Bob Hamilton

Electrics in the Gallery and fumes in the workshop

Clip Title	Electrics in the Gallery and fumes in the workshop
Interviewee Name	Bob Hamilton
Interviewee Role	Taught photography and built the Darkroom in Ingram Street. Was the resident photographer for events and exhibitions.
Interviewer Name	Kerry Patterson
Interview Date	12 September 2019
Clip Length	2 minutes 8 seconds

Transcription

BH: And we were on, there was two or three of us on a job creation project to do up the gallery. And I think they were stripping the windows or something like that, it all looked kind of… and the first thing that was on was John Byrne’s Writer’s Cramp. And I remember we built a big platform in the corner, the guys that done up the gallery and stuff. And that Bill Forsyth [film Director], he used to come in. And you’d go in one day and say, “there’s smell of burning in here, what’s that smell?” You know and then you’d see this plug with a big thick wire coming oot it, disappearing across the workshop into the gallery, and you’d go in and these guys [laughs] were running about twenty lights off it, and cameras and all this stuff! Making a film! You’re thinking ‘the place’ll burn doon! Ye cannae do that!’ You know off a domestic, kinda… So, there was all that kinda… because if you were making a film, well where are you gonnae go to get the screenprints made? And they’d the helicopter, and they had to screenprint [on the helicopter] so we got the job. But… the equipment was pretty kind of like… wasn’t the greatest equipment and there wasnae any ventilation, there wasnae any of that. So you’d get high on the stuff as we’re doing it! You know these big giant screen-posters and everybody’d be like, going doo-wally, kinda. Or you would do sorta, like a hundred big posters and somebody would come and look at them and say “Oh I didnae realise there was an Arts… there was a Bellahouston Arts Centre.” And you went “huh?”- “I know there’s a sports centre”. And it was like ‘Karate, Bellahouston Sports Centre’ [to be printed on the posters]. But somebody just wrote ‘Arts Centre’. [they laugh] There was about a hundred ae these things, that had to be re-printed by hand again and stuff. It’s terrible.

KP: Uh-huh. Yeah, the health and safety aspects of things is something that people mention quite often, talking about the workshop

BH: Oof! In my darkroom there was a beam running right along it. I had sinks here and had platforms, and this beam, the plaster was hanging off it. And I thought, if this comes down, I’m dead. And this is the place I work in! You know what I mean? It was just… you just had to look at it and forget about it.