Not a penny off the pay, not a minute on the day! ✊️
Last week, we had our first screening of The Happy Lands (2012) as part of our General Strike Centenary Programme 2026.
It took place in Auchterderran Church Hall, Cardenden, a village tied closey to the films production and to the legacy of miner, poet and playwright Joe Corrie, whose play In Time O' Strife (1926) remains one of the most important cultural responses to the General Strike. It felt very special to kick off the programme here.
Scots makar, playwright, teacher, historian, and Fife legend Willie Hershaw joined us, sharing his own words and those of Joe Corrie. Following the screening, we were joined by cast mates Rebeka, Bill, Gary and Craig, who shared their experiences of making the film and what it was like in bringing these stories of solidarity, struggle, and community to the screen.
A huge thank you to them for making this event so special ❤️
Thank you to Lorna and Stephen from Auchterderran Church, our gracious hosts. Thank you to our funders and supporters, UNISON Fife Health Branch, OnFife and Sir Ian Rankin. A huge thank you to Keira, Richard and Matthew for helping me organise and run the event.
And lastly, thank you to everyone who joined us for such a special evening - and to all those helping to keep the history and spirit of the 1926 General Strike alive. 🚩🔥✊️✨️
Our next event will take place at the Adam Smith Theatre in Kirkcaldy on Tuesday 26th May - for more info head to the link in my bio!
Photo credits: @matthew_dunsmore
#generalstrike
RDW Glass is pleased to announce its first Glasgow-based Stained Glass Residency, taking place from Monday 7 September to Monday 28 September 2026 (3 weeks, weekends off).This unique programme offers artists of all backgrounds the opportunity to deepen their practice in a working professional glass studio in the heart of Glasgow’s East End.
stainedglass.scot
Led by experienced glass artists @keiramcleanglass and Rich Welsh, participants will explore traditional and contemporary techniques including stained & leaded glass, painting, soldering, etching, copper foiling, repair & restoration, and the creation of a collaborative stained glass window. The residency provides a supportive, creative environment to develop skills, foster collaboration, and contribute to Scotland’s rich heritage of glass craftsmanship.
Programme Highlights:
Full access to a professional studio and equipment
Hands-on experience across all aspects of studio practice
Collaborative project work
Engagement with Glasgow’s vibrant artistic community
Fee: £1,500 (includes £500 deposit to secure your place)Accommodation is not provided, but we can recommend local options. Scottish-based artists are welcome to commute.
How to Apply
Please send an email to [email protected] with the subject line “RDW Glass Residency”, including a short statement of interest and your CV or digital biography.
Application deadline: Tuesday 30 June 2026 at 10:00 AM
Full details: stainedglass.scot
We look forward to welcoming the next cohort of talented artists. 🤩
#StainedGlass #ArtResidency #GlasgowArts #GlassArt #Scotland
Installing a refurbished leaded glass panel (c1900) back into its harder than it looked door frame at @glasgow_architectural_salvage
#stainedglass #glasgow #scotland #architecturalsalvage
Finally! We are almost ready to share Fire Stories 🔥
For the past 6 months, Red Flag Players have been working with Easterhouse residents to develop a community performance that tells the radical histories of Easterhouse.
We have 2 special performances planned:
Friday 19th of June 7-9pm
Saturday 20th of June 2-4pm
Glenburn Centre, 6 Glenburnie Place, G34 9AN
May The Fire Always Be Lit! 🔥
Video animations made by the Easterhouse Living Archive Group, supported by @akviledir and @caireenstuart_
Music by Scheme
Funded by @gifestival@creativescots
Excited to share that The Happy Lands: General Strike Centenary Programme 2026 is a member of the General Strike 100 Map organised by GFTU!
The map brings together stories, exhibitions and events taking place across the UK this year to remember the strike and its impact on working people.
You can follow them at @generalstrike100 for more information and updates throughout the year!
Great to see comrades @radicalglasgowtours on the map! 🚩
Thank you to the GFTU for including us in this excellent programme.
#generalstrike #generalstrike2026 #mining #mininghistory #filmscreening
We kicked off this year’s Glasgow May Day programme of events at Red Easterhouse building a people’s archive, learning from the struggle of our past to inform the fight for our future. 🚩📽️🎞️🗞️📷📚
You can sample the work of the team everyday until the 9th May by visiting @platformglasgow
These clowns @theabsurdistpipeband would even turn up to the opening of a window... oh aye, it was the opening of the stained glass window Library Trail at Govanhill Library a few years ago!.. even came with a police escort to manage the crowds. 😂 Windaes by the gid people of Govanhill and @keiramcleanglass 😍
Installing our exhibition today ‘Red Easterhouse: Building a people’s archive’ at @platformglasgow
Featuring material from The Easterhouse Project ( a radical youth led social justice org) established in 1968 by Archie Hind (writer and playwright, I met Archie a few times in Heraghtys’s bar )
Sitting alongside is up to date contributions from contemporary artists- ELECTION is a performance project by artist @bishopmaydown , which sees young people aged 10-12 in Easterhouse write and perform a political manifesto- which you can read for yourself! ( it’s quality btw and would 💯 get ma vote!)
