We lived at
"Lilybank" Cottage No 63 Omoa Road Cleland in the county of Lanarkshire. My father Matthew Brown was born
on the 26 July
1891 in New Stevenson near Bellshill. He was the eldest son of
James Brown and Bridget Rooney. He
married my mother on 31st December 1915 at St Mary's
Church in Cleland. My mother Ellen
Reynolds was the eldest daughter of Joseph
Reynolds and Ellen McDermott. She was born on the 5th June 1892 in "The Square",
Cleland (near to where the Corn Park football
ground is today). I was born in Cleland
and was the oldest of three boys my brothers were Richard Gerard (Gerry) and
John Boyle. I had three older sisters, Ellen
(Lena), Bridget (Etta) and Mary. My father's mother married twice
her first husband was James Brown her
second was Michael Ward. There were nine
children in all seven Browns, Matthew, James, John, Richard, Mary, Jeannie, and Bridget (Beassie), and two Ward
children Catherine (Kate) and Annie. My mother Ellen had four sisters and three
brothers, they were, Annie, Jane, Agnes
and Rose, and Hugh, Patrick, and Richard. My father's brother John and his two sisters Kate and
Annie, they emigrated to Australia
in or about the year 1921. My earliest memories relate to my boyhood in Cleland a mining village in Lanarkshire
where I was born on the 7th December 1924 at Lilybank Cottage, Omoa Road. They
go back to the beginning of the thirties, when the country was in the grips of
a terrible depression and disease. It was a time of hunger and the dole queue and begging in the streets. The people
of the village were of mining stock,
families depended on the local pits and mines for their livelihood, but now most of these were closed
or closing and the miners had to look
elsewhere for work. My father had worked in The Blackie pit in New Stevenson until the 1926 general
strike. When the strike ended he was
determined he would never work in coal pits again and so he went to seek work elsewhere. He like a lot of the
local men had heard that The British
Aluminium Company were erecting a factory for the making of Aluminium in Fort William in the
highlands. He went there and managed to
get work installing the hydro pipeline down the side of Ben Nevis. This when completed would provide the power for
the new Works producing aluminium. He
stayed there for a three years managing to get home every month. I surprised
him many years later in the 1960s when I related to him a story about when I was very young. I
remembered I was with my mother and we
walked from a railway station, and then went up an outside stairway with iron railings, it was raining
very hard and we were wet. I told him
also that the train we had been on seemed to come out of the water. Firstly he
didn't believe what I was telling him. I had described the place where he was in digs and that my
mother had taken me to visit him in Fort William, this
was in 1926. I was only 2 years old. When he
came home from the highlands in about 1929 he was fortunate to get a
job at the building of the new wing for
the Hartwood Hospital (Asylum) near Shotts. Whilst
he was there and I was about 9 or 10 years old he built me a barrow made from a set of pram wheels with
an orange box bolted to it with tram
handles about three feet long and had a loop of fabric attached. Each Friday after school I had to
take my barrow and go up Omoa Road to the Cross. Along Main Street to the Bellside Road and then up
to the bridge on the Bellside Newmains
road (A73) and from there take the
Murdostoun Road to meet him about a mile from Shawstonfoot. He would
be wheeling his bike as he had a bag of
small coal slung across the crossbar, he had picked the coal from the surface
workings of an old derelict mine. The
bag was placed on the barrow. I got into the harness and set off for home. It was warm work and we
had to stop frequently for rests. I did
this every Friday in the summer holidays and on any other days if we were short of coal. There was
little or no work for those men who
remained in the village.
The coal owners
had locked the pits and refused to take
on workers until they all agreed they would never go on strike again. Only
those who agreed to take a cut of a shilling per hour in their pay were taken back, men just hung
about the cross, no work and no pay.
