Who owns the ‘cruel’ care home?

Dear readers, an unusually warm welcome to November. The weekend delivered little in the way of drama for your two writers, but much in the way of welcome relaxation. Calum went for a steam, while Robbie sweated it out at Glasgow’s newest sauna (more on that below).

We’re raring to go for another week at Bell HQ, especially with an exciting announcement contained below — Calum and Robbie will be channeling their inner Jeremy Paxmans. Diaries at the ready.

Now, your Monday Briefing.

Announcement: Christmas is nigh and we’re feeling festive at The Bell. It’s been one hell of a year; what better way to celebrate than bringing supporters and friends in a room together and getting them to duke it out for a £100 cash prize?

That’s right; on 4 December, The Bell is going to be hosting its very own Christmas quiz! We’ll be taking over the Wee Dram room at Woodlands Road institution, Dram, for an evening of testing your knowledge on everything from music, pop culture, history and — of course — Glasgow.

Tickets are £4 for The Bell’s paying supporters and £5 for free subscribers and non-members (who are extremely welcome to come along). Minimum teams of two and maximum six; the winners will receive £100 in cash. There will also be plenty of time for mingling after the main business of the evening has wrapped up.

Join us from 7.30pm on 4 December for some classic Christmas craic. See you there!

Get tickets

Bothwell boys’ care home empire

Like us, you may have seen BBC Scotland’s story in September about terrible conditions in an Inverness care home. Castlehill Care Home was accused of “cruelty” and “neglect” over the conditions many elderly people were left in. Earlier this year, it was also warned by the Care Inspectorate to improve its service or face closure. 

Well, when the Beeb described Castlehill as “operated” by Morar Living but “trad[ing] under” the name Simply Inverness, our interest was piqued. After some digging, it turns out the ultimate company behind Castlehill Care Home, Simply UK, is run from Bellshill by a pair of Bothwell business partners: Gary Sharp and Christopher O’Brien. Sharp and O’Brien also own Morar Living, and have designs to become the UK’s largest care home builders, providers, and operators. They do it all, and some of the figures involved certainly catch the eye: Simply UK claim to have invested £750 million between 2020 and 2022 in constructing and acquiring care homes; they also had £100 million volleyed into their net by a company controlled by Chelsea FC owner Todd Boehly; €40 million was also chucked into the mix by French investor Pierval Sante. Clearly a company on the up. O’Brien and Sharp predict that Morar Living, their flagship care home operator, will be worth £500 million next year. But the picture is less rosy for some of its residents. 

Another care home lacking credentials

To add to their resumé of less impressive ventures, a company owned by Sharp and O’Brien and part of Simply UK’s universe, Augusta 2008 LLP, was ordered to stump up £6.4 million in legal costs and damages after losing a court battle in July. They were found liable for what the judge described as “potentially life threatening defects” in one of the care homes they built down in London. 

So now you know, one of the UK’s fastest growing movers and shakers in a UK care sector worth £77 billion operates from an unassuming North Lanarkshire commercial estate. We approached Simply UK and Gary Sharp and Christopher O’Brien for comment, but received no response.

Glasgow in Brief

♨️ Robbie got a sneak preview of Scotland’s first community sauna last night, and can happily report it was comfortable, cosy and capable of reaching temperatures above 90°C. Rejoice! The space, at the back of the Bowling Green Together in Pollokshields, has been painstakingly built by a group of volunteers over eight months. The sauna itself has been built by hand, the changing rooms constructed using upcycled wood cleared from the site itself, and the plunge pools have been fashioned out of old whisky casks. 

GCS is working with LGBTQ+ charity Leap Sports Scotland, with two of its groups having a stake in the space to use it monthly. They will also be offering hot seats to organisations like Andy’s Man Club and Scottish Autism. “I think it’s important to make it a community sauna [by getting] organisations to come in and have a stake in the space,” Tammy Pein from Glasgow Community Sauna told us, before taking a plunge in a barrel full of freezing cold water. We weren’t the only media presence there yesterday: the BBC had sent a crew from Sunday Morning Live for an upcoming piece. The sauna is set to open this Friday. Sessions will cost £10 (£6.50 concessions) for 75 minutes. 

🎞️ We love the GFT, but my word is its website hard to navigate. So much so, one cinema-goer has recently built their own website, Simple Cinema Listings, to make it easier to navigate programming, showing times and duration. We love the disclaimer that, “this site is not affiliated with the Glasgow Film Theatre. All information here is provided for reference only”. Needless to say, best to check the Glasgow Film Theatre website for official listings. We have since noticed that the GFT website has somewhat simplified its website of late, and wonder if this might have anything to do with their disgruntled web-developing competitor. Either way, browsing for a film at the city’s most beloved cinema theatre has never been easier.  

📺 Bad news for bosses at BBC Scotland, still dealing with the drip-drip of media stories about Kaye Adams’s suspension. The saga rumbles on, with no decision as to her future at the station forthcoming from Pacific Quay as of yet. Adams was due to return to Mornings at the end of last month. According to the schedule, her return has shifted to 10 November, with Connie McLaughlin and Laura McGhie filling in before then. “There’s no mourning going on. Nobody expects her to come back, and to be honest nobody is that surprised by the allegations,” an unnamed BBC Scotland journalist told the Mail over the weekend. 

