Cumbernauld, Town for Tomorrow - High Quality - 1970
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 15 ธ.ค. 2011
- Made for the Cumbernauld Development Corporation and Films of Scotland, this look at the town centre and surrounding area in 1970 highlights what a prosperous and exciting place Cumbernauld was.
Sadly, a lack of maintenance and increasing lack of thought-out decision making leaves modern Cumbernauld a shadow of what it once was, and the award winning town centre is now hated by many.
![Runcorn New Town 'The Leaving of Liverpool' 1974 Full Documentary [1080p]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/vd6B4QfkqUg/mqdefault.jpg)
![[LIVE] : ONE ลุมพินี 68 | คู่เอก "พระจันทร์ฉาย vs โจนาธาน"](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/F3IM3w-XchI/mqdefault.jpg)
Lots of people saying its a dump. The old town centre building is aye, and SOME areas are not filled with the nicest people but I have mostly lived in Cumbernauld since I was 4 after moving from a Shithole in Glasgow and I love it. Apart from maybe Carbrain you are usually a 5 minute walk to a forrest on the outskirts. Even at that the place is filled with trees. There are really some nice areas in places like Greenfaulds, Kildrum, Condorrat. Thats without even talking about half the town on the other side of the M80 which is fairly new and nice. It does have its down sides such as the Town centre and the fact that its not easy to get about by foot. However its not as bad as some people from here are making out. I think people that don't live here see the Town centre and think the whole place is a shithole. Knock the Town centre down and build a pedestrian high street filled with pubs, resturaunts and shops and it would be night and day.
What warms my heart here are the good intentions. It's easy to compare 'then' and 'now', but back then there was optimism for a better future for families without the luxury of hindsight which we now use to criticise.....
This video is a classic piece of history. It shows a time period where people were happy and content. I am sure people had their worries and concerns of the day but they were indeed optimistic as you rightly say. We should treasure these memories.
@@neilhilton35 seriously? We grew up there in the early 70s it was vile nobody was happy everyone was a criminal and it was horrible
Move there then. Go work the sausage factory and get paid less than bar staff, go home to those cardboard boxes where you hear next door throw up the buckfast every night paper thin walls it’s shit.
@@neilhilton35 did you live there? I doubt it it was a hell hole everyone hated it
@@ahippy8972 I think it degenerated within just a few years to become a problem area. Just like many new towns. I was just meaning to support the original post which said the original intention of the planners was for the good but as you say the reality was something different and people felt isolated from their original home towns. However people in the sixties were optimistic. By the seventies the world changed and not for the best!
I moved to Cumbernauld with my parents and baby sister in 1962. In these days people were "vetted" before being given a house and the breadwinner had to have a decent job. I remember 2 women coming to check our suitability for a new house. In these early days. Cumbernauld was a eutopia after the slums of Glasgow and I loved my childhood and teen years there. It's sad to see how it is now. My elderly mum is still there but I escaped in the late 70s as did my sister.
Growing up in Cumbernauld i fondly remember what the town center once was so sad to see it's decline. Still I live here & still i belong to Cumbernauld
I grew up in Ravenswood. we had moved from Glasgow and we loved it. I had a great childhood there. always friends to play with, great sense of community in Skye Court. was very safe for children. happy memories.we left in the late 70s.
I remember going there as a child, I was told to dress smart as it was an important impressive place worthy of looking smart. I remember the Cooke brown tiles up the ramp and smell of the bakers, it was like entering an airport or something very futuristic, I had been told by my teacher that its palace to respect and that it was really important and that on Monday I should write a narrative about my visit. It really did seem like a town of the future.
Now it’s just full uv jakes nd fat maws in their pjs cuttin aboot 😂
My god I lived there we hated it it was awful we were like fish in a bowl with you ba S coming staring at us then going back to your privately owned terraces even Goebels was better than here you can here the drunks three looks up shouting puking, no privacy that was a lie. You heard the whole block through the rubbish shoot. The teens set the shoots on fire. Nobody had cars the under garages were full of prostitution and glue sniffers this film is nothing how we lived. So many suicides and so much abuse it was hell. This vid is a lie.
