“The first thought of writing this book came to me two years ago after I had driven through the mining district of Lanarkshire. The journey took me through Hamilton, Airdrie and Motherwell. It was a warm, overcast summer day; groups of idle, sullen-looking young men stood at the street corners; smaller groups were wandering among the blue-black ranges of pit-dumps which in that region are the substitute for nature; the houses looked empty and unemployed like the tenants; and the road along which the car stumbled was pitted and rent, as if it had recently been under shell-fire. Everything had the look of a Sunday which had lasted for many years, during which the bells had forgotten to ring - a disused, slovenly everlasting Sunday.” UnemploymentGreat Depression1933LanarkshireMining Communities Book:Scottish Journey Source: Scottish Journey
“Scotland was a coal economy and it was from the coalfields of Fife, the Lothians, Lanarkshire and Ayrshire that modest six-coupled steam locomotives of late-Victorian design hauled trains of wagons to the towns and cities, where coal was then used for heating, industry and transport. Practically every room in every household had a coal fire and the belching chimneys of factories ensured that the air in industrial areas was usually filthy with sooty smoke and, in autumn and winter, thick smogs enveloped the cities. The porous sandstone from which most of central Scotland's buildings were constructed was consequently uniformly black with absorbed pollution. People smoked everywhere - at home, at work, on transport, in cafes, bars and restaurants and even at their seats in the cinema. Clothing became saturated in smoke from coal and tabacco alike and so, for housewives, doing the washing was a constant burden.” SmokingPollutionScotlandCoalSmogInterwar YearsLanarkshireAyrshireFifeLothians Book:Art Deco Scotland: Design and Architecture in the Jazz Age Source: Art Deco Scotland: Design and Architecture in the Jazz Age