Our Stories of Home is a series of works by writers from the NHS Restart Project Writing Group in Bridgeton, Glasgow. As part of Arkbound’s Bridging Divides During the Cost of Living Crisis project in early 2025, one of our authors, John McGlade joined the NHS Restart Project’s long-running Writing Group for two sessions to work with the group on developing a piece of writing on a theme of their choosing. Together, they decided to focus on stories of home and produced some beautiful, personal pieces about places they call home.
Here is Brian’s piece about Bargeddie:
The Prefabs
Queens Crescent, Bargeddie. Thinking back— we had nothing! But I didn’t realise this as everybody was in the same boat.
We used to play football. We’d go down to the McGowans’, who had a full sized pitch in their back garden. Twenty-a-side was nothing, and it was the shirts against the bare skuds— no matter the weather, you would play during the school holidays from morning until dark o’clock, when it was time to go in.
Then you would go home have some toast and tea and go to bed.
You’d be wakened by the sound of a tractor in the adjacent fields. It was always spreading muck, and the smell was overpowering. It would last for weeks, and my mum always said ‘Breathe in the smell it’s good for your pipes!’
Every four years it was the Olympic Games. This would mean that we would all be involved in running, jumping, throwing— everything we could think of. We would all be different countries and there was a medal table at the end of things.
Wimbledon meant a court chalked out in the road. You could play no problem— until a car came through!
You could count on one hand the number of cars in the village- they were few and far between (Cahill, Cameron, O’Brien, Hunter, Orr, Corrigan). Going up the street to my sisters’, their cars would be parked on either side of the road.
We moved to the other side of the builders’ compound, and my sister stays there to this day.
I couldn’t go into the house until one day it was my sister’s birthday, and her husband and son were having a house party to which I was invited. Going into the house, I could still feel the presence of my mum and my gran, who lived with us. The house had been modernised by my sister and her husband, but it didn’t matter what room I went into I could still feel a presence.
The old prefabs have been demolished and in its place there is a row of new houses.
We only moved about 30 yards across the road but it is a new house, with central heating, and wooden window frames feel like another world…