Enoch was a Woman: A River Walk

I’m one of the East End Women’s History researchers who is working towards putting together a new map and walk around the east end. We’ve met twice so far and already we have a big starburst of topics to work on. St Thenew/Thaney/Taneu/Theonia/Enoch – Mungo’s mum in short – is of particular interest to me, ever since I read about her in Elspeth King’s wonderful Hidden History of Glasgow’s Women, subtitled ‘The Thenew Factor’. I hope we’ll have a stop about her somewhere on the walk, perhaps at Trongate, which was originally St Thenew’s Gate.

On Sunday 29 April I attended an event called “Enoch was a Woman: a river walk”, led by artist Lucy Livingstone, as part of the Glasgow International Festival, designed to reinstate the reputation of a Glasgow figure now only represented in a temple of shopping.

It was a truly magical, atmospheric walk, that saw us trace the path of the Molendinar, Glasgow’s hidden river, which gradually seemed to merge with St Thenew herself. We began at the Bridge of Sighs, closing our eyes to imagine the river below, then slowly wound our way down over the course of two hours to the Clyde, through backroads and building sites, across new builds, carparks and railway tracks, along the approximate path of the hidden river, as Lucy gradually revealed the story of St Thenew, Scotland’s first rape victim and the mother of Glasgow.

The river emerged above ground only once during the walk, behind bars and choked with waste, and we tied some clooties (clothes) to its railings. Down at the Clyde, it was strangely absent – an empty drain opened onto the river, and three puzzled seagulls perched on the sidings stared back. Lucy told us that perhaps the river was finding other ways out, through the foundations of buildings.

We ended at the site of the vanished St Thenew’s well, a small overgrown and unacknowledged garden by the Clyde, just down from St Enoch’s Square. Lucy told us the gate was magically unlocked the day before when she trialled the walk. By this time the sun was starting to dip. We tied some more clooties to railings and a small stunted tree.

The walk was very moving: lots of space to think, not too much information , and a very creative approach to telling Thenew’s tale – as a girl behind me said, it’s so lovely just being led round the city like this – it did indeed feel like we were giving ourselves up to something as we walked, and I like to think it was the river, drawing us along beneath the concrete.