The Fish That Never Swam
In Glasgow, people’s lives are cut short.
Male life expectancy in Possil is 66, in Penilee three young people took their own lives within the space of one week in June 2020, suicide in Glasgow is 30% higher than English cities, male life expectancy is 7 years short of the UK average and women’s is 4 years less. This is not isolated to areas of deprivation – Glaswegians across all social classes experience a 15% reduction in life expectancy.
The causes of Glasgow’s excess mortality lie in government policy - not with the individual and their lifestyle choices. Local, regional and central government policies created an environment where: segregation, alienation, mass unemployment, the generational trauma that followed, poverty and deprivation constitute a public health issue. During the 1970s and 80’s Glasgow was in a ‘managed decline’.
Unbeknown at the time, the city was starved of funding from Westminster.
Billy, 19, Easterhouse. ‘Glasgow Corporation used a form of social apartheid, rehousing the people of Glasgow by class,’ says Kirsty Mackay. ‘The least well off were moved to the peripheral estates, with few amenities, poor transport links and fewer employment opportunities. These failed housing policies leave their mark on the landscape and in the lives of the people here.’
Kinfauns Drive, Drumchapel. The land where council housing once stood. Failed housing policy leaves its mark on the landscape and in the lives of the people who live here.
Fraser on the Men Matter Football team, playing every week at Cloquhoun park. “It’s a safety net. It becomes a brotherhood, everybody becomes a brother and you look out for each other. If something happens you’ve got a good group of guys round about yea to help yea.” Fraser.
Debbie holds her newborn baby, Anderston, Glasgow. That first journey home from the hospital, depending on which area home is, has a profound impact on health, well being and life expectancy.
Debbie’s newborn baby asleep in the Scottish baby box, which provides a safe place to sleep and comes full of baby essentials. The box was introduced by the Scottish government in 2017 to tackle infant poverty rates and is designed to give each child born in Scotland ‘the best start in life’.
Abbie and Chris in their flat, Govanhill.
Kaitlin, 23, at home in Springburn. ‘I’ve been diagnosed with a chronic illness, been through two blocks of therapy, left uni, started a new job,’ she says. ‘I feel it in my bones that good things are going to happen for me soon. I am powerful amazing and ready.’
James talking to a neighbour, Castlemilk. “I’m an addict and you’re never cured if you’re an addict. So when my brother was murdered very quickly I started taking drugs again.”
Wee John, pictured on the border between the Drumchapel and Bearsden, where male life expectancy varies massively depending on which side of the divide you come from.
Children wait in the queue for face painting, at the Women Against Capitalism ‘Care and Share’ event, Castlemilk.
Taylor, age 7, Easterhouse.
A memorial in Possilpark for Steph Russell, murdered in a knife attack at the age of 20.
Children walking home from school, Linkwood Drive, Drumchapel.
Billy, scores 8 out of 10 on the Adverse Childhood Experiences questionnaire. People with 4 or more aces are twice as likely to develop liver disease, 3 times more likely to develop lung disease, 4 and a half times more likely to develop depression, 11 x greater risk of intravenous drug use, 14 times higher risk of suicide.
Saturday morning, Drumchapel shopping centre. "Because of the area, it doesnae matter if your a good boy or a bad boy.' Ellen
Dionne with her dad Barry. Dionne is the Scottish Women’s Boxing champion, 2020. Barry has both his daughters names tattooed on his torso ‘Dionne’ and Kecee-Leigh, who was still born. “In 2019 at the start of the year I lost my auntie. Not long after that I lost a friend I grew up with. She was 16, just at the start of her life. I lost another of my friends. He was in a murder. He was 18 and then I lost another of my friends from Easterhouse.” Dionne.
From Castlemilk looking over Glasgow. “Glasgow is a city drenched in trauma”. Billy McMillan
Kirsty Mackay pictured with her parents in Maryhill, 1971. ‘This was the first flat I lived in. It was a victorian tenement flat called a “room and kitchen”. We had this room and one bedroom, the toilet was on the landing shared with the neighbours.’ Courtesy of Kirsty Mackay
Kids with their dads, on the weekly Men Matter family walk in the countryside around Drumchapel.
Alicia breastfeeds her daughter Bea, Battlefield.