Those lucky ones who had a job had to travel away from home, there was a great deal of poverty, as the
wages were very low, all they got was
about three shillings a day. They were indeed lucky if they brought home thirty shillings a week for six
full days work and this to feed maybe
six or seven children. It was a depressing place to live but we boys never experienced the really hard
times, we were a part of it but we
didn't know any better; as long as we got a penny at Christmas, Easter the summer holidays and Halloween we were
happy. A penny trip on a tram car during
the summer holidays from Airdrie to Paisley was a great adventure, even though we had to walk the
five miles to Airdrie to get on to the
tram. My brother Gerry had managed to get himself a job delivering the morning rolls around the village. The
rolls were delivered to our house at
about 6:30am each
morning by the baker Tony Petkevitch from Craigneuk. We got two big baskets
handed in to the house and the rolls had
to be put into bags to be delivered to the various households. Gerry
would take the Main
Street and Parkside round
and because I had to catch the bus to
school in Motherwell I was given the easy Omoa Road and Chapel Street round. It was always a contest to see who could get finished the
quickest. Sometimes my mother would come and give us a hand if we were running short of time. On the Friday evening
after school we would go around and
collect the money from the various customers who hadn't paid in the morning, many a time we had to go back
the following week before we eventually
got paid. The rolls were sold three for
a penny so the weekly bill for a typical
family was about one shilling and sixpence (
71/2 P in today's money). Our pay for all of this was two shillings and sixpence for the week (Half a Crown) ( 12 1/2 P.). When you consider my father's pay for a weeks work was about
1-10 shillings, the half a crown was quite a handsome addition to the
family income. Gerry was very much
involved with Wilson's piggery across the viaduct over the Quarry Well. I have known him during his summer
holidays to spend a whole night with an
expectant sow, and he would remain with her in the sty until the piglets were born He would then come home
tired out and go to bed after a good
nights work, Gerry was probably only about ten or eleven years old when he was doing this and my mother always
said he was going to be a Vet when he
grew up, I am sure if the war hadn't
come along that is the career he would have followed. About this time I was
becoming aware of my father's
involvement in local politics, it was 1935 and a General Election had been called. There were lots of
important visitors to our house and I
learned they were all members of a neo socialist organisation called the "Independent Labour
Party". Jennie Lee a young school teacher
from Lochgelly in Fife had been adopted as the ILP candidate to fight our North Lanark constituency. The
sitting MP was Mr Anstruther Gray. Some of
the visitors included, Jimmy Maxton (he had a hair do just like Hitler's), Jimmy Carmichael, Fenner Brockway,
John Wheatley, Manny Shinwell, Harry
McGhee (he was from Greenhill hamlet outside Cleland) and Nye Bevan. They were the leading Socialists
of the day and made quite an impression
on me. (They were all elected to the House of Commons in the Labour Victory
just after the war in 1945). Every
Friday after school I had to deliver
about forty copies of the ILP's Newspaper "THE NEW LEADER". It was a four, page paper and
always had stark and striking black and
white caricatures on the front page. They depicted happenings in The Spanish Civil War, or The Japanese
invasion of China, or Mussolini's invasion of Ethiopia,
or Hitler's antics in Europe. One particular cartoon
remains vivid in my memory it depicted a slant eyed skeleton like creature
holding up a rifle with a fixed bayonet and a
Chinese child impaled on the end of the bayonet. This had a very lasting effect on me. My father was Jenny Lee's
Election agent and the committee had
arranged an Election Rally up in Westwood Glen near the Newmains Road beyond Bellside. All the notables were there,
and games and stalls were organised, The
celebrity who came that day in support of Jenny Lee was the film star Constance Cummings. (She starred in the film Blithe Spirit by Noel Coward) a red headed lady who sang
and spoke from a platform that had been
erected in the Glen. Later that day she made a speech at Cleland Cross in support of Jennie Lee. On the day of the Election I remember some of my pals, boys and girls from the
school running up and down Omoa Road
singing, Vote, Vote, Vote for Jenny Lee Kick Anstruther up the pole We will find a penny gun And, we'll make the
bugger run And we won't see Anstruther
Gray any more Needless to say Jenny Lee was unsuccessful and that was the last election until after the
war in 1945. My School Days I went to St Mary's primary school when I was
four and a half and left there just
before my 11th birthday. My teachers throughout the school were, Mrs McMaster infants teacher, Miss
Annie Reynolds (my mother's sister), Miss Susan Ellis, Mrs Graham and Miss
Annie Lavery. I don't remember a great
deal about my early years at Cleland School I do however remember
vividly my later years there. In my class were Arthur McConnachie, Francis Tamburrini, Joseph
Cavannah, Michael Sammon Alex
McCafferty, Joseph Henderson, John Mulhall (Ribbie), John Reynolds,(Minch), Patsy Mooney, Thomas
Stewart, Danny Kane, Andy McNeil, James
Lavery and Thomas Vallely, the
girls Nan Currie, Elizabeth Slavin, Catherine O'Keane, Sarah Brady,
Nellie Cassidy, Margaret Devlin, Mary Nolan, Mary Farrell, Catherine Mooney,
Annie Reynolds and Lizzie Clarke. There
were also boys and girls whose names I don't remember, who were orphans and lived in The Poor House.
