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What does Mr. Happy from the Mr. Men series have to do with Glasgow? Well in 1983 Glasgow City Council launched their ‘Glasgow’s Miles Better’ campaign to promote the city. They used the icon of Mr Happy because their campaign could also have been read as ‘Glasgow Smiles Better’. Clever advertising from the council. The Mr Happy drive had, by 1989 run its course and it was replaced by the ‘Glasgow’s Alive’ campaign. But due to public demand, Mr. Happy was brought back in 1994.

Re-winding a few years. The city of Glasgow was originally a makeshift hamlet of a number of huts built around a church in the 6th century. It was at the time referred to as ‘Glaschow’ which roughly translates as ‘the beloved green place’. The city was built on and around the river Clyde and became the greatest shipbuilding centre in the world by the 19th century. The patron saint of Glasgow is Saint Mungo (He was the one who built the church in the 6th century).

The coat of arms of Glasgow has a very interesting story behind it. It includes images of ‘the tree that never grew’, ‘the bird that never flew’, the fish that never swam’ and ‘the bell that never rang’. I was going to quickly explain what each of those actually meant but I thought if you were interested you can research it yourself. Underneath the coat of arms can be found the motto of Glasgow; ‘Let Glasgow Flourish’.

Glasgow is renowned throughout the world for having such a fine range of varying styles of architecture. There can be found in Glasgow examples of ‘Victorian’, ‘Greek Revival’, ‘Gothic Style’ and even ‘Venetian Style’ of building designs. Another famous style was made famous by Charles Rennie Mackintosh. The Glasgow School of Art is probably his most famous building in Glasgow, it is a magnificent ‘Art Noveau’ building of taut stone and glass.

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As cities go, the centre of Glasgow is not actually that big but if you include greater Glasgow you will find that it has a population of over 1 million people. I know if you are reading this and come from one of the big cities in America you are probably thinking that 1 million people is not a lot. Well, let’s put it another way, roughly 20% of the people in Scotland live in Glasgow.So it is fortunate that Glasgow has a subway system. Interestingly although it is called ‘The Glasgow Subway’ most people refer to it as ‘The Underground’. It also has a famous nickname which comes about because of the colour of the trains that use the subway. It is nicknamed the ‘Clockwork Orange’.

There have been many famous people who have hailed from Glasgow. The list includes Sir Alex Ferguson (football manager), Charles Rennie Mackintosh (designer), Benny Lynch (champion boxer) and Liz Lochhead (poet). But one of the most famous people to have come from Glasgow is comedian Billy Connolly. The ‘Big Yin’, as he is affectionately known, once worked on the shipyards in Glasgow before embarking on world domination as a comedian. His iconic ‘Banana Boots’ can be found in the museum called ‘The People’s Palace’.

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The 1980s were a time for change in Glasgow. The shipyards had gone, the populations was declining, something had to be done. The council put in to action a plan that was to turn the cities fortunes round in a very short space of time. We have already mentioned the ‘Glasgow’s Miles Better’ campaign. Add to that the opening of the Burrell Collection in 1983, which is a museum that hosts over 9,000 artifacts donated by Sir William Burrell, and it was plain that Glasgow was on the up again. In 1985 the SECC (the Scottish Exhibition and Conference Centre) was opened and 3 years later Glasgow hosted their own Garden Festival. The festival was estimated to have produced a grand total of nearly 300 million pounds for Glasgow. The festival itself included many fairground attractions including the largest roller coaster in Britain at the time. The roller coaster was sponsored by Coca-Cola.

Glasgow became the ‘European City of Culture’ for 1990 which helped to transform the city’s image. The definition of culture covered not only music, drama and the arts but also other human endeavours such as architecture, design, engineering and education. In fact it all helped to show off how diverse the characteristics of Glasgow were. During that year many visitors from around the world descended on Glasgow to see for themselves how interesting the city was. Approximately 3,500 different public events were showcased during the year.

Glasgow is home to 4 major football clubs. 3 are professional and the other is an amateur team. Celtic are based in the East of Glasgow, Rangers are based in the West just South of the Clyde, Partick Thistle are based to the West just North of the river Clyde and the amateur team, Queen’s Park, are based in the southside. The football team Clyde used to be based in Glasgow but are now in Lanarkshire. Third Lanark were once a Glasgow club but they folded in 1967. Rangers and Celtic are the two ‘big fish’ of Scottish football and are collectively known as the ‘Old Firm’.

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On the subject of football. One of the biggest prizes that a European football club can win is the European cup (now known as the Champions League). In 1967 Glasgow Celtic became not only the first Scottish club to win it but they were the first British club to win the trophy. A replica of the famous trophy can be found in the stadium of Celtic. They beat the mighty Inter Milan 2-1 in Lisbon to take the trophy. The Celtic team that won the famous trophy have gone down in history as ‘the Lisbon Lions’.