Troops marching in George Square 1 or 2 February 1919.
(Ilustrated London News, 8 February 1919)
Friday 31 January 1919 in Glasgow was ‘no morning to rise early’ if intending to head to work. The reason why the historians behind Tanks on the Streets?:The Battle of George Square, Glasgow 1919 can write this is because they checked the Meteorological Office’s weather records for that auspicious day in Glasgow’s history. Thus ‘a dark and dreich morning, with a light north-easterly wind blowing’ and the temperature a notch below two degrees celsius is an accurate description of the weather encountered by Glasgow’s men and women who had been on strike all week and were now congregating in George Square.
The authors know it was dark because sunrise times for the entire United Kingdom are available on the internet and they know Glaswegians rose early because factory and shipyard gates opened for workers at 6am – these are facts available to academic and non-academic historians, which contribute authenticity to history writing for a popular history readership. They are unlike the other facts that are the life-blood of historians which are subject to interpretation depending on the individual historian’s approach.