Katherine Mackinnon

@kamack.bsky.social

3466 Followers 944 Following

Writer and PhD researcher interested in oral history, migration and methodology. Also radical history walking tours, books, social history, Glasgow kmackinnon.org radicalglasgowtours.com she/her

Head from the mascot costume of a large purple toucan

Almost indescribable image of former PTFC mascot Harry Wragg, supposedly a thistle

A bowl in shades of brown and cream with a tremendous drawing of a creature with hooves, a wee collar, rounded ears and a lovely friendly face

Wee model of a mortar and pestle on the side of a building with a plaque explaining that it’s a rare survivor of the trade sign, once common

A labyrinth cut into grass outside the Quaker meeting house in Lancaster. Very fine to walk through it with just the odd bee for company

Photo of a presentation slide showing images of publications by tenants groups and local groups including one with a picture of Yosser from Boys from the Black Stuff with text “Castlemilk sit-in, c’mon gizza goose!”

Cover of Notes from Below journal issue 27, Workers Inquiry: the politics of a method with a blue and green cover of hands holding different tools like a spanner, a wooden spoon, a phone

Old Guinness is good for you advert outside Golfers pub

The Waverley docked at Rothesay with heavy clouds overhead. V dark even tho it is 1pm

Me absolutely soaking wet wearing a pointless raincoat and holding a pointless umbrella. So wet that my eyes were stinging from the Umberto Giannini curl crème which was washed out of my barnet directly down my face by the quantity of rain lashing down

Huge concrete pillars supporting a motorway covered with colourful graffiti

Me at the hairdressers wearing an absolutely banging Colombia strip

Panoramic photo of a big crowd on Buchanan Street

Graphic in the style of old school jotters Strathclyde Always Antifascist

Person with a special backpack which contains a cat

Poster for Hard Boiled showing a bashed-looking Chow Yun Fat holding a shotgun in one arm and a baby in the other

Poster for the current John Woo series at the GFT

A knitted string bag in electric blue shown hanging on a yellow bench with a couple of books in it

Hand holding a tin of incredibly named Salaam Lebanorange, a superior Fanta-esque orange drink

Placard saying solidarity from Glasgow on a shelf above archive boxes

Stack of radical print culture zines in a gorgeous blue ink

Picture of a group of workers in front of an Upper Clyde Shipbuilders banner. They are at the weekly meeting which all employees could attend. In front is an apprentice in a boiler suit doodling in a jotter. On the right is a woman with a towering blonde beehive and blue eyeshadow. Others include a lady with a headscarf and a mop, a guy who appears to be making the tea and another guy holding a spirit level. They are all weirdly illuminated with an orangey yellow light so they look a bit like they are glowing around the edges

Small glow in the dark looking model of a 1930s skyscraper type tower, inside a wee jar with a red lid

Man in a beret, a fake tash and football scarves representing Celtic, Rangers and Partick Thistle in front of loads of hand painted market signs

Cover of "Impressions of Glasgow" by Hugh Cochrane with illustrations by Paul Cox, produced by Britoil

Cover of The Heart of Glasgow by Jack House, with an old photo looking along the Trongate on it

Poster for Glasgow May Day march on 3rd May, assemble 10:30am Barrowland Park, leaving at 11am going to Glasgow University Union for a rally at 12:30. Graphics are of the May Day A-Z. A for Acvitism, B for Better Buses for Strathclyde, C for comrades, F for Free Palestine, R for Roses (and bread too) etc

Big crane and it’s Reflection in a glassy smooth river Clyde in the sunshine

A certificate for the book collecting prize

Close-up of a grey Ridgeback touring bike's dropped handlebars, showing unbelievably good black and white zebra striped bar tape

View from the top, with pale yellow grassland in the foreground and the city of Glasgow just visible in the distance. The annoying clump of pine trees block the view a bit when you're up there but actually look quite scenic in this photo.

The night the Glasgow contingent of the International Brigade arrived back, following its disbandment, was an unforgettable night at the City Halls. There on the platform, were these almost mythical heroes with their Sam Brown belts and berets (a then unknown military style headgear and they were received with deservedly reverberating applause. It was announced that each local contingent would march to their respective districts and an appeal was made for locals of these districts to march behind them. Need they have
asked!
The Springburn contingent headed north led by a flute band. I never noticed a step of the way. As we neared Northcroft Road, the dispersal point, the band struck up the "International" as we swept into the street. It was a night to remember! A short while afterwards I joined the Young Communist League.
Spain was a turning point in my life.