@@ryuh1054 it was in 1970 when we moved there. Single mums criminals drunks it was hell.
I bet the place is a shithole and cesspit now.
When I was growing up in Cumbernauld with my family I loved the place, so many memories come flooding back. The Town Centre was a brilliant adventure park for bairns, probably pissed off the adults but och well :) Sadly it has fallen into neglect, stayed in Kildrum for many years, drove through a couple of years back, what a shock, Kildrum Primary burned down and replaced with new housing, the flats where I visited school friends knocked down. The usual generic shopping experience of every other town has taken over the Town Centre, Tesco, Asda superstores etc.
On a positive note, the parade with the cast of the Magic Roundabout, remember it like it was yesterday.
Sure that's me (Bobby) in the Library at 5:55, and my younger brother Ian at 6:11. We're dressed the same, look about 2 years apart. I'm the one at the back-right, blonde hair, shirt, tie and grey waistcoat, fidgeting, and looking away :)
Amazing if it is you two!
Your showing ure age now lol
aye it wiz you and you were growling at me,
The New Towns of tomorrow will be built by Amazon and they'll make todays Cumbernauld look like a paradise.
What? Built by big, hefty lassies with one boob? I'm all for it.
Its a sad state of affairs seeing what the town used to be like, I was born in 95 so the towns "golden era" was well over by the time I was experiencing the town centre. Its scary though watching this video and seeing what the town is now, they may aswell be separate places
That restaurant on the top floor of the town center looks magic and sophist. I want to go there. Lol.
Sapphire Sky I know! I guess it's blocked off now. Or at least there's nothing up there anymore
Jolly Monkey There has been a lot of talk of the top floor. I managed to get the lift up there one day the furthest one away from the library. Was confronted with two locked doors and a card holders only sign pointing left with I now believe was some kind of social club up there. The thing is the centre used to be opened up with exposed sections like the long ramp walkways to the library etc. But then it was all closed in and made into an indoor only centre that is locked up at night. Used to be that you could always wander about it like a shopping arcade in the beginning.
Don’t I live in Cumbernauld it’s shit
Patrick Bradley Ohh not there anymore ? I want to visit Cumbernauld it’s the only completely Brutalist city I’ve ever seen , it’s so interesting , I bet they grade 2 list the city centre
Shopaholic undisputed heavy weight champion Cumbernauld looks nothing like that anymore some parts are nice but most parts aren’t
"Son."
"Da wit is it?"
"We're moving tae Cumbernauld."
"NAW!"
Peejay McKenzie fuck up
Kim Jong-Un sapnin kim
Truth. I hated it my mum was attacked it was hell. Then the stink of the sausage factory why they not saying that?
@@DMCS1917 David is the only one who lived there apart from us it was hell
A Hippy I was talking to Kim Jong Un m8
Hill-top location...aye, tell me about it....bloody coldest place in Scotland!!
Really enjoyed, thanks for uploading
moved to Cumbernauld in 1974 what a blast from the past
Great documentary! Enjoyed that.
Grew up Cumbernauld since 5yrs old ,Now I've been living in Dunoon Argyll since I was roughly 41 love it here tranquil peacefully sea and gorgeous walks .😊
@SlightyDisturbedNBK The designers provide a canvas for living, they do not create the kinds of people that live there. That is what irritates me about the stick these kinds of places get.
They essentially put poor people who were already in over crowded conditions into these flats and new towns and then gradual neglect and disbanding of the powers that be (Cumbernauld Development Corporation) meant it all went to hell. Sad.
Interesting film. Idealistic to say the least. The trouble with these types of places is that they were built to solve the immediate needs of the original occupants - those people from the slums. To them this was probably a massive step up. So the first ten or so years all is probably good. Its the generations that follow is where rot begins. No sense of community. Cheap housing, lots of people in the same boat. It was a real life social experiment that went wrong. Just like Runcorn, Kirkby, Skem etc.
