BOGEY DAYS

Incorporating
How a Laddie Builds a Barrow
written 2005
DEDICATION & COMMENT
I AM INDEBTED TO MY DEAR WIFE, TRUDI, and my son, Iain, for regularly pressurising me to use a computer and type down details of some of the happenings during my early days in the Riverside area of Stirling. The fact that this text has now seen the light of day is an indication that their efforts have borne fruit, and so it gives me a great deal of pleasure to dedicate it to them as a way of reinforcing my thanks for encouraging me to start on some written work before I reach my 90th birthday which, incidentally, is racing towards me.
I have found that the experience of recollecting, reflecting, and committing to paper such a catalogue of so many memories has been a most fulfilling and enjoyable one. Hopefully, those who take up this text and scan its pages will decide that my task has been worth-while for the information which I have passed on and the many anecdotes which may either refresh the minds of older folks who have the good fortune, which I possess, of being to recapture many note-worthy scenes and events from bygone years, or, in the case of the younger ones, will imbue in them a sense of wonderment that such a world ever existed.

My basic young target audience comprises my two fine grandchildren, Harry and Alix, and, who knows, there may be numbers of great – and still greater - grandchildren who will relish the on-goings of a now quaint old customer such as myself. It would be nice to believe that the Booklet will survive for many years so that future readers will occasionally cast a thought back in my direction, although I recognise that the overwhelming mists of time, which will enshroud and largely obliterate the views, will, in the course of the years, inevitably make all the pretty pictures, which I cherish and which I have endeavoured to portray, less clear.

Sandy McIntosh JUNE 2005

CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION

HAVING DECIDED to take cognisance of my family’s wishes to ‘do something’, and wishing to produce a Booklet which would be of interest, I contemplated for a long time as to what exactly I ought to seek to achieve in my entry into the field of literature. I began by thinking that the Booklet should be about how to build a bogey, or ‘barra’, and then I realised that such a topic would be far
too restrictive and would certainly prejudice a developing ambition to recount
some of the details of my early life, especially in the 1920’s. I ultimately con-
cluded that the best way was to title the Booklet ‘Bogey Days’ and incorporate
information as to how a bogey, or barrow, was constructed. That would provide
sufficient scope for me to tell as much as I could about life during the 20’s in
the Riverside area of Stirling as experienced by a growing laddie, and as recalled by that same young fellow in his later years.
While my bogey played a significant role during a large portion of that period, it did not dominate the whole decade, but there was a time when it certainly occupied much of my attention. It was a home-made ‘cart’ which 20’s boys in the Riverside district were pleased to possess for use according to the needs of the day, all as explained later. I think that the bogey had its hey-day in the 20’s. By the 30’s, bogeys in our district were out of fashion and probably very little has been written about them. So far as I know, you will not find a model in any Museum. I am sure that they exist only in the
memories of old people who can still recall the events of the 20’s.
I may, of course, be wrong here. There was, many long years ago, in the now Port
Street area, a Barras Yett, being one of the entrances to the town, incorporating a toll-
collecting point. The very name of the gateway implies that it was used for barrows
entering and leaving the Burgh probably mainly for the purposes of trade or maybe for
other more gruesome purposes when we have learned that there was a gallows situated
some distance outside that gateway near the position of the present-day Black Boy
fountain. The barras of these days would, I am sure, be a bit more robust than the ones
the Riverside boys had in the 20’s.
Apart from my observations concerning bogeys, I go back to the beginnings of
my life and narrate what was my first awareness experience. Then I devote a Chapter
to school days at the Allan’s Primary School in Spittal Street and later at Stirling High
School in Academy Road, assisted by the fact that I have kept all my school report
cards. They provide a useful indication of the subjects taught in the 20’s, as well as the
style of marking. The information may prove to be of value to members of the present
generation. I also try to capture once again and list numbers of incidents from these
years, both in and out of school.
Understandably, many objects, games and practices which existed then are not
around today and these I recount as items of some interest within the Riverside en-
vironment. At the same time, I have devoted a portion of the Booklet to my own life
throughout these years, at work and play.
When a person has lived for well-nigh 90 years, he is conscious of having trav-
elled over a very long, winding, and tortuous path. As a Scot who loved to go for long
walks in early days, I like to think of it as a mountain-path - upwards, downwards
- past lochs, woods, meadows - through glens and along heather- covered hillsides -
beautiful rugged scenery – occasionally lashed by storms of wind and rain – sometimes
almost impassable in its difficulty – reaching heights, descending depths – but always
onwards to the present day – not knowing what tomorrow holds in store, nor the next
day, nor the next. On looking back, I see a panorama of the ups and downs of a lifetime,
the stretches where the surface was smooth and even, with nothing more serious than
resilient pebbles to slow progress and with continuous attractive views by the wayside,
making for a very happy journey throughout that part. Then, periodically, there have
been portions which have been difficult to surmount, either because the pathway has
become exceedingly steep or was strewn with rocks, representing the problems which
one had to face from time to time, including the grievous tragedies inevitably occurring
during such a long period of years. The scenery then has altered to represent the black
and forbidding nature of such times when one feels so low and that nothing can be done
until there is a ray of sunshine once more.
When young, a child cannot see what lies ahead - the child is unable to envisage
what life has in store for him or her. Normally, enabled by parents, the young person
can have a little planning done, covering such matters as education, for example, or
maybe involvement in an established family business. But there is much more to life
than these two elements, and, unless one is endowed with the foreseeing faculties of a
person with second sight – a seer with the ability to foretell future events to an unbe-
lieving public - the ordinary person has just to take what comes and ‘make the best of
things’. Nowadays, when I look back, I find that, surprisingly, many of the more recent
periods are covered by fog, resulting in difficulty in recapturing what exactly took place
and loss of names, numbers and other details. These misty patches are somewhat ir-
regular in shape. Those damaging the recollection of early events tend to clear so that
names and places and pictures begin to come readily to mind again. This is a surprising
experience, especially when one encounters considerable difficulty in recalling names
and places of recent origin.
So it is that I find myself with mental pictures of a very long path with, as I said,
much of it pleasant and easily negotiated, with occasional steep climbs and uncharted
hazards trying to bar the way to progress or creating unhappiness. There have been
many pleasant views along most of my way and, with few exceptions, my tragic mo-
ments have been of relatively short duration.
My Booklet cannot be a complete record of every stone I encountered or every ray
of sunshine, but I have tried to record a fair measure of the incidents from my early life.

