Today we commemorate a tragic event in our history when 72 children were killed in the Glen Cinema fire in Paisley.
It is thought that between seven hundred and thousand children had turned out to watch the cowboy movie Desperate Duke on Hogmanay, 1929 when black smoke started belching from a film canister and it filled the auditorium. Of course the shouts of fire! rang out and the children panicked. In the ensuing carnage the children were either trampled or died from smoke inhalation. Those that made it to the fire escapes found that they opened inwards, waves of children tumbled down the stairs and crushed those below.
The cinema had passed a fire inspection that very morning and the owner had been told to improve on the fire escapes and said he had reminded the manager, that the escape exits were not to be shut during matinee performances. The manager conceded that the exit gates had sometimes been locked to prevent children from entering the cinema without paying. Conflicting witnesses said they had been padlocked, but others said they saw them being unlocked, it is thought some young boys had possibly locked them again. The inspection the day after found little or no signs of actual fire The conclusion of the inquiry was that the it had been started by a short circuit when a metal box containing film stock had been placed on the top of a battery in the projection room.
Just a few days later, on the fourth of January 1930, a steady procession of small white coffins marked Paisley’s day of mourning. A truly harrowing new year that made headlines across the world. Subsequent legislation would make cinemas safer for children and adults, including the amendment of the Cinematograph Act of 1909 which ensured that cinemas would have more exits, and that escape doors were to be fitted with push bars that opened outwards.
Today Paisley still remembers the children of the Glen Cinema. Every Hogmanay the families that lost loved ones attend a simple ceremony at the town’s cenotaph, directly across the road from the building that took so many innocent young lives. The other memorial is in Paisley town centre.
The actor and singer Tom Urie posted earlier (that it was A beautiful, moving and freezing memorial this morning
I can’t imagine what the parents and surviving children went through, spare a thought for all those affected that day…….