I once spent a week in Cumbernauld one evening.
The married woman's comments about isolation have been said a lot by my mother. She is 50 years in Nauld on May 1st. Felt quite emotional seeing the hill in Balloch View . Our house is at the bottom. Nice seeing St Mary's Primary too. It all seemed so young and dynamic. The trouble was the folk of Nauld didn't choose the "tomorrow" they received. Seeing the old medical centre..I can still remember that blue decor. I can still smell thew tobacco smoke in the bank. Lol
The first thing you see - "STOP", do not pass, etc etc. Brilliant. I have pushed the stop button :D
@theclivesinclair I cannot agree more with you. The design is more than sound, it was over thought even. The architecture may not be to everyones taste, brutalist stuff has yet to reach a wide demographic of appreciation that Victorian and Art Deco stuff has. Sad as many brutalist things are being lost as a result.
The people in Cumbernauld are in a vicious cycle, not pride in the town, hence no care for the town, town gets worse (graffiti, lack of care etc), and more pride is lost. Utter shame
I visited Cumbernauld for a day on business in 1990. Drove up from rural Hertfordshire to meet with a member of my staff. My overriding impression from that one winters day was one of pity for the people that had to live in such a depressing place. Stevenage, Milton Keynes and Harlow were new towns that I knew fairly well in the South and in my opinion were much nicer places to live. Writing this in 2024, I wonder what Cumbernauld looks like now?
that "town centre" building is seriously one of the most hideous things I've ever seen. When I first saw pictures of it I thought it was some old abandoned factory and then finding out it was a "town centre" meant to be some kind of showpiece for a new town... my mind is still boggling at it. I just can't comprehend how they could've intentionally created something so ugly, impractical and haphazard looking.
It's so strange watching Cumbernauld here, it looked like a utopian town with its own identity, which ultimately it never turned out to be and instead became a defacto suburb of Glasgow.
It's almost like the town in this video is from a parallel universe.
i see it when i dream it is a bit like a town in a reflection of a mirror it,but when i am awake its all different
stayed there from 1974 to 2004 looked so promising nice idea just didn't work on so many levels
such a shame, these wee utopia towns ya know... they're always too good to be true :(
Therein lies the problem. The society where one could safely leave a presumably occupied pram outside a Supermarket is long behind us. It was built for a society that breathed its last in the 70s and was replaced by one for which the town was not built.
Exactly, how many times will the buildings be blamed for societies failings when in fact society just fell apart regardless of a concrete block or a thatch roof cottage?
@@MartinHannett_ they were building new towns like this all over uk,i think there were over 30 being built,but could you imagine the government giving the go-ahead for just 1 today?.everything is too difficult and complicated now,there is no social control anymore and i don't think its the people's fault,i think this is what privatization has caused.
ray croal I agree. The Tories would put the Kybosh on it in favour of allowing big firms like Amazon, Vodafone etc. to not pay tax al a David Cameron.
@@raycroal Ironically it's the British people who may have 'unwittingly' voted to get rid of these large projects stemming from 'socialist leaning' ideals that were ideas from a government that would have believed in 'big government'. By the end of the 70's people were going off socialist ideals en masse, and huge central government led projects that went with these ideals. Well they were in England anyway.
All these huge new town projects came from the idea of the need for 'big government' .....that central government had to provide them and take a lead in these projects. The state providing for everything you could possibly need or wish for. It was all designed for you.
This could never happen today for many reasons - one being that we no longer live in a 'big government' era. Margaret Thatcher got rid of this notion for good in the 1980's, and we can never return to those days. Local Councils have more clout than they used to in the 60's and 70's, and can now overrule central government. Nimbyism is in full swing now. Back in the 60's and 70's it barely existed at all. Plus we've all become much more 'individualistic'. We largely have the 80's to thank (or not) for this.
