My First Birthday Card

This card was sent to me by the Sunday School and I see from the reverse side that our address was Burnbank Terrace, Lenzie. That was where I was born, but I think that by the time my second birthday came around we would have moved to the tenement in Kerr Street, Kirkintilloch.

Were birthday parties common in my childhood? I don’t think so, for I can’t remember us having any or going to any. The only children’s party I recall (apart from those held by the Sunday School) was one which our Aunt Frances had for her piano pupils, and all I can remember is that I refused to join in a kissing game and went in a huff.

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This photo is the earliest one I have. I’d love to know was in my mind as I stood there.

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Here are photos taken at the beginning and end of my schooldays.

Primary 1 at Lairdsland School

 

I’m in the middle row, 4th from Left. (Notice the butterfly?)

In the back row 4th from left is Betty Hamilton whose aunt was married to my uncle George, the minister who became Secretary of the Baptist Union of Scotland. On the extreme right on that row is Walter Nisbet a 2nd cousin of mine. Standing next to me is Johnny Lang - we came in contact with each other very often through our music, he played trumpet and was associated with the Players Club.
In the front row 4th from the left is Archie Little who later on played violin in our music group.

Year 5 at Lenzie Academy

Back Row -Roderick Maclean, Thomas Morgan, Ronald Renfrew, James Hendry, Robert Goodwin, Harold Street, John Roy, Geoffrey Allan

Third Row - William Rankin, James Anderson, Ian Macpherson, Douglas Smith, David Anderson, Ian Brown, Me, Jack McIntyre, Andrew Buchanan
Second Row - The Rector Mr Farquharson, Vera Hutchison, Nessie Miller, Nancy Creighton, Ian Paterson, Blair Miller, Archie Little, Graham Davidson, Mr Mutch
Front Row - ?? , Nancy Beddoes, Essie Fleming, Mary Graham, Miss Harley, Betty Anderson, Lora Miller, Evelyn Dunn, Alison Macleod

The three violinists are all there - Douglas Smith now in Australia, Andrew Buchanan who sadly died as a result of a street accident a good many years ago, and Archie Little now in Edinburgh.

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Now, two more photos -
The first one of Jean and I taken a few days after my 56th birthday, and the other on my 60th when the girls in the office organised this surprise for me.

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In the 1970s my parents had a caravan at Callander and our family have happy memories of holidays and week-ends in and around the town.

In Novenber 2008, Jean and I spent an enjoyable few days there, and were glad to find that much of Callander remains the same - the River Teith with the swans and ducks, the mound where Margaret and Fiona used to sit playing their guitars and attracting the attention of interested boys, the main street with the big Dreadnought Hotel, numerous gift shops and cafes (many of them closed at this time of the year). And of course looking down on the town the imposing Ben Ledi with a little snow on its summit.

Some things have changed of course - the church with the tall steeple is now the Rob Roy museum, the Ben Ledi café is now a fish and chip shop, and the little sweet shop where we bought "soor plooms" is no more.

We were most fortunate in choosing that particular week-end, for up till then the weather had been continuously bad, and just the week before our visit there had been quite a bit of flooding when the Teith overflowed.

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It’s interesting to note that for many, many years Kirkintilloch district had three institutions for mentally deficient people. The earliest was Woodilee Hospital (known to us as “the asylum”) which functioned from 1875 till 2001. Then came Waverley Park Home 1906 -1993, and from 1936 till 2002 Lennox Castle Hospital.

I knew Waverley Park very well, for I entertained there on many occasions. When it opened, its purpose was to provide for the “Care of Defective and Feeble-minded Children”. In practice it was a home for girls and women, though I suspect that the women had been in the home since they were quite young.

The girls were always thrilled when visitors came to entertain, and enjoyed taking part.A church dramatic club which always performed comedy plays was very popular, and my violinist friends and I provided music between the acts.

A few of the girls who were more intelligent worked outside as domestic helps, and one in particular was employed by a local doctor for many years. All of them went out en masse each week, on Sunday mornings to church, and to the cinema on Saturday afternoons.

I used to dread meeting them in the street. They walked in a long line two by two, and, if they happened to see me across the road, they would nudge each other and point over to me. If I saw them before they saw me, I would take avoiding action by darting into a close, and wait there till they had passed by. Remember - I was probably aged 15 or 16 at that time.

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When we moved from the tenement in 1936, one of the first things our parents did was to buy a new wireless set.

I don’t know what make it was, but I’d never seen an aerial mast as big as the one we got. From the living room window it stretched to the middle of the back garden where it was attached to the top of a very tall pole which was held in place by four strong guy cables. We used to joke that the salesman had seen our father coming and guessed he would be an easy target for parting with money!

From then on, radio became an important part of our lives. Rita and I looked forward to Children’s Hour at 5 o’clock - from London with Uncle Mac (Derek McCulloch), from Glasgow with Aunt Kathleen (Garscadden) and occasionally from Aberdeen with the Aberdeen Animals.

There were many exciting plays and excellent adaptations of well-known stories for young people, and a great favourite was the Toytown series featuring Larry the Lamb, Dennis the Dachshund, Mr Mayor, Mr Growser, Ernest the Policeman and many others.

In the evening we had cinema organists, variety shows, talks and plays. Our parents liked the plays, though very often Mother would switch off if strong language was used. We listened to Music Hall on Saturday nights, when well-known singers, musicians, comedians and impressionists each had a 10 minute spot, all accompanied by the excellent BBC Variety Orchestra conducted by Charles Shadwell. A popular programme on Sunday evenings was Grand Hotel with a small orchestra led by the famous violinist Albert Sandler. Many years later this type of programme would be led by Max Jaffa.

One of the Scottish highlights was the comedy series The McFlannels about a Glasgow family. The cast included Molly Weir who would go on to be a household name nationwide.

Of course in those days there were just two radio stations in the UK - the BBC National programme and the BBC Regional programme. There were continental stations some of them transmitting in English, and, though they must have been available to us through our big aerial mast, I don’t recall that we ever listened to them. It wasn’t till the 1950s that I came across Radio Luxembourg.

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