Alex Glasgow 1935 - 2001

Born in Gateshead, Alex Glasgow was the son of a miner. He began his career in forces broadcasting and became well known as a chansonnier and radio broadcaster. His work ranged from angry polemic to tender love songs, no doubt inspired by a 40-year love affair with his wife Paddy. A famous collaboration with Alan Plater and Sid Chaplin led to the 1968 musical Close the Coalhouse Door. The fine title song had been written by Glasgow for a radio programme.

Glasgow also wrote some memorable episodes for When the Boat Comes In and his recording of ’Dance To Thi Daddy’ entered the charts. Highly principled and combative, he characteristically refused to go on television to publicise his work. ’I’m not a bloody commodity,’ he said. In the theatre he collaborated with Stan Barstow and Henry Livings, and wrote Joe Lives, a one-man show for John Woodvine, about the celebrated 19th century Newcastle songwriter, Joe Wilson. He got into trouble in 1970 with a song sung on the North Region of the BBC about selling bombs to South Africa. He left the programme, and several colleagues did the same out of solidarity.

To general surprise, Glasgow left Tyneside in 1981 and settled in Fremantle, Western Australia. He and Henry Livings had appeared in Perth the previous year in their road show The Northern Drift and Glasgow had fallen in love with the place. ’They’re wonderful people. They’re all like Geordies.’ His ’Letters from a Pom’ and Henry Livings’ replies were a regular feature in the Guardian during the early period of his migration.