“Hi John, Thanks for your links and congratulations on the very fine pages you have produced. Your diary entries on the Temperance movement reminded me of a wee story that my mother used to recall of how she and her two brothers used to go to the meetings. (The attraction being that there was always a slide show.) The heavily bearded presenter had a heavy walking stick and he would thump it on the floor when it was time to move onto the next slide. She also used to laughingly recall how her two brothers signed the pledge but somehow she managed to avoid it. I should also state that whilst my two uncles in later life enjoyed an occasional drink my mother never did! Regards, David”

While I myself had no knowledge of Temperance meetings, my mother took me on a number of occasions to a similar kind of gathering. The slides were presented by means of a “magic lantern” with the speaker, his walking stick and the assistant controlling the wonderful apparatus. The subject was always about missionary work in Africa, and I still remember that the opening slide was always the picture of a big closed door. On the second slide, the door was open revealing the complete map of Africa. The lesson was obvious.

-o0o-

In 1936 my father bought a 5-apartment semi-detached house and we moved from the tenement.  Up until then my sister and I had shared a bed in the living room recess, and now we were thrilled to have our own rooms. We called our new house "Armour" (a family name) and it's on the left in this photo.

My mother’s family were pleased to hear this news (after all, my grandfather, a piece-work iron moulder had managed to have his own house built despite bringing up 8 children), but on my father’s side opinions were not encouraging, for they felt that people of our class shouldn’t be buying property.

After we had settled in, we had a new arrival. No, not an infant, but a mongrel dog! The stray had been found wandering around the town and the policeman who was looking after it had shown him to my father. The outcome was that the dog with a rope around its neck was brought home to us. Now, I’m sure my mother wasn’t consulted on this matter, for in those days she was very wary of dogs. However he stayed and we named him Teddy.

Teddy didn’t settle down at all. In fact he was a born tramp. He regularly escaped from the garden, and would return during the night, howling to be let in. Worse was to follow, when it was discovered that he had some kind of skin disease, and he had to be put down.

We had much better luck some years later when we got a small mixed breed fog. We named him Binks and Rita and I very much enjoyed playing with him and taking him for walks on the canal towpath. Rita recalls the day when Binks fell into the canal. The bank was rather high at that particular place, and Rita had to lie down

flat to rescue him. This is Binks.