Paisley just misses out on City of Culture bid but emerges a winner nonetheless

How do you save a town? With commitment, surely. With passion and with energy. With determination to see you through the dark, low points which will come as surely and as regularly as the wild, exhilarating highs. With faith.

But more than that ... it takes an idea. And as Paisley stopped, took a deep breath and hoped and perhaps even prayed, it also looked back more than two years, back to the idea of entering a bid for the City of Culture title.

Back to the start of what has been a remarkable journey for a town which bid director Jean Cameron tweeted recently has “bags of talent, steely resilience and a great big heart’’.

It has problems too. Paisley’s skyline features monuments to better times. The red brick mill built in 1886 by the Clark family stands testament to a boom period of Paisley’s thread industry in the late 19th century. As does the Coats Observatory, built by the town’s other great mill-owning family, opened in 1883, Scotland’s oldest public observatory.

By the 1890s the two family firms had amalgamated to become one of the world’s largest businesses and a pioneer of what we now know as globalisation.

Paisley’s great textile heritage stretches back even further that that, to the early part of the 19th century when Paisley’s weavers became the world’s foremost producers of the shawls bearing the Kashmir design which still bears the town’s name today. The Paisley Pattern was much is demand for decades and enjoyed a resurgence when its flamboyance was adopted by pop culture in the 1960s and later by the superstar Prince who named his Minnesota studio and headquarters Paisley Park.

Coats and Clark landmarks remain, which together with Paisley’s glorious Abbey, rebuilt in the 14th century after Edward I of England had the original building burned down in 1307, and buildings such as the Victorian Paisley Town Hall and the more recent category A-listed Russell Institute, give Paisley an architectural heritage which is second to none.

The buildings remain but the wealth that created them has long since gone. The streets which were thronged in the 1960s are far emptier now, the thread mills closed, throwing thousands out of work. By the time the town’s famous Bungalow Bar was playing host the visiting punk bands banned from playing Glasgow in the late 1970s Paisley was already experiencing serious problems which have only deepened since.

This was the problem facing Renfrewshire Council when it seized upon the idea of bidding to become UK City of Culture 2021.

How do you save a town when almost everything it was built on has crumbled?

By giving it a new purpose. By using culture to regenerate its economy. By using art to revive the pride which still lay within the hearts of its people. By recognising that those people were and still are its greatest asset, their creativity perhaps muted but not dead; very very far from dead.

Anyone who has spent time in Paisley recently will have felt a new spirit in the air. They will have seen it in the new murals in Brown Lane and in new cafes and bars beginning to pop up in the town.

They will have felt it at the Scottish Album of the Year Awards at Paisley Town Hall for the past two years and at the Scottish Trad Music Awards in the town last month.

And they will have heard it in the joyous music of Paisley’s famous son Paolo Nutini, who played an unforgettable intimate show at Paisley Abbey in support of the City of Culture bid. Paisley has changed and there is no going back.

Talk to those on the front line dealing with poverty and alienation in the town. People like those running the Star Project, in the north of Paisley, which runs a centre where anyone can drop in for help, advice or simply a chat. The Star project is one of the partners in the City of Culture bid and through activities such as its drama group has seen first hand how culture can bind communities together.

Or the Carers’ Choir, which provides friendship and the ability to experience the sheer joy of singing for people whose lives are devoted to looking after family members who need support. Talk to choir members and they passionately back the City of Culture bid because they know what a difference singing has made to their lives.

Or visit Ferguslie Park, infamous for being named Scotland’s most deprived area for the second successive time in 2016, where those who bring up their families in the area resolutely refuse to conform to the stereotype labels we try to attach to those who live with poverty.

Ferguslie residents don’t recognise the area whose problems we read about in media profiles of urban blight. Sure, they say, it has bad aspect but doesn’t everywhere? And Ferguslie has community spirit. It has people who care about each other.

And it has famous sons and daughters. John Byrne, the Slab Boys playwright and artist (his design will be featured on First Minister Nicola Sturgeon’s Christmas card this year) says growing up in Ferguslie was an overwhelmingly positive experience. “I thank Ferguslie Park every day of my life for providing me all the information I ever needed about life, it was the best place I have ever been, “ he said. It’s no surprise he backed the City of Culture bid.

Bid director Jean Cameron also grew up in Ferguslie and she speaks of her childhood with love and gratitude. Paisley has had more than its fair share of problems but its people have refused to be defined by them.

The last weeks of the City of Culture campaign have seen a remarkable outpouring of affection and support for the town and the 2021 team just as team members were delivering their final pitch to the judges at UK City of Culture Hull before the final deliberations and last night’s long and agonising wait for the decisions.

Those pledging support included the former director of the British Museum, Neil MacGregor, who said: “I think it is a credible candidate for the award and I hope it wins.’’

There was disappointment when Paisley’s bid did not win the judges’ vote last night but failure is very far from an accurate description of its campaign. Paisley has changed and there is no going back. Economic plans for regeneration will continue. Its museum will still benefit from a multi-million pound makeover. But more than that, its people have tasted the transformative power of culture and they will not turn their backs on that. Because of this bid Paisley faces a better future.

Alan McNiven,chief executive of engage Renfrewshire and member of Paisley 2021 partnership board: “The bid has changed the spirit of Paisley. We raised people’s expectations and that is always dangerous but where would we be if we had not done that? We are a better place because of it.’’

Iain Nicolson, Renfrewshire Council Leader and chair of Paisley 2021 partnership board said: “The investment we have in place will continue. The legacy of this process is that Paisley has been put on the map. A lot of people in Paisley can lift their heads higher because they put together a fantastic bid.”

How do you save a town? With commitment, passion and energy, yes. With an idea. yes. But more than that. With ambition and bravery. With the courage to dream and to believe that dreams can come true. Last night’s decision does not mean Paisley’s dream is over.

Richard Walker is consultant editor of The National and also worked on part of the Paisley 2021 bid.