THE BBC production The Storm that Saved a City, aired on January 10, was a disappointing eulogy for the conservation lobbies cobbled together with some questionable and misleading history using the anecdotes of those trying to shelter from the fierce winds of that unforgettable night.

The programme claimed that the Great Storm had the effect of bringing an end to plans for wholesale demolitions of tenements and instead brought about proper repair and conservation programmes, leading to the development of conservation areas and the ultimate cultural regeneration of the city. The reality however of the Great Storm was that its devastation exposed to the wider world the Slum City that Glasgow really was. The devastation of the storm was so great due to the scale of neglect. Many of the houses which were damaged were unsaveable. There was no radical change to avoid demolitions after the storm, as resources were concentrated on immediate repairs. The military provided more than 15,000 tarpaulins for the tenement roofs. It was not until the mid-1970s that the tenements worth saving were identified and could be refurbished. Indeed the account of a young construction manager working in Glasgow in the early 1980s bears this out. One of his first tasks was in dealing with botched roofing jobs carried out after the storm. A lot of the contractors in 1968 had made their fortune in repairs and there was many a tale of roofing contractors retiring to the sun.

There was certainly a large programme of home improvement grants which benefited mainly-owner occupiers and landlords. No mention of the work of Glasgow City Council over these years in promoting regeneration of the city. No mention of the destruction of industry in the Thatcher years or the right to buy taking the best council stock out of public ownership.

The replacement of the development areas of the city by the 25 conservation areas was presented in this programme as a triumph.

As chair of one of Scotland’s major community development trusts I would ask “triumph for whom?” As Tam Galbraith, the Conservative MP for Hillhead in Glasgow's west end, observed: "It is in the lower part of my constituency, along Dumbarton Road, that the dangerous damage seems greater, and as one goes up the hill from the river to the more prosperous parts of the constituency, it becomes less and less until among the mansions of Kelvinside there seems to be no dangerous damage at all.”

The Maryhill/Firhill area, for instance, is one of the most deprived areas in Scotland. But since it is not in a conservation area it has missed out on funding. Recently at a seminar for national and local government officials, I asked them to date a photograph of a Maryhill back court by Raymond Depardon, the renowned photographer. Most identified it as about 1930 – in fact it was taken in 1980.

To the BBC I would say this programme was not good enough. Let us hear an argument for putting people first.

Anna Dyer,

Flat 4,

87 Cleveden Road, Glasgow.

LIKE Maria Fyfe (Letters, January 15), I too was astonished at the statement contained within the documentary The Storm That Saved a City which blamed the 1915 rent strikers for the terrible state of Glasgow's housing stock. My grandmother was brought up at the end of the 19th century in a house which didn't have any windows.

On December 28, 1931, The Glasgow Herald reported the death of my great-aunt Christina Moody, pointing out that "she was a leader in the agitation for municipal housing and for the amendment of the Rent Restriction Act. In 1915 she was a member of the Glasgow Rent Strike Committee, the agitation of which was followed the same year by the passing of the Rent Restriction Act". It is worth remembering that more than a century ago, working-class women rent strikers (who did not even have the right to vote) refused to be bullied or intimidated by unscrupulous male landlords, stood solidly together, and won their case. It is also worth noting that they were supported by the Glasgow Herald.

However, Glasgow's appalling slum housing conditions continued. I remember shortly after Margo MacDonald won the Govan by-election in 1973 I visited her constituency surgery, and found a long queue of people stretching down the street, waiting to see her, and almost all of them had housing issues; indeed, I believe that I am correct in stating that during the few months she was the MP for Govan, she dealt with more than 900 housing complaints. Underfunding by successive Conservative and Labour governments failed generations of Glaswegians and Labour especially should be utterly ashamed of their neglect and disregard for people who had trusted them for decades; it took not a storm, but a political earthquake, for that to change.

Ruth Marr,

99 Grampian Road, Stirling.