A Sweet Story

I was at the sugar sheds in Greenock today meeting all eight of the artists involved in the Absent Voices project which aims to tell the creative story of Greenock's lost sugar industry.

I am helping to spread the word about this fascinating project and today I learned a whole lot more about Sugaropolis, as the town was once known.

I became involved in PR'ing Absent Voices through artist Alec Galloway, whom I first met in 2009 when he was a finalist in the now sadly defunct Aspect Prize for painting.

Alec is a wonderful glass artist. His windows are in all sorts of interesting places, including the refurbished Maryhill Burgh Halls in Glasgow and also on the island of Bute, inside Calum's Cabin, a respite holiday home for families whose young loved ones have cancer.

It has been established by the family of the late Calum Speirs, who died of a brain tumour at the age of 12.

I watched a documentary about this a few years ago and it was a very moving moment when Alec 'handed over' his beautiful window, which included symbols relating to the short life of this courageous young lad who died too soon. Prolific Blipper, Feorlean, has written about his window in Calum's cabin here

Alec, whose family all worked in the sugar industry in. Greenock, has driven Absent Voices all the way and has assembled a really interesting group of artists, who will be responding to the building in words, music, song and sound over the course of the next year.

I'm learning all the time about this fascinating slice of Scotland's industrial heritage.

One of the artists, Rod Miller (who remembers jumping into the mountains of sugar in the sheds as a boy) was telling me today about how child labour was once commonplace in the sugar sheds.

He also talked about how a body was once found in a vat of sugar... the victim had quite literally been boiled alive in sugar.

This picture shows Absent Voices artist and Blipper, Alastair Cook, walking into the sugar sheds.

He, in turn, Blipped another Absent Voices artist today called Kevin McDermott. Many of you will remember him as the frontman of The Kevin McDermott Orchestra.

See Alastair on Blipfoto here: Alastair Cook on Blipfoto

Follow Absent Voices on Blipfoto here: http://www.blipfoto.com/SugarSheds1