Despite being snowed in today, I had the most excellent birthday.

A courier arrived with the first couple of copies of my forthcoming book. The first time, I’d seen a completed, finished version. Bowled over by the weight, thickness and quality of the cover and interior having changed publisher.

“Blantyre Glasgow Road South – The Real Story” is a massive 637 pages, over a fifth of a million words (four times the size of any other Blantyre book) and at 2″ thick, it contains 434 high resolution images, many of which have never been seen online. It reeks of quality and weighs ‘a tonne’!

You guys have seen a lot of what’s inside, here on this page, but many stories were held back purely to feature in the book, which explores EVERY building, EVERY business along the south side of Glasgow Road from Springwells to Dalton, from the 17th Century right up until the present day.

I was SUPER excited to see this epic book in its final format, the hard work and exclusive research of the last 14 months and particularly pleased with the formatting, smaller type and interesting layouts.

This is a book for “hardcore” history fans, telling the history of buildings, businesses and people in a detailed format, but still featuring many hundreds of your comments in a fun, and informative manner. Bonus features include QR codes, which when scanned with your phones, will take you to my hidden further videos online. Additionally, theres a full Glasgow Road Directory at the back of the book, painstakingly compiled by myself showing all owners of all buildings and businesses for all time.

The endeavour has exclusively, for the first time unravelled Glasgow Road’s history in full in a factual, accurate and deserving manner. It’s helped me understand about our main thoroughfare in a way I could only have dreamed. It’s the book I’m most proud of, worked the hardest on and enjoyed the challenge of working out what took place. Hopefully you’ll have fun reading all about it. It will take an age to read!

Book Launch

I’m now planning a dual-book launch evening, which will be tied also to the launch of the brand new Blantyre Telegraph quarterly glossy magazine. All proceeds go to Blantyre good causes. I retain nothing. The evening will be free for anybody wishing to attend with teas, coffees and cakes available during the presentation interval. More details on that in mid March. A launch date online will be announced shortly.

The next book, much smaller about one specific subject is also already written and being edited for release in late Spring. A sequel to this Glasgow Road book is also planned, covering the north side of the street, writing underway after Easter. 2018 is going to be a HUGE year for Blantyre Project.

As I said, an excellent birthday.

Featuring Blantyre Project Social Media with permission. Strictly not for use by others on or offline, our visitors said,

Laird David Houldsworth Love reading all about blantyre and surrounds my mother was born there her name was elizabeth paton i was born in hamilton and we all live in australia good to keep in touch good luck and happy birthday regards

Mary Sitters So do we share the same birthday? I was born on 28th February, 1948.Just reached the grand old age of 70? Who would have thought?Both Mam and Dad were born in Blantyre and I do love to keep up with all the news.

Blantyre Project that we do Mary! Happy belated birthday.

Betty McLean Congratulations Paul and a belated Happy Birthday.

Wilma Jackson Will you ship to Canada?

Blantyre Project It will ship anywhere in the world. More on the release soon. Thanks.

Eileen Cusack Congratulations!!!

Linda McInnes cant wait to read this one paul i used to stay in jackson st blantyre happy belated birthday

Lex Mc Neill Happy birthday mate and when can I get this book .its for my brother in Australia ,where is best place to get it.thanks keep up the good work

Blantyre Project Hi Lex, Thanks for that. I’ll be posting all about it here upon launch and it’ll be available to buy from the SHOP menu here on this page.

Nicola Crowe wow its huge
much bigger than the last one

Blantyre Project ive realised though writing this, its not about binder sizes or number of pages. Its the words inside, the actual content that matters. A smaller font in this book makes it absolutely packed with content and value for money. Before writing this book of 200,000 words, the largest book i’d ever written only had 67,000 words. It is huge in this instance, which means its unfortunately more expensive to produce, but I’m already back on track to producing books for under a tenner again.

Nicola Crowe i think its amazing the work you do cant wait to get a look at it

Ann Hartman Well done yet again Blantyre would be a poorer place without you

Etta Morrison Don’t know how you have enough hours in your day.. all your research and the building project plus your job..good luck and keep up the good work everyone appreciates it x

Blantyre Project Hi Etta, people often ask ‘where do you find time?’. Contractors are working on the house building project for me. I only supervise at weekends. I’ve not lived in Blantyre since December 16 working full time on large infrastructure contracts away from …See more

Anton Le Grandier Tremendous.You deserve immense credit for all your work

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Alan Robert Webb Must get one, my mother Mary Howieson was born in Station road in 1921 then lived at 50 Morris Crescent

Chris Ladds Excellent Paul – no other Glasgow Road books will ever come close! Another book to take pride of place in my reference collection!

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Blantyre Project of that i guarantee!

😉 Thanks Chris. Appreciate your support as always.

Moira Mulvaney Pacheco Your Mum and Dad would be so proud of you today. Well done .

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Blantyre Project Thanks Moria, thats a nice thing to say. Losing mum and dad really was the catalyst that prompted me to make ‘my own mark’ in this world. Miss them every day.

Moira Mulvaney Pacheco I remember your Mum so well. She was a very reserved person. We were original High Blantyre. There is not many of the original people left. I stayed in Park Crescent and every Sunday I would be waiting on the 21 bus to go to mass at St. Joseph’s and your Mum would pass me as she was going to High Blantyre Parish Church. We all knew each other as we were nearly the same age. Also I remember your Gran she always had her pinny on and the dogs were in the garden. We all knew each other in those days. Happy and safe days.

Blantyre Project Thanks Moria – Mum knew almost everybody in the Street, changed days indeed when people used to know all their neighbours. I agree mum was fairly reserved and quite a private person, but she had a mischievous , adventurous streak too, as demonstrated when she married a man from Prague she met on a holiday in Austria! Looking back on newspapers of the time, she was the talk of the town!