(Now Cleland Hospital), down the
Bellside Road, they were always escorted to school were poorly dressed in Parish issue clothing, the boys
wearing heavy boots and brown and grey
herringbone tweed suits, the girls wore skirts and jackets of the same
material. We were never allowed to mix too freely with these children, they were outcasts of the society
as it was then. Even though they were happy days, we made our own
enjoyment playing games in the street
under a gas street lamp. In the wintertime it was common to see boys and girls of all ages playing "Peever" (now known as hop-scotch), or kick the "knacket" a variation
of " hide and seek " a small tin can which was placed in the middle
of the road and one boy or girl kept an
eye over it and at the same time had to spy out the others who were hiding in all sorts of cover. Being able to
run fast to free the " den "
was absolutely essential. Another similar game called "Levoy"
was only for the boys, it was a bit more
rough and tumble and attracted the bigger
boys, Joe Jordan, Racker Nolan and some others. These games went on until we were called home
at about 8 o clock. I recall vividly how we
were called home by my mother or my elder sister, they would come to
the back door and call out our names to
come home. If we didn't get home quickly
we were in trouble and wouldn't get out the next night The young ones of all the other families were in the
same boat and by 8.15 the street would
be empty. In the Summertime the weather was so hot we played games in our bare feet and went swimming down
The Calder ( we called it "The
Cawther") at the bottom of The High Road, The hot weather caused the tar surface of the road to bubble and run and
we got it all over the soles of our
feet, we had to use butter to get the tar off, in the Winter the weather was very cold with plenty of snow
and ice, most of the boys had ice skates
and we used to skate to school. Behind The Hib's Hall was a pond which we used
for skating when it froze over. Some of the older boys and parents would ensure that the ice
was safe before we were allowed on to
the ice. The Summers in those days were much earlier and warmer than they are today, The Winters were
very long and bitterly cold starting in
October and lasting to the following March. they were happy days An incident happened to me in 1935 which
involved Mary Currie and one or two of our other neighbours including Mrs Daly
and Nellie Henderson. It was a Friday afternoon probably early Summer May or
June, my mother told me to go and get
washed in the wash house which was out in
the yard. (We also had an outside toilet which we shared with the Daly's ) The
Wash House was a brick building with a door which was always unlocked, inside there were two wash stands
with wooden tubs. Each stand had a
wringer which fitted to the back of the stand and where it could be fed with washed clothes directly from the
wash tub. The wringers were manually
operated and were very effective for getting all the water out of the clothes. There was also a brick built
structure which housed an iron boiler
and which had a round cover with a handle. this cover was placed on top of the boiler to prevent any
water bubbling up over the top and also
I suppose to stop anything from falling in to the boiler. A coal fire in a
grate below the boiler kept the water at or near to boiling. I went out to the wash house and climbed up on
the edge of the boiler and was about to
take my socks of when it happened. I really don't remember what happened but I must have let out a yell
and I ran to our back door screaming. By
the time I got there the neighbours who heard my screams were also at the back door, they pulled the
clothes off me and Mary Currie ran down to her shop and came running back with
a bag of flour which she poured all over
me. Seemingly I had fallen into the boiler and
was severely burned. Someone went for The Doctor and he arrived
very shortly after. He was very annoyed
when he saw I was covered in flour. I
was put to bed in a cage to prevent the bed clothes from touching
the parts of my body which had been
badly burned and were covered in large
blisters. Doctor Lithgow treated me with a liquid spray from a scent
spray, it had a rubber bulb and a long tube and a nozzle. By squeezing the bulb some liquid was sucked up and
sprayed on the blisters. He came in
every day and treated my wounds with the spray. I looked forward to him coming in and treating me as it took away
the pain. I was in bed for over a month and I remember that I was wheeled to
the Corn Park to see the school sports
arranged to celebrate The Silver Jubilee of King George V. I like all the rest
of the school children was given a New Penny a
gift from the King. The treatment given to me was so effective that
I bear no scars whatsoever as a result
of the accident. On a sadder note a few
days after this Margaret Brunton a girl about the same age as myself was cleaning the fireplace of her uncle's
house and her apron caught fire, she ran
out into Omoa road ablaze, someone rolled her in a blanket but her injuries
were so severe she died that night. Across the yard from our house lived the Boyle family at the back
of Big Frank and Lizzie Melons and Mary
Currie's shop, they had a big family as was common in those days, I think they had about 9 or 10
children. James, John, Joseph, Patrick,
and Vincent and Tom, Mary Magdalen, Elizabeth, Josephine, and Anne. ( They were an enterprising family the
father Big Johnnie had a circular saw in
the yard where he cut railway sleepers into logs and the older boys chopped
them up into sticks to kindle the fire. The younger boys gathered the sticks into bundles and
tied them with string. These sticks
"firewood" were sold for a penny a bunch ). Incidentally the roads and streets in those days were
completely free of motor traffic at
night, except for the Midland bus which came along Omoa road every hour up to 9 pm, it travelled between
Airdrie and Newmains coming via Chapelhall, Newarthill, Cleland and Newmains.
