For many Glaswegians, the holidays began the moment the city centre lit up. The festive displays in department stores like Lewis’s, and House of Fraser’s drew families into town. Corporation buses were set against Christmas lights along Sauchiehall Street and Argyle Street. Families slid their way down frosty streets to see the pantomime at the King’s Theatre or stars like Stanley Baxter and Jimmy Logan.
Lost Glasgow publisher Norry Wilson, who writes about the city’s past, says: “I think my earliest memory which I know I share with tens of thousands of other Glaswegians is climbing the stairs in Lewis’s department store on Argyle Street, waiting in an interminable long queue, holding my mum and dad’s hand to meet Santa Claus. It wasn’t just going up to this wonderful grotto, by that point you’d already had the magic of the shop’s Christmas windows which were an absolute draw for everyone.
“Growing up in the late 60s, early 70s with a black and white TV set, the world seemed pretty black and white. Glasgow particularly before the stone cleanings seemed very black. And then all of a sudden, once a year, the whole city centre seemed to just spring into magical technicolour. The Lewis’s Christmas windows were always just something out of this world because there were all these animated figures and toys - it was just magic.”
Take a look back at these 8 nostalgic pictures of famous Glasgow streets and landmarks during the Christmas season in the 1960s.
1. Central Station
Christmas lights at Glasgow Central Station in December 1965 | Gordon Rule