People also trusted each other alot more then, than they do now. You saw prams left outside a supermarket - some may have even had a baby in them(!!), but people knew that it would be safe to do this. Stealing a baby or walking off with someone else's empty pram wouldn't have crossed anyone's mind then, as society wasn't like that then. You could probably have left your car unlocked on the street all day and it would still be there eight hours later. It wouldn't have occurred to anyone to try and drive off in it, because again, people didn't think like that in those days. People respected other peoples' property and possessions. This though began to change later in the 70's. Margaret Thatcher wasn't responsible for this!
Finally the Environmental lobby is significant now. It didn't exist 50 odd years ago. People simply didn't factor the natural environment into things like this, probably because they believed we were separate from it, not part of it.
@@robtyman4281 i agree with all of what you say but cars were easy to steal and a lot did get stolen.as for the prams, i think today if most people saw a pram and kid outside a supermarket a lot of good people would stay there to keep an eye on it until the parent came back,such is the perceived fear of badness these days,well i hope they would
Saddens me to watch this and know what has become of it. All those industries are pretty much gone. To people saying that there's no pride in the town are unfortunately right, but the lack of pride stems from the lack of investment in the town that means anything. Forget the waves or big silver wummin, get jobs in the place!
Jonny TRUMP recommended that and yes, Johnny Scotts score is pretty good. "Only" two themes (with variations) as far as I can hear, but would definitly warrant a 1/2 LP release, coupled with some other docu score from that time. Should be released. I´d buy one, for sure. :-))
They really danced in those days
That’s because they made real music 😉
They look more like more like they are having some sort of seizure.
..and it’s only 4580 miles from Caracas, handy eh?!
c-A-s, not c-U-s!
WHAT A FILM
Climacston New Town LOL
Looked quite good in Gregory's Girl.
Although that film has to be one of the worst I've seen , pile of dogshit lol
The health centre was in the demolished Copcutt portion where the Antonine now stands.
i grew up in Cumbernauld in the seventies. iv lived in England since i was 12 ,
I was the regional sewer maintenance operator for that area since the day it was built and every time we got a complaint from Cumbernauld the staff reacted like some one kicked open the front door to the Cambridgeshire County Council Education Authority and shouted SAINT TRINIANS!, I've still got Chronic Traumatic Stress Disorder :(
a wee blast from the past, my stepmum an stepsister feature. it had such promise, sadly unrecognisable
Ahh, I vaguely recall all the older areas when I was younger, but being to young to appreciate them or realise what it was, it wasn't until most areas were closed off I realised what the town centre really was..
@Rydo182 No I don't have any pics of the town centre. I also remember the original temporary one which was built roughly where the fast food places are now (near the police station) My earliest memory of arriving in the town with my parents on a crisp winter day in November in deep snow, was thinking that the houses were covered in diamonds because the roughcast, being brand new was sparkling white! I was just 7 years old. We were in Torbrex road and I loved my very own bedroom! :)
Demolitions, disbanding of the CDC, brutal lack of appreciation and care for the building. Unfortunately I can't see any way out for it now but demolition in the next 20 years or so if not sooner. I already attempted that line when I was making my short video (which is also on my channel) and they were not interested. I managed to get to the 4th floor on the lift one day and was greeted by locked doors and a sign saying card holders only. I posted about it on HiddenGlasgow forums.
almost like ussr in the 70s to 90s.
Yip Cumbernauld looked the part once...............A looooooooooong time ago ??
theres a fourth floor ? were can you gain access i thought i have seen every where in the town centre haha .
This makes me want to go to Cumbernauld
Cumbernauld is a pretty nice place actually. Ignore all the tossers on here slagging it off.