There were no cars on the roads at night
and during the daytime it was all horse drawn carts and vans such as The milkman Geordie Scott, The
Co-op Baker "Rab" and Ramage's
fruit van. Only three people in the village of Cleland had cars and these were used during the daytime a Morris 12 belonging to
Father Dollan a Ford belonging to Mr
Mann the Church of Scotland Minister, and a
Ford 10 belonging to Mr Peter Tamburrini, affectionately know as
"Peter the Tally", John
Howley a cousin of my mothers was the driver of the priest's car. It was during these days that
we boys were beginning to notice that
girls in the class were a bit different from us, we were beginning to grow up, we had a few secrets to hide, making dates with the girls to meet them along the Carfin Road or
the Newarthill Road. Sometimes in the Summer we
would arrange to meet them down the Wishaw High Road near to the Calder burn at Swinstie or down the Wishaw Low Road at
the bridge near to the old Mill and at Fisher's Cottage. Some of the girls were great fun to be with Nan Currie
and Sarah Brady ( both girls died very
young in their 'teens ) were particularly keen to join us for a walk in the warm Summer evenings or make
arrangements to meet them at one of the
Wishaw Cinemas in Kirk Road , The Plaza, The Main Street or The Green's
Playhouse. The films of those days were real classics, starring Humphrey Bogart, Jimmy Cagney, George Raft,
Rita Hayworth, Joan Crawford, and Bette
Davis. Carmen Miranda was also a
favourite amongst the older ones.
Of course as I said before some of the boys including myself were keen footballers and played for the school
football team. We were so good that even
the bigger girls were keen to be seen supporting us at our various matches.
Charlie Dobbins, the janitor of the school
was a very strict man and his
word was law, we all respected him immensely, he was a grumpy old figure. To all the school children
he was a strict disciplinarian and never
missed an opportunity to report any misbehaviour to the headmaster Mr Vallely.
Charlie was also the school team manager
and loved to take his boys to play football throughout the Lanarkshire
Schools area, The boys I remember who
played in the team regularly at that
time were, Joe Henderson James Lavery
Joe Brown Patsy Mooney Arthur McConnachie Joseph Donnelly
Willie Delaney John Reynolds Paddy Nolan John Mulhall Robert Brunton These boys thought the world of Charlie they
also brought credit and fame to the
school and the village. I was one of the team at that time and we won most of the trophies we entered for, The
Lanarkshire Schools cup, The Uddingston Rose Bowl Tournament and the
Lanarkshire Catholic Schools League were
all won in season 1935-36. Six boys of that team were picked
to play in the trial match for the Scotland International team to
play Wales at
Tynecastle park in Edinburgh this trial of The West of
Scotland Boys V The Rest of Scotland boys was played at Royal Albert's
ground in Larkhall Hamilton. The six boys were Arthur MacConnachie (Centre
Half), Joe Henderson (Goalkeeper), John Mulhall (Inside Right),
James Carr (Right Half), Wee Paddy Nolan
(Inside Left) and myself at Left Back. We
all played with our Cleland St Mary's socks on, these were
alternate bands of sky blue and gold.
Arthur MacConnachie was a big lad he stood
head and shoulders above all the rest of us and he was the only one
picked to play for Scotland in the 1937 team. We were all proud that one of ours had been picked for Scotland.
