DID you grow up in Possilpark, Milton, or Springburn?

Do you have fond memories of the north of Glasgow throughout the decades?

The next Evening Times Thanks for the Memories event takes place in Possilpark Library on Tuesday, March 21, from 10.30am until 12.30pm.

Following on from the success of previous events in the east, south and west of the city, we are now heading north and would love to hear your recollections and see your photographs of days gone by.

Librarian Karen Rooney said local history was a popular subject at the library.

She explained: “We have a great display of photographs up in the library and a folder of old photos people love to browse through.”

The display shows the area as far back as the 1930s and 1940s and in more recent times and Karen is hoping the pictures will prompt more local people to bring in their images and recollections.

Many of the images concentrate on Saracen Street, the main shopping street in the area – readers might remember ‘provisions merchant’ W McBride, Calbraith’s Stores, Marshall’s Fruit Stores or Kerr and Son Drysaltery - or the Boot Repairing Depot on Bardowie Street.

There are fantastic photos, too, of the electric trams at Balmore Road and an old petrol station on the corner of Saracen Street.

Perhaps readers will remember the bar on the corner of Saracen Street and Mansion Street – known as the Crusader or Williamson’s – which had served beer, porter and strong liquor to locals since 1880. Competition was fierce, with at least another six bars in Saracen Street all serving up the same fare.

Some of the photos date even further back, to Possil House in the 1870s and Possilpark Public School on Allander Street in 1916.

Possil House was a mansion house in what is now Saracen Cross – its last resident was Sheriff Alison in the mid-19th century and following his death it was acquired by Walter Macfarlane who established his architectural ironworks there from Anderston.

Possilpark became an industrial district of Glasgow but after the First World War, houses sprang up all over the neighbourhood. It’s estimated the number of houses leapt from around 300 to more than 2000 between 1919 and 1939.

Our venue for the Thanks for the Memories event has its own fascinating history too.

Possilpark Library’s reading room is home to six decorative murals which were unveiled in January 1914.

They were part of a projected scheme by the City Corporation and the Glasgow School of Art for the decoration of minor public buildings and the work was done by selected students from the GSA.

The pictures, which have now hung in the library for more than 100 years, feature six areas of human knowledge – science, astronomy, geography poetry, commerce and art.

The artists included Josephine Cameron, who went on to exhibit regularly in the Royal Institute for Fine Arts; portrait and figurative painter Archibald McGlashan; and Alma Assafrey, who left Glasgow shortly after the project to join her fiancé in Canada. Life in Winnipeg did not suit her, however, and she returned home, tragically losing her life when the Empress of Ireland sank in the mid-Atlantic in May 1914.

At every Thanks for the Memories event, Glasgow’s old picture houses have featured strongly and the north of the city looks like it will be no exception.

The Astoria Cinema at the Round Toll was one of the cinemas, along with more schools, built to accommodate the growing community. It could seat 3000 people and was described as “the largest working class sound cinema in Scotland” at its opening in 1931.

Here at the Evening Times, we love to celebrate Glasgow’s rich past. We know that in every corner of the city, there are storytellers who recall the city’s good old days.

It could be your granny or your next-door-neighbour, your great-uncle or the man who has run the local shop for 40 years. All of them have memories to share – so we want to hear about them. This month, on Tuesday, March 21, we are visiting Possilpark Library on Allander Street between 10.30am and 12.30pm.

If you have lived in Possilpark, or nearby communities like Milton or Springburn, all your days or grew up there and have moved away, and have particular memories of the place and its people, we would love to hear about them. Please bring along old photos and artefacts too such as cinema tickets, theatre programmes or old newspapers.

If you can’t make it along on the day, please send your memories and photographs to ann.fotheringham@heraldandtimes.co.uk or call 0141 302 6555.