Journalist, historian, scriptwriter, broadcaster and conversationalist, Jack House (1906-1991) was given the title of "Mr Glasgow" such was his profound knowledge of the city. As he liked to point out, he was in fact born in Tollcross which before 1912 was outside the city boundaries. However his childhood was spent in Dennistoun and after education at Whitehill secondary school he became an apprentice chartered accountant. But he was already writing and getting material published. In 1928 he got a job on the Evening Citizen and over the next fifty years he wrote for all the city's evening papers and for the Sunday Post and Sunday Mail.
Experience at producing material and directing Boy Scout gang shows instilled a lifelong enthusiasm for the theatre and he was an active supporter of the Scottish Community Drama Association. During the Second World War he scripted material for the Army Kinematographic Service and got to know many leading members of the theatrical profession. His broadcasting career began in the 1920s, but it was in the 1950s that he became a familiar Glasgow voice on programmes such as Any Questions and Round Britain Quiz.
In 1937 he married the women's editor of the Evening News, Jessie Miller. He wrote more than seventy books, mainly on aspects of Glasgow. The best known were probably Glasgow Old and New (1965) and his autobiography, Pavement in the Sun (1967). In 1988 he was awarded the St Mungo prize for his contribution to the city.