The Real Gorbals Story: True Tales from Glasgow's Meanest StreetsPaperback, 1 September 2007

In the 1950s, Colin MacFarlane was born in the Gorbals, a working-class neighborhood in Glasgow, Scotland. MacFarlane witnessed the last days of the old Gorbals just as a major regeneration program began in 1961 and, as a street boy, he had a unique insight into a once great community in rapid decline. He witnessed numerous drunken fights, gang battles, police corruption, and even the occasional murder. But the Gorbals had another side, one where ordinary, hard-working people were trying to survive in what was arguably at one time the most notorious area in the world. In this engrossing new book, Macfarlane reveals what it was really like to live in the old Gorbals.