Gordon Barr still recalls with frustration being just too small to be able to ride on the Coca-Cola Roller Coaster in 1988. Despite this, he has many happy memories of the Festival, and still has his Friends of the Festival and Broom Milk Bar badges. More recently, he has gone from chemistry and computing academia to the heritage sector, where after helping with the award-winning regeneration of Maryhill Burgh Halls, he now manages the Scotland grants programme for the Architectural Heritage Fund.
Lex Lamb‘s now-wife persuaded him to ride the Coca-Cola Roller Coaster in 1988, the last time he was on such a hellish contraption. He has occupied the time since then delivering visual communications projects for a wide variety of clients. He also pioneered major changes as chair of New Glasgow Society from 2015-2018, has delivered lectures on the secret Soviet map of Glasgow, performed at T in the Park and Latitude festivals, produced a well-received surrealist comic book and explored many desolate and abandoned places.
Kenny Brophy went on many happy visits to the Garden Festival, his parents having made the wise choice to purchase a family season ticket. Too afraid to go onto the Coca-cola rollercoaster, the event nonetheless left a deep impression on him and his Festival merchandise includes fake Daily Record headlines featuring his name and a pin badge. Being a hoarder works well with his current role, senior lecture in archaeology at the University of Glasgow. He researches and writes about Neolithic Scotland, the contemporary archaeology of prehistory, and the archaeology of Glasgow, and blogs as the Urban Prehistorian. where he has previously written about a couple of surviving Garden Festival features: Richard Groom’s ‘Floating Head’ and the Antonine Gardens