"Can you tell me if there was a place called "mcgregors land" at 302-308 garngad road round about 1938-1948. thank you ES "

The above enquiry from E. Shaw on themcmonagles guestbook led to me doing a search on Google for information. Unfortunately the only reference to McGregors Land was in a now defunct website called the Royston Rag which I assume was a local newspaper or newsletter. I managed to read it via Google's cached pages. It's a poem and is fairly typical of the wry humour we have come to recognize from that area. Here it is:

Farewell To Garngad

Oh father dear oh did you hear, new houses they have built
Some of them in Easterhouse, and some in Castlemilk
Balornock and Barmulloch too, they’re building them like mad
And now they’re taking our friends away, from dear old Garngad

Oh Garngad oh Garngad, upon you some folk frown
I never thought I’d live to see, your buildings crumbling down
They may send me to Drumchapel, or the Milton scheme my lad
But they’ll never take my heart away from dear old Garngad

Remember Paddy’s castle, and the bowling alley too
Remember yon blind window where, we used to bill and coo
McGregors’s land and Syme’s land, oh don’t it make you sad
To think they’ve passed away, from dear old Garngad

They’re building houses everywhere, they’re building them with skill
They’re building them in Carntyne, and even in Priesthill
They may send me to Siberia, or even old Baghdad
But they’ll never take my heart away from dear old Garngad

Oh Villers street and Cobden street, and the good old Rosemount pawn
They’re all knocked down but on that ground, skyscrapers now adorn
But still there’s one thing bothering me, oh how I get so mad
For they’ve changed the name to Royston now, Instead of Garngad.

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