Glasgow 1978 – An Erotic Odyssey On The Way To The Job Centre

 

Architect James Miller designed an entertainment complex in Glasgow’s Renfield Street for Miss Catherine Cranston (1849–1934), better known as the owner of famous tea rooms, in 1916. Cranston’s Cinema De Luxe occupied the third floor of the six storey building. The cinema was acquired by Harry Winocour in 1934, by George Green Ltd in 1954 and by the Classic Group in 1960. The renamed Classic Cinema specialised in particular types of film at various times – horror, westerns and erotica, as when this photograph was taken in 1978. The Classic was showing Erotic Odyssey (1976), “a sensual drama in which a Greek shipping magnate arranges his son’s marriage to provide a family heir, with unpredictable results.”

Classic Cinema was destroyed by fire in 1981.

Jos Treen takes us back to Glasgow in 1978.  The Manchester-based photographer took these black and white images when he was living there in the late 70s. We see Maryhill, Byres Road and the West End, down to Finnieston and the River. Jos moved away in 1979 after taking a job in the chemical industry to earn “some badly needed cash”. His negatives lay forgotten in boxes until after his retirement.

“We moved to Torrance north of Glasgow. I did my Highers at Kilsyth Academy and went to Strathclyde University to do chemistry,” he says. “I moved into the West End of Glasgow in 73. I basically stayed there until later 79. I spent most of that time in Great George Street in a flat which I shared with friends. In those days, when I graduated, there were not a lot of jobs around.

“I had a job of sorts. It was not up to much, and it kind of finished in mid-late 77 – at a dye works in the east end. I thought what do I do now? I had always had that interest in photography. I thought I would just take a bit of time and just walk out with my camera, when the weather was good enough to do so. I didn’t go to art school or photography college.”

“I did all my learning about photography in Hillhead Library on Byres Road. I studied magazines on photography for the technical bits. And then there was a book by Henri Cartier Bresson and I thought ‘wow’ this is something that I would like to try and do. The two magazines I used to look up were National Geographic because it was always good, and the other was the Sunday Times magazine on a Monday or a Tuesday. That was the era when Harold Evans was the editor and Don McCullin was the war photographer. I just went out and took photographs of things that were in front of me, up and down Maryhill Road, Byres Road and the areas around.”

– Jos Treen

 

“Parts of Glasgow were falling down or had been demolished. There was poverty and there was deprivation – but I didn’t go out to photograph that. I was living amongst these people and this is what it was like.”

– Jos Treen

Jos told the Glasgow Times why the image of boys playing (above) is his favourite:

“I like the early, mid-morning, winter, low angled sun in a composition. And the other thing is, this is not a picture you could take today. Firstly, the boys wouldn’t be able to play on the ice today, for health and safety reasons, secondly, there is a kind of innocence to it because quite rightly so, people aren’t allowed to take pictures of children anymore. It was a different century.”

   

 

You can buy a book of Jos’s great pictures at the no less brilliant Cafe Royal books.