Lulu recently celebrated her 75th birthday having first shot to fame during the early sixties when she was signed to Decca Records at the age of 15 when she released her version of the Isley Brothers’ “Shout” which peaked at number seven in the UK charts.
She would go on to win the 1969 Eurovision Song Contest five years later with the tune “Boom Bang-a-Bang” and also have major chart success with the title song for the 1974 James Bond film The Man with the Golden Gun. It wouldn’t be until later in her career that she would score her first UK number one hit as she guested on a cover version of Dan Hartman’s “Relight My Fire” with boy band Take That.
Although Lulu moved away from Glasgow at an early age, the city can still claim her as one of their own with the singer still feeling connected to Glasgow saying: “I always love going back to Glasgow because I think of it always being my home.”
1. Lulu’s Glasgow
Lulu who was born Marie McDonald McLaughlin Lawrie is one of Glasgow’s best known singers having been brought up in the East End of the city.
2. Glasgow’s St Rollex Caley railway works
Lulu’s grandfather Hugh Cairns who started working at the railway depot in Springburn on 13 September 1916 at the age of 14 years old making four shillings and eightpence a day.
3. Onslow Drive school
After attending Thomson Street Primary School, Lulu became a pupil at Onslow Drive School. The building was demolished in 1977
4. Garfield Street
Lulu moved to Garfield Street in Dennistoun at the age of 12 or 13 and said: “When we moved from Soho Street across the railway bridge to Garfield Street, it was only a couple of hundred yards, but mentally it was a lot further. We had edged slightly up in the world because we now lived closer to Duke Street and further away from the Gallowgate. There weren’t so many poorly dressed kids or runny noses.”