Edit Time On Their Hands
IT could be any day, but this is the image captured at 2.30pm on September 20, 1960, at Shawlands Cross. Life appears unhurried.
It's the little details - the wooden shelter, the circular clock, the bench - that tie this picture to a particular era.
Of special interest is the old-fashioned (though not for its time) police phone box on the corner.
Behind it, you can see the British Linen Bank.
I remember the bus drivers and clippies started or finished there shifts there, the inspectors had a small office, Andy used to sell the Evening Times in one of the in shots, Andy was as blind as a bat and used glasses that where as thick as milk bottle bottoms.
At The bus shelter shawlands cross if you wished to travelled to town you could look along Kilmarnock road .from this vantage you could also watch for busses heading into town from pollokshaws then catch the first available bus ,i myself lived at the round toll pollokshaws awaited the corporation busses ,the monopolies commission would have had a field day heading along pollokshaws road from shawlands you could board a corporation bus or a western S.M.T the problem was if you boarded the western busses you could not disembark until you reached boydston road ,unlike corporation busses you could disembark anywhere ,drivers and clippies had a code of bell pushes one bell signified please stop at the next available stop ,two rings of the bell signified it is safe to proceed and that passengers’ had safely disembarked three bells or more signalled for the driver to leave his cab and throw a drunk and abusive passenger of the bus
The Bank in the backgound was the Glasgow Savings Bank which went on to become TSB. British Linen Bank merged to become Bank of Scotland and is out of shot on the right at the junction of Skirving St