Gird And Cleek

A Memory of Motherwell.

If you were a boy in the 1950’s did you ever own, like I did, a gird and cleek? Many Motherwell fathers at the time worked in the local steelworks and some would make a gird and cleek for their young sons. Girls, on the other hand, preferred to play with a whip and peerie instead, though despite being a boy I enjoyed both. Anyway, the gird was simply a metal hoop and the cleek a metal rod with a hook at one end. The idea was to get the hoop rolling by pushing it with the cleek, which also steered the gird at the same time. Many happy hours could be had getting such a simple device up to speed along a main road (not many motor vehicles in those days to endanger life and limb). Sometimes, however, the gird ran out of control, disappeared into the distance and was never seen again. You can see now why I liked the whip and peerie!