Charlie Dobbins hired Lamont Watsons bus
and took all the team and the new Headmaster Mr Docherty and his assistant Mr McConville to Tynecasltle
that day, needless to say Scotland
won the match 2-1. ( In the summer of 1935 I and about ten pupils from Cleland went to Motherwell and
sat the Entrance Examination for
"The Motherwell Higher Grade School"
Out of the ten, six girls, Elizabeth Slavin, Nan Currie, Sarah Brady,
Catherine O'Keane, Annie Reynolds and Lizzie
Clark, and four boys Joseph Cavanagh, Francis
Tamburrini, Thomas Vallely and myself were successful. We had to start our
new school in August that year, Liz Slavin and Thomas Vallely were brighter than the rest of us and they started
in class 1a all the others went to
Classes 1b and 1c. It was whilst I was at Motherwell in my second year that the name of the school was changed
from "Motherwell Higher Grade
" to "Our Lady's High School " our uniform was also changed from
Green and Gold to Royal Blue with white piping. I recall that day when the school was dedicated to "Our
Lady". We all assembled in our classes
in the Quadrangle and Canon Doyle who had previously been Parish
Priest in Cleland took
the service and gave the school its new name. He together with the Rector Mr Tom Lynch
appeared on the East Balcony where a
veiled statue had been erected. The cords were pulled to reveal a lifesize grey stone figure of The Madonna and
child. Prayers of dedication were said and after the service we were treated to
a party in the common rooms. The present Cardinal Archbishop of Glasgow
Thomas Winning was a pupil in Class 1a
of my entry year. I met him many years
later when he was Archbishop of Glasgow at a reception for my
Cousin Sister Martha who was celebrating
sixty years as a nun in the order of St
Francis. The reception was held in the Convent at No 19 Park Circus
Glasgow. I spoke to him about our days together in Motherwell but he never remembered me. Some of the teachers I had at Motherwell were
:- Mr P.Walsh Class Teacher, Mr Miles McCann, Mr H.
Naughton (Games), Miss Grillo (French),
Miss Gallagher (Science).Mr Hughes (Maths) Mr Glegg (Science) )
Omoa Road and Main Street were the two main thoroughfares through the village and where they met they
formed Cleland Cross. Omoa Road went in a westerly direction downhill past the Kirk, to Paddy
McKeown' s barber's shop. Also from the
Cross, the Main Street ran north passing
Fuller Fergies barber's shop, the road down to Louden's Saw Mill the Miners Welfare, the Co-operative store,
Bob Davie's butchers shop, The
Commercial Bank, and McMillan's pub then to the junction of Biggar
Road and Bellside Road at the
railway bridge.on the other side of the road, was John Mackies grocer's shop,
Pattersons building, Leezie Love's shop,
The Tartan Building and Joe the Tally's, the Public School the
Post Office and Baxters Garage. Going south from the cross was Peter
the Tally's, Top Smith's grocers shop,
Jimmy Allen's bakery, Maggie Johnstone's
sweetie shop, a row of cottages and a two storey building,the railway bridge and the junction of the Wishaw
Low and High Roads. On the other side
was Collins' house, Johnnie McMullens , St Mary's presbetry then the church and
the billiard hall (burned down about 1936), Brunton's cottage and the Castle
Bar pub at the Cross. The Castle Bar, a
pub much frequented by men of the village particularly on Friday
nights. Visits to the pub during the
week were very rare as there was little
money around and few men worked. Most days miners and their
unemployed cronies were to be seen at
the cross sitting on their hunkers gossiping
and putting the world to right. It was a common sight after 9 O'clock on
a Friday (closing time) evening to see maybe a dozen or so drunken
men staggering their way home from the
pub. Always the same faces, we got to
know them by their nick names and sometimes in the long summer evenings we boys would gather near the cross to watch
the goings on between the police and
those who were the worse for wear in their drunken stupor, they called out abuses to anyone who came
near, and always their language was
colourful. It was usual for the Sergeant of Police and a constable to make at least one arrest and march the
offender down past Peter the Tallys to
the Police Station where they would spend the night in the cells. Always next morning they would be
released without charge, promising to
behave until the next Friday night. Sometimes we would push
the swing doors of the Pub open so that we could have a better look inside
to see what was going on.
