Castlemilk Claimants Union and local community activism on the Urban Fringe in Glasgow in the 1970s

Castlemilk, constructed in the 1950s, is one of Glasgow’s four peripheral ‘schemes’. Built with few amenities, these were referred to as ‘deserts wae windaes’ [deserts with windows] or ‘dormitory barracks’. By the 1970s such housing was no longer the desirable escape from cramped conditions of the inner-city tenements for families with dreams of indoor hot running water, central heating and a bath. The reality was a poorly maintained housing stock, dampness and empty lets. Castlemilk and areas like it throughout Scotland have found it difficult to shake off the resulting negative and stigmatising reputations created in the local and national media. Yet there is another narrative, one of activism and agency. People in Castlemilk have been actively challenging the reputation of their community and the conditions in which people lived and the constraints placed on their lives since the early 1970s. Drawing on oral history narratives and archival sources this chapter highlights how people who may be considered ‘peripheral’ to, or ‘marginalised’ by, the political mainstream and urban life were able to effect change and establish, through their sharing of information and resources, their own network of support separate from existing democratic structures in the city.