While we’ve got your attention, as part of our mission to make the good ship Bell financially sustainable, today we’re launching sponsorships with selected local partners. For our first slot, we’re delighted to work with Goldfishbooks, a publishing house who have just released a new children’s book raising money for Glasgow’s Children’s Hospital and other local charities.
If you would like to reach our community of highly engaged readers, then get in touch to see if you might be a good fit. We can include your best picture and a clean paragraph of text — no annoying popups or misleading headlines.
A beautiful new children's book raising funds for Glasgow Children's Hospital
Toys at Night, written by Faye R DesPres and illustrated by Anya Lauchlan, is a book of imaginative stories about a group of toys that come to life. Each enchanting, charmingly illustrated tale emphasises themes of kindness, friendship, and self-acceptance. Published by Goldfishbooks UK (run by Glasgow-born Peter Lauchlan), 10% of all proceeds from Scottish sales will be donated to Glasgow Children’s Hospital Charity. The book is available in Waterstones, TGJones, local bookshops and directly from the publisher, see the link below.
The City of London packs in around 2% of the UK’s GDP into just over a square mile. Pennsylvania Avenue brings together the legislative and executive branches of the US Government together into a couple of miles, throwing in the FBI along the way for good measure. Berlin manages to cram five internationally significant museums into an island two hundred meters wide. And closer to home, there’s Govan, a place that one Bell reader wrote in to argue was punching far above its weight economically:
For one district - and not one ever deemed affluent or fashionable - it’s home to BBC Scotland, BAE, Rangers football club & the QEUH … pretty remarkable for one postcode.
At the request of the editor, I had a look into the economic data. And the reader wasn’t wrong — if you were to rank Glasgow’s wards by employment, Govan is a clear second. In fact, it’s the ward with the third highest number of jobs in the whole of Scotland, behind only Glasgow City Centre and central Edinburgh.
At first sight this might be surprising. After all, Govan isn’t always associated with prosperity. According to the 2020 Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation, up to half of Govan falls within the most deprived 20% of neighborhoods in the country, with consistently low outcomes for health, incomes, and employment.
So why does Govan punch so far above its weight? And is there a way to connect the jobs and growth being generated by these large institutions with the people who call Govan home?
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