

Local historians believe they were inspired by the earlier legend of “Jenny wi\u2019 the Iron Teeth”, a murderous ghost said to haunt Glasgow Green. \u00a0There was also an American comic book at that time entitled: \u201cThe Vampire with the Iron Teeth\u201d. Maybe inspired by a\u00a0passage in the Bible, Daniel 7:7, that reads: \u201cBehold a fourth beast, dreadful and terrible, and strong exceedingly; and it had great iron teeth\u201d.<\/p>\n

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The US comic that was blamed for the hysteria<\/i><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

After the story appeared in the local press, it gained worldwide coverage. An unlikely alliance of Christians, communists and the National Union of Teachers blamed imported American horror comic books for the mass hysteria Before long the country was in the grip of a full blown panic. The campaign even reached parliament, where it was championed by Alice Cullen, Labour MP for the Gorbals, and resulted in the 1955 Children and Young Persons (Harmful Publications) Act being passed – an act which still stands today.<\/p>\n

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Memories of Hunting The Gorbals Vampire<\/h2>\n
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Some of the men who hunted the Gorbals vampire as children at the Necropolis in 1954 return to the scene of the hunt<\/i><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n