Black and white flyer with simple line illustrations and this text:

See a raid? Don’t walk by! We can resist the raids together!
Make sure people know they don’t have to answer any questions and can leave.
If they want to leave, walk away with them.
Film immigration officers and police. If someone is being detained, check with them first or only film officers.
Challenge the officers - why are they questioning specific people?
Tell people around you what’s happening. Call your friends. Tweet @antiraids to get word out.

If someone is being detained give them these numbers
Bail for immigration detainees 02074569750
SOAS detainee support 07438407570

Me standing in front of the film poster pointing to the credit “the people of Glasgow”

The Young Socialist featuring a red linocut of a wee kid celebrating May Day throwing a ball in the air. Someone holds a placard saying “peace” and across the bottom in cursive it says Socialist greetings to children everywhere

Lino print of a landscape with a wee village in the foreground, in black and yellow

GB84 by David Peace

The Most Secret Memory of Men by Mohamed Mbougar Sarr

Old advert for Liberator cycles feat a big woman done up like a Valkyrie, holding a huge sword and with her nips fully out

A small empty swimming pool with a blue border round the top. It's in an Edwardian building with gorgeous arched ceiling and skylights. On the back wall is a design in black and red coloured bricks which looks like a friendly wee face

Screenshot of an old post by Shaun Scott @eyesonthestorm with the text:
bro they're historicizing u in the group chat - they're situating ur behavior in a broader postindustrial context and they're citing an impressive array of sources bro

Incredible picture of Margaret Skinnider dressed in men's clothing with a flat cap and a cigarette hanging out her mouth, linking arms with two smiling dark haired women in white shirts. Unbelievable levels of style

Me, a white woman with dark hair, looking delighted wearing an oversized green handknitted jumper, with lovely cables up both arms and a complex cabled design on the front. It has a deep ribbed funnel neck which creates a beautiful round yoke shape. It shows the four components of the city of Glasgow's coat of arms: a fish with bobble stitch making the scale texture, a tree with cabled trunk and branches and leaves knitted separately then sewn on, a bird perched at the top of the tree and a ring held in the fish's mouth. Genuinely an absolute work of art

Martial arts legend Sammo Hung in a blue shirt with fists raised in a fighting stance. This is a recent photo where he is probably in his 70s, with white hair. Looks absolutely iconic.

Red sandstone tenements in the sun with a bright blue sky covered in small fluffy clouds, like a mackerel sky but each cloud is rounder and fluffier

Booksnake stretched out on the floor

A very decent, I thought, wee 3D volcano made out of brown cardboard from a cereal box. It has lava drawn around the sides and strips of the packet from a multipack of Caramel Wafers are shooting from the top of it like mighty plumes of molten rock

A fanned set of 4 riso printed Radical Glasgow Tours vouchers featuring various icons of the city’s radical history including Margaret Skinnider and smudge the cat. Each voucher is printed on a different pastel shade of card giving big Monopoly money vibes

Drake good/bad meme with top text that says "you're getting paid for writing an article with $150 of book tokens", bottom text that says "book tokens which can only be spent on dry academic textbooks, which cost $50 each"

Two women playing stringed instruments to an embarassed-looking cat in the winter gardens of the People's Palace. Both are wearing baggy jumpers with Mr Happy and the Glasgow's Miles Better slogan dating this to 1990 when we were European City of Culture

Me looking excited in a radio studio while the host Fran does something technical relating to sound levels

Photo taken in a darkened cinema of the credits of Ringo Lam’s City on Fire (1987), showing Chow Yun Fat in a freeze frame as the credits roll

A lovely tabby cat called Susan with white feet and kind eyes, sitting on top of a pile of notes on a table. In the background are various coffee mugs, a pile of books and a computer. It’s cool Susan I wasn’t even using those notes anyway

Beautiful pen and ink notes with a portrait of me with notes and words in different scripts surrounding me including “Glasgow: city of defiance” , “Nelson Mandela” “the past we inherit the future we build” and then in big capitals at the bottom it just says RADICAL. I love it so much

Photo of a page from Swamp Thing book 1 showing a guy in green scrubs and face mask holding up something that looks a bit like a marrow with text beside his face that reads I WONDERED ABOUT THE UNWORKABLE PSEUDO-KIDNEYS