James Watt Street

It was my first day back at work after a few days off and I had a headache so at lunchtime I headed out for a spot of fresh air and went in search of some caches in Glasgow.

My two targets were down near the River Clyde, the first being Polaris. This is a cache placed to remember a fire in the B.Stern & Co. Furniture Warehouse on James Watt Street in 1968. On November 18th fire broke out and engulfed the building taking the lives of 22 people. The death toll was made worse due to the security measures the company had taken to prevent break ins. The windows were all heavily barred and fire escapes padlocked to prevent intruders but these measures also worked in reverse and trapped the factory workers inside the inferno. Despite the efforts of around 70 firefighters and 20 fire engines, only 3 people escaped the blaze. This was and still is the worse fire in the city of Glasgow since the end of WWII.

Today after 44 years the building is still just a front facade held in place by a temporary scaffold. The cache is located on the building itself in a location which is quite pertinent to the story. And is accompanied by an excellent clue and help in selecting the correct location to search.

The next cache A Ride Along The Clyde - The Squiggly Bridge is located in, on or near a rubbish bin at the south end of the Tradeston Bridge over the Clyde. To Glaswegians this is more commonly known as the Squiggly Bridge and should not be confused with the Squinty bridge (the Clyde Arc) which is a road bridge further down the river. This isn't an ideal location for a hide and there were plenty of other places a cache could have been hidden in the area other than a bin. In the end I didn't find the cache anyway but to be honest I didn't really try very hard as the smell from the bin was awful. I'll leave this one until I know it's been found again before revisiting.