Sell and be damned: The great Merrylee housing scandal of 1951

"Homes for the needy not the greedy!"

By Dr Anni Donaldson

More than 70 years ago a housing emergency rocked Glasgow, forcing citizens to take housing matters into their own hands. It was November 1951 and word was spreading like wildfire across the city that council houses being built in Merrylee were to be sold by local authority the Glasgow Corporation, not rented - the workers were incensed.

Bricklayer Ned Donaldson and plasterer Les Forster were working on a building site in Cranhill when they heard the news. They called an urgent union meeting. The young workers were active trade union shop stewards and members of the Communist Party, then a dominant political force in Glasgow.  A series of quickly organised meetings in factories, building sites, and in working-class communities throughout the city followed.