Aye..in 1970. 2023, not so much.
the only problem with the old town centre was disrepair and due to all the different compartments it would cost the type of money the scottish parliment cost to really get that building back to brand new in every square foot.no way that would ever get spent especially with internet shopping being the norm now,would need to think of an all new use for the building
@hamefurgid An interesting and all too familiar anecdote about Cumbernauld. I wonder if you have any photographs of the town centre. My thoughts entirely when I have discussed this on forums, I simply cannot imagine coming from cramped dated dirty slum areas to the open modern road systems and housing of Cumbernauld. The town centre building itself with it's promise of yet more structures must have seemed like something years ahead of it's time. Not it is condemned and surely faces demolition...
Dear god. Is that one of the penthouse windows boarded up already at 15:53? Does not bode well. It is already starting to show signs of wear and tear and it is not even finished.
I think it is!
Bought my first flat in Maclehose Road, Kildrum in 1984. I hated it! (nothing to do with the people there) lasted 9 months before selling up and moving to Uddingston village. Hated the shopping centre with a passion, it was so dull, drab, dark, concrete eyesore and downright miserable. The only thing I did like was the footpaths, never having to cross the roads getting from A to B and Palacerigg Country Park
Makes Basingstoke town center seem like New York. What were architects thinking in the 60s/70s.
6.17 looks like Neuer as a kid.
What is that piece of music being played at the disco from about 7.24?
I have visited here a few times. I wonder what is thought about the place by people now against this 1970 film. some areas in the film could look dark and the multi level center and saying you can get to the shops in 20 min I doubt people want to carry heavy shopping that far today
But i have to say seeing this film is which only looks at good points
18:32 A Band called Suede
None of the lifts go up anymore.
The lift furthest from the library used to go up, but they took the chip out and now the 4 button doesn't work anymore.
If you're willing to risk jail, the only way up I think is to kick the construction door down.
At least they tried...
My dad passed away and at 9:49 that is where he lived
@funkdrum5 No problem, be sure to check the Scottish Screen Archive it's full of stuff like this.
That cafe/pub looks cool! 7:07
What is it now?
If you look carefully at the shape of the windows you can see it formed part of the upper floors of the centre shown at 6:56 in the video.
I’m ur 500 th sub
Lived on Torbrex Road, 1976 ish for a couple years. Mum died and we moved back to Glasgow.
Ronnie Little
Andrew Borland
Des Cruikshanks.
Wonder where they are now?
Last I heard Ronnie Little is on crack sleeping in a ditch. It's a shame.
it really has an East German feel to it
Yeah, like a Soviet concrete hellscape...but in a good way!
I remember that shop 9:50
Lol, we're still waiting on that hospital!
"what is it son?"..."We're moving to Cumbernauld"
Hello, I live in Cumbernauld, back then, I think the town centre was the most amazing building in the world, but with the demolitions.. It has went to hell, I hope to do some research and put up a video of my own documentary showing how the town centre was a vision of the future, something this generation has no idea about, though, I want to get as possible, does anyone think if I tell the management the doc is for college, think they will let me into the unused parts? like the 4th floor?
Oh my god, it looks horrific.
Absolutely horrific
Cumbernauld is the tits! Stop slagging it off.
Does anybody know the song that played at 22:55
The fourth floor is just about completely closed off now, the three lifts used to go up to it, and the only ramp going up has a padlocked construction door blocking entry.
The fourth floor is there long part at the top with the black roof which used to be pent houses.
I wish Cumbernauld was that good when I grew up in it late 80s early 90s.i keep saying I'll move back one day but when I vist family who still stay there am Like why do I want to come back here it's a dump nothing to do. I love the red triangle for game of snooker but even that's not as gd as it was :( shame tbh watching this video shows it had so much potential and the council if u like just gave up after so many years over last wee bit they have tried right enough new housing which tbh are ni
Top tip: whenever you hear an oboe in a housing project advert, run like fuck.
How has Cumbernald faired now in the form of its traffic? Does the town experience poor commuting now? The idea of not intercepting the road with crossing and lights sounds like a fair argument that could still be applied today.
No traffic whatsoever. Everything moves freely exactly like this video shows.
A similar story across Glasgow and the wider area tbh.
