Wine Alley Days

The Wallace family arrive back in their home city of Glasgow, after having been evacuated to the country for the duration of World War II. Their excitement knows no bounds. The youngest have never seen a tenement building before. May, mother of a brood of seven, is excited too. Her husband Johnnie is back from the war and they have their first home to move into - pity the scheme was called 'The Wine Alley'.

That first day is not a good homecoming. They are followed by a man wielding a knife; the two eldest boys get into a fight; the woman downstairs complains about the noise; fights rage about who is going to sleep where, and there are strange tappings and wailings from the house above - and Johnnie goes off to the pub.

When they were in the country, they were ridiculed and called 'Glesca Keelies' until they made friends. Now the process has to start all over again. They are ridiculed and called 'choochters' and even worse in some eyes, 'proddies' - until they win a few fights.

That was the boys. The girls were fine. They were much better looking than the other lasses in the street.

May's main worry was that Johnnie was a different man than the one who had left them, when he went off to war.