There were no tables other than a card table where some men played Dominoes or Fat
a card game popular amongst the Cleland
miners, The bar was the full length of the room and the barman Mick Brennan, had a long white apron
which had a bib and ties which tied
behind his back. On the floor throughout the room were spitoons where tobacco chewing miners vented
their mouths with the foul tobacco
juice. Spitoons were round receptacles made of steel and enamelled in white with a blue rim, they were
about nine inches in diameter with a removable insert which the
pub cleaner had to wash out under a running tap in the yard at the back of the
pub. Disinfectant was never used only sawdust
was sprinkled on the floors as this was the only means of keeping the floors dry from beer
spillage and the missed aims at the
spitoons. The Public bar was lighted by gas mantles and paraffin lamps. These were mainly used when it got
dark particularly in the Winter time.
The gas pressure was so low at times the lights would fail getting dimmer and dimmer the more lights
that came on. Women were completely
forbidden to enter the pub, except when they had to identify their menfolk. Next to the pub was a house which later became a
sweetie shop and then a newsagents,
later still the newsagent Jimsey Keeveney
(Cavannah) had erected an old railway goods van on a spare piece of
land in front of Bruntons house, this
was the only newspaper shop in the village. Cranston's Cottage was next and
then The Dalrymple Bar a pub set back
off the road just before the Dandy Row ,The Kirk with a tin steeple. Paddy McKeown's Barbers was next to the Kirk.
Paddy was a little round fat man
who when he cut your hair his fat belly was pressed into your face, he was always cracking jokes and at times he would frighten the life out of you by opening up a razor and
flick it up and down on a razor leather strop. I personally was always
glad when the ordeal was over to get out of the barbers chair. The shop was
also used by men of the village who
would come to place their horse racing bets with Mick McConnachie the bookie. Behind Paddy's shop
Bob Davie had his slaughter house before
he moved up to Main Street near the bank. The road went on past St Mary's school gate, Jordan's house
and Casserley's to Mickie Daly's at the
junction of Gibb Street, then on down the hill passing the Hibs hall, and Mrs McGlinchy's shop.
Hendersons Cottage and our house "Lilybank". were on the opposite
side of the road and Mary Curries
sweetie shop stood at the corner of the Stable Row. From here there
was a two storeyed house and then a row
of miner's cottages with access to the
Cockyard, then came the Band Hall and Stewarts Cottage. Opposite the miners row stood the Brick Building where
Maggie Heron had her shop and behind the
building were the remains of The Square and Pottery. The road continued to Lower and Upper Ravenshall and
as far as Stevensons big house at the
crossroads of the Newarthill Road ,
Carfin Road and the track into Dick
Marshalls Farm. On the opposite side going down from the cross there was a long row of miner's
cottages with their doors onto the
pavement. I cannot recall any families who lived in these cottages.
Where the cottages ended there was a
dirt lane called Scott's Close running
back at an angle and this came
out between Leezie Loves sweetie
shop and the Tartan building on the Main
Street. ( it got the name Tartan from
the coloured bricks used for the
building Red and Yellow). After the
entry to Scotts Close came Carrickvale a fairly large two storeyed building which accommodated about eight
families. Charlie Dobbins and his sister Mary lived at the front next to
Kelly's and Lafferty's. Also living
there at that time was Dominic Nolan's family which included the above wee Paddy probably one of the best
footballers ever to come out of
Cleland. They lived at the side of Carrickvale just behind Bean
Kelly's. Round the back lived another
Nolan "Paddy The Racker", (no
relation to the above family ), his wife had died probably in childbirth
when all his family were very young the oldest being Patrick aged about 16. There were other families living in
Carrickvale including Joseph Lafferty
and his sister Vera. At the side of Carrickvale opposite the Dandy Row a new road of red ashes was built to give access to
the public park when it was opened to
celebrate the Silver Jubilee of King
George the V in May of 1935. Frank
Fisher who was the lamplighter for the
village up to that time became the caretaker for the park when Electricity came to Cleland in 1934-35. the
previous lamplighter was a much older
man called Tam Johnstone, we boys and girls used to run after him as he went about Omoa Road lighting the
gas lamps. The gas lamps were put out about eleven O'clock each night
and in the Wintertime were lit again at
about 6 O'clock each morning. Just past the entrance to the Public Park, was Aitken's fish shop it was
always full of fresh fish from Aberdeen and the East Coast fishing ports but
not many people could afford to buy it.
The tradition in those days was that fish particularly in Catholic homes was eaten on Fridays no
meat was allowed. Only the better off
families could afford fish from Aitkens it was just too expen