When the Clyde Ran Red ― A Social History of Red Clydeside

When the Clyde Ran Red paints a vivid picture of the heady days when revolution was in the air on Clydeside. Through the bitter strike at the huge Singer Sewing machine plant in Clydebank in 1911, Bloody Friday in Glasgow’s George Square in 1919, the General Strike of 1926, the Spanish Civil War, and the Clydebank Blitz of 1941, the people fought for the right to work, the dignity of labor and a fairer society for everyone. They did so in a Glasgow where overcrowded tenements stood no distance from elegant tea rooms, art galleries, glittering picture palaces and dance halls. Red Clydeside was also home to Charles Rennie Mackintosh, the Glasgow Style and magnificent exhibitions showcasing the wonders of the age. Political idealism and artistic creativity were matched by industrial endeavor. The Clyde built many of the greatest ships that ever sailed, and Glasgow locomotives pulled trains on every continent on earth. In this book Maggie Craig puts the politics into the social context of the times and tells the story with verve, warmth, and humor.

Maggie Craig is the acclaimed writer of the groundbreaking Damn’ Rebel Bitches: The Women of the ’45, and its companion volume Bare- Arsed Banditti: The Men of the ’45. She is also the author of six family saga novels set in her native Glasgow and Clydebank. She is a popular speaker in libraries and book festivals and has served two terms as a committee member of the Society of Authors in Scotland.