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529 Balmore Road,Lambhill, Glasgow. Tel: 01413368666.

The Glen Douglas. 1991.

In 1959 Raiders take away the safe. Thieves broke into the Glen Douglas Bar 529 Balmore Road. The thieves are believed to have entered at the rear of the premises. Detectives found that a 6ft high barbed wire fence enclosing the pub, a building standing on its own, had been cut at the rear.
It is thought the raiders entered through the Hillend Gardens and plots Association, grounds which are at the back of the pub. Licensee Mr William L McMechan after the theft it was stated that it was not known how much money had been taken.

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In the NEWS 1979…

Seamus Blew It…

50 Year ban as luck of the Irish runs out…

Heard the one about the Irishman banned from driving for 50 years… he blew into the bag four times and always turned green. Well it’s no joke!

The Irishman who got the half-century ban after five driving offences, is Seamus Gormley, genial host of the Glen Douglas pub in Lambhill, Glasgow. In a rich Irish brogue Seamus explained his astonishing ban, “Sure, I think I’ve been most unfortunate.

“I have not injured anybody or knocked anybody down. And thirty times when I was breathalysed I was only the equivalent of about one vodka over the limit.

“On one occasion which I don’t remember I was over 200.” Seamus’s disastrous driving record started in April 1975. On that day he was fined £30 and suspended from driving for one year at Glasgow Sheriff Court, “I was over the limit.”

Two days later at the same court he was fined £20 and suspended from driving for one year. “I was sitting in the car but failed the breathalyser and was charged with being drunk in charge of the car.”

And three days later on April 21 at the same court he was suspended from driving for one year and fined £45, “Again I was over the limit.”

The following month at Kilmarnock Sheriff Court Seamus was fined £30 and his licence endorsed, “There was no drink involved. I bumped the back of a woman’s car as she came out of a restaurant entrance.”

DOG

Seamus who has been the manager of the Glen Douglas for almost three years commented on his Irish luck in getting three different one year bans from three different sheriffs.

“They didn’t seem to realise that the three bans were all made on me in the one year, well to be exact one year 4 days,” he said. But in March 1978 his Irish luck ran out when he was fined £120 and banned for 50 years.

He said: “It happened on Fair Monday. I’d had four vodkas. A little girl in Hawthorn Street was being pulled out into the street by a dog on a lead.

“I didn’t hit her, but in swerving to avoid her I hit a van. My count on the breathalyser was 129. “That’s only about one vodka over the 80 limit.”

But now his drinking and driving offences have brought a small problem to his work. For Tennent Caledonian Breweries, owners of the “Glen Douglas” have applied to the Licensing Board for a permanent transfer of the pub licence to Seamus.

But the police have objected saying that Seamus Gormley is not a fit and proper person to be the licensee, because of his driving record.

FACTS

Seamus says: “Sure, they certainly have the facts to object. Despite that 50 year ban, I maintain that I have not been involved in any major accidents.”

But Seamus, who is driven to work every day in his new Datsun by his wife Bridie, says he will drive again, long before my 81st birthday when the ban ends!

“I’m from Castlederg County Tyrone and in the summer we usually go across home for a holiday. We are only a mile and a half from the border. “So Bridie can take me to Eire and I’ll have a drive round.”

Licence Holder.

1960 William L McMechan.

1970 Andrew Coyle Liddle.