Politics

Diary of the Week Eileen Reid Vote Communist…

9 March 2014 · Scottish Review

Diary
of the
Week
Eileen Reid

Vote Communist, Vote Swankie

Monday 18 February
Central Station is my favourite public space in Glasgow. Its steel and glass roof contains a concourse thronging with friendliness and diversity: a brief but unique gathering of people from all classes and ethnic backgrounds. I could swear I heard Russian this morning. We file out of the exits and into our socio-economic classifications as described by the Registrar General. Glasgow Central is base camp and I begin the climb to the summit in Renfrew Street, the Glasgow School of Art. My desk and the surrounding environ is catastrophically untidy, and I wonder what my fantastic colleagues from my own area of widening access and the estates staff next door must make of it. I don’t think they notice. What once worried me as an external manifestation of an unruly mental state was alleviated somewhat by the book ‘A Perfect Mess, the hidden benefits of disorder’ by Eric Abrahamson. It is a wonderful antidote to the tyranny of clear desk policies. Apparently chaos, disorder and mess make the world a better place and spawn creativity. That’s all right then – my desk is a model of good practice.

Tuesday 19 February
Today I am writing up a paper on widening participation in higher education, underpinned by Pierre Bourdieu’s ideas about the accumulation of social and cultural capital. Steve, my Canadian husband, is bewildered by the British obsession with class which he finds tedious and claustrophobic – one of the reasons I married him.
My grandma, Emily Swankie, who has been in hospital for months with renal failure, broke her hip in a nasty fall this morning. She is 92 years old and indestructible. Her remarkable political life began with the hunger marches as a 19-year-old working class feminist. One of my earliest childhood memories is of marching up and down Kilbowie Road, Clydebank on polling day yelling ‘Vote Communist, Vote Swankie’.
Gail Sheridan is charged with perjury. I have great sympathy for the Sheridans and regret the sad demise of a short but exciting foray into Scottish parliamentary politics.

Wednesday 20 February
I am fortunate indeed to work in the magnificent Mackintosh Building. After eight years, I still enjoy trips to the loo along broody corridors lined with plaster casts of antique classical sculptures. In the 60s art schools smashed these masterpieces of the past but Glasgow School of Art preserved most of them, testament to a spirited confidence that being at the cutting edge does not require breaking with the past. Through the small leaded panes of the window of my office, I can see the crowded tenements of Garnethill and against the sky the glistening metal cross above the dome of St Aloysius. I’m not at all religious but this eternal beacon encapsulates the spirit of ‘keep calm and carry on’.
This evening I give a speech at a fabulous exhibition of young people’s art in Airdrie Town Hall as part of GSA’s drive to promote portfolio workshops in Scottish communities. For a small institution we do an enormous amount of work in the community in raising the aspirations of young people through creative projects implemented by committed staff.

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The February Essay

Tessa Ransford