Now, another presenter stooshie has emerged: that of Andrew Black being taken off air over “alleged misconduct”. In reality, it sounds less like misconduct than a silly (and not very funny) practical joke: a post-it note Black stuck on the Reporting Scotland set in protest at a Scotland football match delaying the nightly news by all of half an hour. Embarrassingly, nobody took the note down before broadcast, meaning it was visible during the 7:30pm news. Perhaps we’re wrong, but it hardly seems like grounds for being pulled off air. Perhaps Black is another victim of the shake-up at BBC Scotland, as the new management makes their presence felt. (A new head of news, Howard Simpson, was appointed in May, the same month Victoria Easton-Riley became the new head of audio). Last week, it was confirmed Martin Giessler and Laura Maciver will be replacing Gary Robertson and Laura Maxwell as presenters of the revamped 6–9am slot of BBC Radio Scotland, renamed ‘Breakfast’.  

😿 Sad news for cat lovers, Freddie the cat, AKA the Mayor of Shawlands, has gone to the big milk saucer in the sky. The orange tabby passed away peacefully aged 20 at Pets n Vets on Halloween. “Since 4 months old Freddie staked his Skirving Street territory, that he patrolled, and he was known far and wide, and never to be forgotten,” wrote his owner Barbara Prior on Facebook. RIP to one of Glasgow’s realest felines.

🏚️ What are you doing next Wednesday? If you find yourself with some free time, and Calum’s waltz around North Laurieston piqued your interest, you might enjoy dropping into the Savings Bank to see how the next stage of the North Laurieston masterplan is shaping up. Stage one sought public opinion and engagement over plans, spearheaded by New Gorbals Housing Association, to bring greater footfall to the area, improve transport links and grow green space. The masterplan enjoys cross-party support, with Labour’s Dr Soryia Siddique and SNP councillor Ruairi Kelly both championing a major redevelopment of the area. Initial feedback shows people are particularly keen to see the general state of buildings improved, a boost to the residential population and most of all — safer streets. Stage two is the consulting phase: how that differs from engagement, we’re not entirely sure. But if you’d like to make your feelings known, you can do so between 2pm–8pm at the former Savings Bank on Wednesday 12 November, with a presentation at 6.30pm.

Stories you might have missed:

🏳️‍⚧️ Claim trans people are ‘waiting 224 years for treatment in Glasgow’ disputed by councillors 

🚆 Days of disruption expected after Glasgow–London train derails

👑  Glasgow loyalist group refuses to sing ‘God Save the King’

🗝️ Planned £1bn Glasgow prison will not fix overcrowding crisis, warns Scottish Labour leader

Read/listen/watch: Poor Things, by Elspeth King

Following the death of Elspeth King on Saturday, former director and historian at the People’s Palace, we’ve been going through her writings and manifold contributions to Glasgow’s cultural life. In this Yours For Scotland article, published in anticipation of the Hollywood production of Alastair Gray’s novel Poor Things last year, King recalls the struggle and success of bringing Gray to the People’s Palace for a residency that produced 30 paintings of Glasgow and Glaswegians. The portraits were exhibited in the People’s Palace’s 80th anniversary show which, according to King, “undoubtedly saved” the museum in 1978. Perhaps the Palace needs another saviour now. By indirectly showing us how important she was in Gray’s early career, we understand more clearly King’s influence on the city’s cultural heritage; not only did she help preserve and celebrate it — she actively contributed to its advancement. Rest easy, Elspeth. 

Catch up and coming up:

• Over the weekend, Jack Walton, editor and writer for our sister paper The Manchester Mill, penned a brilliant recap of our reporting on the movement that swept cities across the UK this summer — the flag raisers. 

The men who raised the flags

Nigel Farage says this summer’s movement was led by ‘ordinary people’ expressing their patriotism. That’s not what we found

The BellJack Walton

• Last week, Debora Bottino published her first article in The Bell, and what an article it was. If you want to know what happened to the 140-year-old pet shop Thomas Hays Pet and Aquarium Corner, and, crucially, what happened to the animals after it closed, then Debora’s article is for you.

Headline of the week: Drugs worth £27 found at Glasgow flat during raid (later corrected to £27k)

From the Editor's inbox:

There have been some great comments praising Debora Bottino’s article on the pet shop. Here’s our pick:

Re:view: Queen’s Diner, 50 Battlefield Road

I must admit I was more than a tad sceptical when I heard that micro-chain-cum-coffee-empire Grain and Grind was closing its Battlefield Road doors to turn the space into an ‘America style diner’ earlier this year. Colour me cynical. Come Saturday, I was eating humble pie, or rather hash browns, as I discovered the food on offer was not only adequate, but decidedly delicious. The menu offers up all the expected breakfast/brunch classics: waffles, fried breakfasts, bagels and eggs. For lunch, there are sandwiches and burgers (which I’ve yet to try). What I can say is my dish of tater tots with oyster and shiitake mushrooms, fried onions and red pepper sauce was banging — even if I was disappointed to be informed they don’t serve full vegetarian breakfasts (despite the menu listing all the necessary ingredients). Still, sitting on an old Subway seat watching the world go by with a stacked plate of food, I was glad of two things: there’s one less Grain and Grind in Glasgow, and one more retro diner.—Robbie

Glasgow Calendar: Oddacious by OhPandah, opens 6 November

OhPanda is bringing his first solo show to the Grateful Gallery, which he opened earlier this year with Ciaran Glöbel and Conzo Throb. The show is about “putting yourself out there” (what that entails remains to be seen), stemming in part from the new-found fame garnered by his viral social media videos (150 this year to date), which have seen his Instagram follower count grow to 56,000. Expect big heids, self-reflection and musings on sobriety.

Other dates for your diary:

• Taiwanese Film Festival, Family Matters (UK premiere) | 6pm Tuesday 4 November | £6-£10 | CCA, 350 Sauchiehall Street, G2 3JD