GROWING up in Paisley, there were regular visits to Paisley Museum. On each visit I made a beeline to one particular display. Among the rich and varied collections, which included Paisley pattern shawls, fine art by leading Scottish and European artists and a moth-eaten but much-loved stuffed lion called Buddy, I was drawn, time and again, to a glass vitrine containing a pair of clog boots. Black with neat hand stitching, folds in the leather that would have cupped the shape of their owner’s ankles, six holes, no laces, studded all the way round their base with dulled brass tacks, wooden soles. These ordinary clogs were my way into an extraordinarily hollow moment in my hometown’s story. These boots had belonged to one of the 71 children who died as a result of the Glen Cinema Disaster in Paisley on Hogmanay 1929.

The disaster has been referred to as Scotland’s forgotten tragedy, though it has been held in the collective memory of generations of Paisley people. It was a catastrophe that left few neighbourhoods across the town unaffected. It remains Scotland’s ­single largest loss of young lives.

The mood in Paisley on the morning of December 31, 1929 had all the buzz typical of Hogmanay. Women, in particular, were keen to get their households to themselves to get on with the preparations that are paramount to bringing in the bells. So it is hardly surprising that around 700 children headed off to the Glen Cinema at Paisley Cross for a matinee screening – many in the audience had returned empty jam jars to their corner shop in exchange for a penny, which was the price of a ticket. There was no official ticket count at the box office, but we know the cinema was packed upstairs and downstairs by the time the house lights went down and The Dude Desperado took to the big screen.

Film reels in those days contained the highly toxic cellulose nitrate. Not long into the screening, in the projection room, an unopened film canister on a heated surface started to smoulder, though it never burst into flame. This led to panic in the auditorium and a stampede followed. The exit doors were locked and opened inwards, leading to a crush in which 69 children were killed at the scene, more than 30 were injured and two more children later died of their injuries. Scotland’s largest town was devastated.

The Glen Cinema occupied an enviable spot in the heart of the town: across one road is Paisley Town Hall, hop across ­another road and you’re at the Cenotaph. A Dorothy Perkins now stands where the entrance to the picture house was and a furniture shop has long since occupied part of the former cinema. Paisley Cross, then as now, was a natural place of congregation for townsfolk. But there was nothing natural about the scene at Paisley Cross during the countdown to midnight on Hogmanay 1929. Scores of broken Paisley Buddies came from all four ­corners of the town to stand in solidarity and in grief. As the magnificent bells in the town hall tower chimed midnight and welcomed in a new decade, a mourning town stood in silence.

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My own family suffered the largest loss in the town to a single family. My mum’s Aunt Margaret and Uncle James lost three children: James McEnhill, 11; Edward McEnhill, nine, and their three-year-old sister Margaret McEnhill. When I talk to my mum and her sisters about the impact on the family, they comment on the lack of counselling available in those days either to the children who survived, to grieving parents or to hospital staff and emergency services who attended. They also say their Aunt Maggie – who had other children – dressed in mourning black from that day onwards until the day she died.

News of the disaster was far-reaching, with letters of condolence being sent to the town from people around the globe. A disaster fund was set up which counted Universal Pictures, President Cosgrave of the Irish Free State, Ulster Cinematograph Theatres Ltd and the British Consulate General in New York among the donors. Co-operative Societies in West Kilbride and Dunoon offered affected families free boarding and convalescence at their seaside properties.

The impacts were global as well – the Cinematograph Act 1909 was amended to ensure all cinemas had more exits, doors opened outwards and they were fitted with push bars. A limitation was also placed on the capacity of cinemas and a requirement for an appropriate number of adult attendants to ensure the safety of children. As an arts professional, I often consider it is likely that I regularly work in cultural venues at home and abroad that adhere to current health and safety procedures, influenced in some way by that terrible turn of events in Paisley.



Survivors Robert Pope and Emily Brown

People in the town have never ­forgotten. Danny Kyle, founder of Paisley’s Attic Folk Club, commemorated the disaster in song, recording The Glen Cinema on a live album at the Attic in the early 1960s. More recently, singer-songwriter James Grant collaborated with the town’s PACE Youth Theatre on a haunting tribute during his gig at the town’s Spree Festival. Local ­author Brian Hannan tells the definitive story of events in his impressively researched book. Filmmaker Paul Mothersole’s moving documentary features interviews with survivors of the disaster. Watching it, you are struck by how courageous and generous the survivors are to talk about their experiences, so that we never forget.

A few weeks ago, the people of Paisley attended an event to mark the 90th anniversary of the Glen Cinema disaster. Pouring rain didn’t deter more than 150 people who took part in a lantern procession through the town, made up of young people, community groups and schools, before attending a service at Paisley Abbey where 500 invited guests paid tribute to the victims, survivors and their families. There were many poignant moments during the service, officiated by Reverend Alan Birss of Paisley Abbey and Father Oliver Freney of St Mirin’s Cathedral. Singer-songwriter Carol Laula performed Hush Now, Happy New Year, a song, written with fellow Paisley Buddie, actor and musician Tom Urie, commissioned for the 90th commemoration.

Fittingly, it was talent from Paisley’s Starlight Youth Music Theatre that shone brightest within a programme of bespoke tributes, in particular when 70 children walked up the aisle and each laid a white rose for the children who died. Robert Pope and Emily Brown, who survived the tragedy, attended with their families and laid roses along with Provost of Renfrewshire, Councillor Lorraine Cameron. I was lucky to attend the event with my mum and her sister. I know how much it meant to them to see young people at the heart of an event that was tender yet hopeful, allowing the people of Paisley to pay tribute and remember the victims and survivors.

Since the 80th anniversary the town has marked the event every Hogmanay at a service held at Paisley Cenotaph. This year, Robert Pope and Emily Brown will lay a wreath for those who died.

Despite the tragedy at the Glen Cinema, the Paisley Buddies continued their love affair with films and for a long time boasted an impressive number of picture houses. Currently there’s no cinema in the town, but Paisley Community Trust (PCT) has worked tirelessly over the last five years to ensure a trip to the movies can again be a part of the town’s life.

So it’s heartening, in the week that the trust, my family and other Buddies will stand shoulder to shoulder at Paisley Cenotaph to pay their respects to those affected by the Glen Cinema Disaster, that PCT has programmed sold-out showings of It’s a Wonderful Life and a sing-a-long screening of Frozen in independent music venue the Bungalow. You sense that wee ones in the audience will be scooped up in extra meaningful cuddles from their parents and grandparents.

The annual public memorial service and wreath-laying will take place at Paisley Cenotaph at 11am on December 31

Jean Cameron is a freelance creative producer and President of Paisley Art Institute