The great Garnethill graffiti war

On a balmy morning last month, I hop on my bike and set off towards the city centre. Almost immediately, I’m tailed by two police officers on off-road motorbikes who eventually stop me for questioning. After checking if my hoodie is a baseball jacket (it’s not), and asking what my bike lock is (it’s a bike lock), they let me off with a slap on the wrists for cycling in a one-way zone. Thank you officers! Running late, I race up Garnethill’s whale-backed drumlin. Waiting patiently under the shade of some trees are two cheery community councillors, who delight in hearing I’ve had a run-in with the law. The pair, I’d learn, are not entirely opposed to a rare act of criminality themselves. 

The more gregarious of the two, Jay Sutherland, does most of the talking. Her friend, Margaret Watt, is more retiring but no less friendly. The Garnethill Park mosaic mural behind them provides the backdrop for our conversation. What’s still visible of it, anyway. Since 2018, it’s been coated in a thick patina of graffiti. The council used to clean it by hand, avoiding the pressure hose so as not to damage the tiles. In recent years, with budgets straining, they have had to prioritise offensive, racist and sectarian graffiti elsewhere. 

As community councillors, Watt and Sutherland deal with a lot of complaints from locals about the growing amount of graffiti in the area. Community members have complained that they “feel unsafe”, a concern Sutherland says is legitimate. “It makes a place look unloved, it brings the tone of the place down,” she says. “You can't enjoy the beauty of that mosaic there because of somebody's tagging… It's abusive of other people's work.” 

Had I not seen the mural in its halcyon era, I’m not sure I’d have known it was here under the more recent graffiti. As far as I can tell, these are the work of the FA Crew, who tend to ‘bomb’ and ‘tag’ quick lettering, or spray ‘throw-ups’ that fall somewhere between a proper ‘piece’ and a rudimentary tag. They are a group of kids, but don’t underestimate the proliferation of their work; I can see an FA tag out my window as I write this. 

Early one September morning back in 2015, Watt and Sutherland headed out to the Garnethill viewpoint to engage in some “direct action”, making a statement about the rising tide of graffiti by putting their own artistic mark on the wall. They were armed with tubs of paint, rollers and a sketch. “Somebody reported us, I was delighted that somebody was on the ball, and the polis came up. We said: we're community councillors, here's my card,” explains Sutherland. They proceeded to show the officer their plans, “all gridded up, ready to go”. The officers left them to it. “I never asked anyone, it was a bit of graffiti,” Sutherland says gleefully.