Ratcatcher

4/13/2024

It was quite odd watching this because I was just a little younger than the character of "James" (William Eadie) living in Glasgow in the 1970s. I remember the nine-week long dustmen strike that left tons of rubbish piled up all over the place. We lived in a mouse-infested one bed flat similar to the ones in the tenement buildings featured here, and that canal - well it was an overgrown, disease-ridden, deathtrap that had long been abandoned to nature. Back then, there was still ample waste ground - bomb damaged and cleared after the war, for us kids to play on, and that's what we did. Nobody had a car or a phone - or, for that matter, a washing machine, so when he goes out to play no wonder he was meant to tuck his trouser legs into his wellies! Mind you, I'd have thought the canal way to