.....quite simply the place is a fuckin' dive.........always has been from my early 80's memories.......
Hopeful times long gone. Cumbernauld is a mess, but it's not only the CDC and the designers fault the town is such a mess. The massive amount of urban trash like neds and chavs are just as much to blame.
10:49 millcroft road? I lived there till I was ten. My parents split and I moved to Alloa where I am now. I've not been in Cumbernauld for years and I've heard my childhood street is a bit of a mess
Oh nice video too.
***** Thank you.
I live there now it is a bit
Mark stewart aw! It was ok as a child but friends had told me it had gone into decline. I hardly remember it much tbh.
It's terrible my friend lives there
You can absolutely see what they intended !
Boat people would be onto the UN or EU..that cnauld was too harsh and brutal place to live..they want 4 or 5 star hotel's...thats diversity served cold as the wind that used to blow through the tiwn centre
That's were I live 11:06
Commentary by Magnus Magneto
Scotland via East Germany.
Millcroft road 9:30
what's it called?
5.20 ..that ‘p’ always annoys me... why put the p in ‘supermarket’ in the wrong place lol!
The discotheque scene at 7:11 Was this the worst dancing ever? It must be at least in the top ten.
I was waiting for Austin Powers to show up.
Who's the fit blonde at 7:25? :-)
Aha do remember she’s now probably at least 70
let me get ye her number fucksake
That's ma maw! Eyes aff ya pervo.
Just a member of the international jet set who made Cumbernauld their home in that era. Bianca, Mick, Britt, Joni, Andy...they made a second home of the "Whisky Bar" at the Golden Eagle Hotel, that is, of course, when they were not throwing a few shapes at the Condarrat-A-Go-Go nightclub, or just kicking back in Wee Tam's 24hr Haggis and Chip-A-Rama in Phase 1 of the Town Centre.
Well that's a pretty short skirt to be sitting on a chair in front of kids at 5:58!
Well, with all the good intentions aside...It looks very much like a postmodern .....Prison. Intented for people to escape poverty and outragous bad living condition after ww2 . Its an analogy for keeping the people of the servicing class working for the affluent under the same roof and geograhically away from their rulers. It must have been a smashing sucess for the developers who sold in projects like this to finally solve the problem to house the people who got finally evicted from their neigboorhood and uproot them from pride and self suffiency.... The outcome we all know to well. Beneficiary systems reward familys without fathers , newly arrived immigrants with no working skills and a galopping number of aging members wich live on there own in poverty. This is what you get when you having a democcatic vote on Leaving or stay in the european union. What yoy have soone you shall reap...
What’s it called?
@@davidmcmanus5918
😂😂😂
They had better shops then than now 😂
Different world. Looks so much cleaner and safer.
Mums leaving prams in great rows outside Galbraith's, those days are dead and gone forever.
Now it's swarming with needs :(
2017
Kind of sad to see the state a lot of the places they show here are now
Jolly Monkey Definitely. Very interested to see up there now. Part of the reason I love post-war architecture is the enormous level of hope surrounding them. I believe the failings of many of them was due to a lack of care of the buildings and the style of building quickly falling out of fashion.
Ryan Patrick The overuse of concrete and the grey colour palette that came as a result of that really haven't lasted the test of time.
I agree. I live in Seafar and it has gone downhill massively.
oh do you ? I know it well! ....Cumbernauld is a dump now... even when i was a wee boy i used to go to Scotia Play ... was amazing ! .... Im 25 now
+Alan Parker Scotia Play haha. That place got shut down due to poor safety if I remember right. Pretty much everyone had their birthday parties there in primary school
Why did it all go pear shaped? Did the kids growing up there treat it like shit or did the investments run out?
Nicky Woodward Society changed and drugs came on the scene.
Was all the rage, it should come back I say ;) haha.
Interesting..
However, I doubt it will do much good, the majority of the population want to see the old part gone.
The road to hell is paved with good intentions
'our cities need more space'...OR
'our countries need less people'.
10:54*