Memories: the stables of the East End

THIS image was taken in 1973 but depicts a scene many would have believed gone from Glasgow decades before. 
Just a short distance off Duke Street at Millerston Street – past a bingo hall and a little church in Glasgow’s East End, there was a vacant plot  where you would find Hamilton’s Stables nestled at one end.
The collection of white-washed buildings included stables and two houses, and formed a business that had survived from the previous century. The family which ran it in 1901 was still in charge in the 1970s.
In 1901, James Davidson owned the cab and carriage hirer firm which became the place to go if you wanted to hire a horse and a float to collect old iron, or wanted a pony to take you round your parklands in a governess cart.
By the 1970s, to pull the cart, you could have Flash, whose luxurious tail reached the ground, or Buttons, whose name belied the beast that pawed at the stable door, like a charger raring to go.
They are long gone now, but maybe their like will appear again in a future free of vehicle fumes.