Words by John Thomson
Maryhill came into being as a burgh in 1856 but it was already a flourishing township with workmen coming from all over to work on the expanding Forth and Clyde Canal. It was a raucous place and badly needed a police force to control its expansion. It got one that year as part of the Glasgow Police Force which was the first in the United Kingdom – even before the Metropolitan Police was formed. Its first home was opened in 1857 at the corner of Maryhill Road and Fingal Street and included a flat on the upper floor for the Superintendent of Police – ‘The Captain’ George Anderson.
Police Station before the Maryhill Burgh Halls Regeneration
But the Maryhill Police Force needed a bigger home and in 1878, with the building of Maryhill Burgh Halls, it got one. However, it wasn’t until 1972 that ‘rookie cop’, John Turnbull passed through its door as PC F227 for a busy career mostly spent in Maryhill until retirement, having joined the police force at the age of 19. He had been an electrician who had always wanted to join the police but was in a steady trade. However, a building strike at that time gave him the impetus he needed and he followed the steps of a pal in becoming a policeman.
Maryhill was a territory he knew well as he stayed in Trossachs Street and, in recent conversation with volunteer John Thomson, he shared his memories of the old police station – now part of the refurbished Maryhill Burgh Halls – in a Maryhill Road he described as ‘all tenement buildings up and down and with such a busy shopping area there was no need to go into town’.
The conversation started with a flashback in time and a tour of what used to be Maryhill Police Station before it moved to its new location at 1380 Maryhill Road in 1978. Coffees were shared in the Nolly Café which became the centrepiece of the ‘tour’ and John began by looking at the modern Halls reception area.
‘There was a door over there on the left hand side (at the reception area) with a large archway and there were stairs that took you up to CID. Where we’re sitting (by a window looking onto Gairbraid Avenue) was next to the telephonists’ room and the café itself was the main office with a charge bar and control room with the controller supervising what was happening. The main door to the public would have been where the museum windows are and that door would bring them to the reception, where we are. Community Involvement was also here as was the Enquiry Unit which checked licences for guns among other things and then there were stairs going up to the cells. There was about six of them and they were under the rule of the female turnkey who also had the responsibility of cooking breakfast for the prisoners before they went to court or other police stations. If there were people in the cells in the evening, then maybe she’d cook something more substantial like mince and tatties.
‘There were kennels in the courtyard but no police dogs were kept there. They were for stray dogs and any stolen, but recovered, cars or cars which were seized by the police for other reasons, were kept in a yard. Next door to CID was a janitor who also washed the police cars but on a Sunday we had to wash the cars ourselves and we had to really gut them out.
‘Through the courtyard was the snooker room and some other small offices. Our muster room was in the hall itself and we had to parade in the yard and there was a room for policewomen who, in those days mostly dealt with lost children and things like that. Mind you there were times when the very presence of a policewoman could quell a situation whereas a policeman might go in headstrong; ‘Right you, you’re going to jail’ – making the situation worse.’
But that was the police station. What was life actually like out on the beat?
John was mostly based down at Raeberry Street Police Box and the police boxes were important as they were seen as a police presence in the area.
‘People were drawn to them with complaints about street football and car parking. It was an important place for keeping records, such as the Shut Up House book which was a record of when people were away on holiday so you’d keep an eye on their property. That personal touch was important.’
But was it always as straightforward as that?
Two officers with a Stratchlyde police car Ford Capri, 1977. [Source]
‘At that time, when you’d finished your shift you’d put your radio into a locked box in the Police Box and head back to the office. One night I was heading back up Maryhill Road and I got to Queen’s Cross and the paper seller at the corner of Northpark Street had a crowd round him and they started shouting at me – obscenities and what not – but I didn’t have a radio with me because I’d put it in the locked box but I went across anyway and told them to calm down and to behave themselves and move on and one of them pulled a knife on me.
‘So I stepped back and walked slowly and deliberately back down to the box and phoned for assistance. However, by the time, assistance arrived, they’d dispersed. Mind you. We got them later……..
‘But that was the done thing. The others watching your back and you watching theirs. If you put out a call, you would have umpteen cars attending that call for assistance. Same with housebreakings or anything like that. I’ve seen me sitting in the car, just waiting to go into the office for refreshments and I’d get a call and it was straight back out.’
On another occasion John and a colleague were in their car and they were chasing a stolen vehicle.
‘The car slowed down and the lad bailed out and he ran through the back and I chased after him. But then, as he ran through the back, I just saw his legs going up in the air and he landed on his back. What had happened was he had ran into a clothes line round his neck that nearly took his head off.’
Hoist not so much by his own petard but by a Maryhill backcourt clothesline.
John, at one time a promising boxer, took retirement as a police constable from the now Strathclyde Police Force in July 2003, but came back in various capacities such as a station assistant up at Milngavie and as a Community Support Officer covering custody in various police stations, before eventually standing down in September, 2018. Maybe you can take the man out of the police force but not the police force out of the man.
The conversation took place during the recent exhibition of photos of old Maryhill taken by George Ward and after the chat with John, he stood in front of the video screen showing some of George’s cine footage. His impression of the halls? ‘Fantastic, and I met a few people who had stayed in Raeberry Street and we chatted for a while. Maryhill has lost its core but the people haven’t changed much. You still get all the friendly faces.’
Thanks for the conversation PC John Turnbull (F227) and you’re welcome back at Maryhill Burgh Halls any time.