OUR successful Thanks for the Memories series has encouraged many readers to share their stories of the city.

One Glasgow grandad, Allan Docherty, has written his own memoir of growing up in Cranhill, called On a Sunny Tuesday Afternoon, which documents his childhood from his birth to his teenage and working years.

“As I am 60 now, I feel it is important to share these memories,” smiles Allan, who now lives in Carntyne. “They are all true, as far as I can remember…”

You can read excerpts from Allan’s moving and funny memoir below – and don’t forget we are looking for festive memories for our next event, which will take place at the St Enoch Centre (in the unit adjacent to Debenhams, level one) on Tuesday, November 22, from 10am until 12 noon.

THE EARLY DAYS

On a sunny Tuesday afternoon in Cranhill in July 1956, a Glasgow woman called Martha delivered her fourth child on her own.

A few moments earlier she had chased her eldest daughter Dorothy, and her friend Eleanor, from the house. Eddie, her husband, was blissfully unaware that I had arrived, two months earlier than planned.

The events of that day took place in Cranhill, when it was a relatively new housing estate in Glasgow. Not for the Dochertys a Glasgow tenement but instead, an “upper cottage flat” with three bedrooms, a verandah and a vegetable plot, no less. It was a time of change in the world.

The Cold War was heating up, the Berlin Wall was on the drawing board, Archbishop Makarios was stirring things up in Cyprus and Nasser had just nationalised the Suez Canal.

THE GREEN FIELDS AND SUBURBIA

Cranhill was a new housing estate built on green grass in Glasgow’s East End.

Barlinnie Prison was close by and the nearby Gartcraig Farm provided dairy produce for the area. The farm would soon shut down when local shops opened up, and it was replaced by a bus garage.

You could dreep down the wall at the bus garage into the prison fields, where they grew their own produce. We stole cabbages, potatoes, carrots, onions and turnips… it is difficult to run away from the prison warders with potatoes up your jumper.

LONG SUMMER DAYS

Thanks to the nearby canal, the prison fields and the Sugarolly Mountains (slag heaps from the iron and coal mines contaminated with chromium oxide that glowed green) we were never stuck for things to do.

In our street only three people had cars – Mr Devitt, Mr Houston and the big taxi driver who always chased you away from the front of his house.

Towards the end of the summer guys would come into the street selling anything you could think of – candy apples, mussels and whelks and tablet.

The rag man came with his horse and cart and you could get toys for rags. We would follow the horse all day. I remember Billy Young grabbed his mother’s new candlewick cover from the bed and handed it over. I think he got a balloon or maybe a spotted goldfish for it.

BETTER TIMES

My sister Moira was the one with the brains and she got her O-levels. She left school and started to bring extra cash into the house. We bought a new TV, a fridge, an electric fire and carpets that went up to the walls. The 70s had arrived with a bang.

STARTING WORK

Back then, when you had done your time in the offices or in the cleansing department, the Corporation would give you an apprenticeship. I wanted to be an electrician but I could not spell the word and ended up a joiner.

It was the best mistake of my life. During my apprenticeship I worked in most of the big buildings in Glasgow – the City Chambers, the Commercial Library – now the Gallery of Modern Art – hospitals, courts and parks.

Soon my apprenticeship was over and the big world awaited me. Glasgow Corporation was replaced by Glasgow City Council and the Bay City Rollers gave way to the Sex Pistols. Punk had just arrived.

TIMES OF CHANGE

Dad moved out now and again as things got on top of him. Eddie Junior would seek him out, talk things over with him and invite him back into the family. In later life, I accepted that dad came back from the war a shattered man. He died on the September weekend of 1981.

As I grow older, one of my lasting memories is of my dad with the mouth organ or the accordion and my mum singing….