pamd wrote:Not a book, but an excellent film - Ratcatcher.
"The squalid council estates of Glasgow, mid-’70s. While a dustmen’s strike grinds on, life at home for 12-year-old James Gillespie (Eadie) is intolerable. His father’s a drunken slob, his mother under pressure, and James himself is hiding a terrible secret about an accident in the local canal. To distance himself, he befriends 14-year-old Margaret Anne (Mullen), steals some money and rides the bus out into the countryside… "
From memory I think this is filmed around the Summerston area - at least I recognised the buses! The whole feel was one of community and repression. I loved it.
Filmed in Govan....Kintra Street was the street in which the family lived which was situated beside St Gerards Secondary School..All the old tenements have since been demolished as has half the school (My old school) and nice new builds in their place. Infact..When the sister goes out to get the bus, it's beside the school which incidently wasn't ever a bus route.
Thinking back, I remember all the talk about the film crews being in.. The families had all gone and the houses were weeks/months from demolition.
The canal scenes were filmed in and around the Maryhill area,
I remember the bin mens strike very well....This film was quite dark but very enjoyable.