East ender and Glasgow artist @eliseprntice also contributed a beautiful banner . Their work spans across various media including painting, embroidery and banner-making and is grounded in their politics as a working-class queer artist.
Film archivist and curater @caireenstuart_ has curated a series of film and programmes Easterhouse related- there’s a lot of material ABOUT Easterhouse made by others , not much from folk actually from here. Caireen’s work is about trying to redress the balance!
There is QR link where you can download Cathy McCormack’s audiobook’The Wee Yellow Butterfly’ for free courtesy of @glasgowcommunity who also operate a radical art fund in Cathy’s name.
We also have material from The Easterhouse Festival Society , an amazing community led initiative that used culture to address social inequality. Work from Easterhouse Women’s project, material from radical community newspaper The Voice and hunners more!
Get yourself along , it’s free and part of the official @glasgowtuc Mayday programme.
We launch Saturday 25th April at @platformglasgow
Whose History is it Anyway?
It’s OURS comrades!
🚩❤️✊
🔥Exhibition 🔥
Red Easterhouse🚩
Building a people’s archive.
Stories of collective struggle in greater Easterhouse.
The Easterhouse Living Archive is an ongoing community project to unearth, preserve and engage with the working class histories and struggles of Easterhouse.
To launch our exhibition we are hosting an in person event on Saturday 25th of April, 2.30pm-4pm at @platformglasgow where you can Come and meet the community members responsible and learn more about the work of the archive.
Members include ; Editor of The Voice , Ian Montague; researcher Joey Simons @jimmyseeyou Easterhouse writer Margaret Colletta, film archivist @caireenstuart_ and stained glass artist Keira McLean.
This is a free but ticketed event , link in my bio 🤓🚩✊
@glasgowtuc@revolutionary_socialista@scotsarchives
Another great session @platformglasgow tonight led by artist and animator @akviledir and film maker @caireenstuart_ We were experimenting with adding colour and form to contact sheets, we’ll see how they turn out next week!
@eliseprntice was also back to help us finish our flag!
It’s so exciting to be working out how to make theatre together, everyone is learning all the time, trying new things, problem solving , challenging and celebrating each other.
As we enter the last months of this particular part of our project and build towards our @gifestival performance we are thinking about the future of our community archive and what it would mean to have a permanent physical and digital platform dedicated to the history of the scheme. How this history might inspire others the way it’s inspired us!
May the Fire Always be lit 🔥🚩✊
So excited to finally announce 𝑻𝒉𝒆 𝑯𝒂𝒑𝒑𝒚 𝑳𝒂𝒏𝒅𝒔: 𝑮𝒆𝒏𝒆𝒓𝒂𝒍 𝑺𝒕𝒓𝒊𝒌𝒆 𝑪𝒆𝒏𝒕𝒆𝒏𝒂𝒓𝒚 𝑷𝒓𝒐𝒈𝒓𝒂𝒎𝒎𝒆 2026, a series of specially curated screenings of The Happy Lands (2012), to commemorate 100 years since the UK General Strike of 1926.
Originally a Theatre Workshop Scotland production directed and produced by Robert Rae and Helen Trew, The Happy Lands is a powerful community-made drama depicting the lives of Fife mining families during the General Strike. The film involved more than 1,000 local residents across Fife, contributing and sharing their family histories, memories and lived experiences of mining and industrial heritage.
Taking place across Fife in May and June 2026, the programme will commemorate one of the most significant moments in British labour history, when over 1 million workers across Britain withdrew their labour for nine days in solidarity with locked-out miners.
These screenings invite audiences to explore the legacy of the strike, connect past struggles to present realities, and commemorate the spirit of community resilience and solidarity that remains as vital today as ever.
As miner, poet and playwright Joe Corrie wrote, "I must write about the world I know best, the world of the working man and woman", these screenings continue that commitment, ensuring the stories of the past inspire solidarity in the present.
This programme has been organised by Art27 Scotland in collaboration with curator Caireen Stuart, and funded and supported by UNISON Fife Health Branch and OnFife.
For more information, please click the link in my bio! ✊️
#filmscreening #fifeheritage #generalstrike2026 #generalstrike #mining