I have been, in many ways, fortunate. I have inherited an initiative to make the best use
of my faculties and thereby encourage myself to got involved in
exploits which have brought a reasonable degree of pleasure and satisfaction, as well
as benefit to the communities I served in my later working years from 1930 onwards.
This last-mentioned will, I hope, be the subject of a subsequent Booklet which I aim to
tackle after the completion of this one.
In summary, it has been ‘a long trek – from there to here’.
Some of the narrative may give a ‘feel’ for how skills developed in the early years
in the case of boys like me, when life, home conditions and the general environment
were substantially different to what they are in the 21st century. This back-cloth may
also help to explain how the local surroundings and up-bringing may have had an im-
pact on the maturing of one’s creativity. Suffice to say, I am certain that the whole
circumstances of our childhood helped us to develop as very independent and self-reli-
ant people, who were able to stand on our own feet, without the apparent necessity for
the pampering, cajoling and hand-outs from the Public Purse which appear to be the
order of the present day. When we needed resources, we found or created them by our
own efforts and never looked to the Government or any Local Authority for financial
support. This became quite evident in our later cricketing days, when, from the early
30’s, as a well-organised team of 15 – 22 year-olds, we joined the Stirling and District
Junior Cricket League and competed for trophies presented to the League by the ‘Stir-
ling Observer’ [silver shield for top of the League] and by the ‘Stirling Journal’ [silver
cricket ball for winner of knock-out competition]. It also became apparent in the way
we studied for our careers in the 30’s. Many of the young fellows incorporated ‘play-
ing hard’ with ‘studying hard’ and, after gaining professional qualifications, advanced
to responsible positions in later life.
I cannot of course claim that the particular method of up-bringing which I enjoyed
was the only way in which a young boy would become qualified to begin dabbling in
bogey construction as a side-line. I hope, however, that my story will provide useful
information about life in the Riverside area during the 1920’s and I have confidence that
you, the reader, who is good enough to peruse the pages of this little volume, will find
it agreeable and of some historic interest.
CHAPTER 2 - EARLY DAYS


I would not fault the Good Lord for arranging my entry into this world just after
mid-summer’s day in 1915 by having me ‘delivered’ at 1 Abbey Road, Stirling. He
had provided me with loving parents whom I would not have changed for any others.
My mother and father were not natives of Stirling. They had been married on 11th
December, 1914, in Kinfauns Parish Church, now, unfortunately, in a ruinous state. My
mother was designated at that time as a Domestic Servant and my father’s precise oc-
cupation was not given on the Marriage Certificate. Kinfauns Church was, of course,
my mother’s church. She had been brought up in Kinfauns by my grand-parents as one
of a family of about 9 children, at what was known as Burnfoot Smiddy, situated near
the Dundee Road, where my grand-father [Blythe] was designated as Head Blacksmith,
the tenant of the local Laird, and my grand-mother [Annie Miller, nee Spark] acted as
his Secretary.
Their cottage was a small, cosy 2-storey one erected as an extension of the smiddy
premises, on the other side of which was a shed specially set aside for the shoeing of
horses. At the foot of the yard ran a most picturesque burn, complete with many min-
nows, and across it, by way of a ‘sleeper’ bridge, was a generous drying green. On
each side of the burn one could walk towards the old Dundee Road through an attrac-
tive wooded area, bounded by a hedge-row along the road’s footpath. The hedge-row
was probably many hundreds of years old, and it is a pity that it and much of the copse
were destroyed in the formation of the Perth – Dundee motor-way. Immediately behind
the cottage and smiddy building was a very fine fruit and vegetable garden. For many
years, I think until around immediately post-second-world-war, the only water supply
was to the wash-house block situated across the yard from the smiddy entrance. It
was indeed many years after I first set foot in that young lad’s ‘adventure corner’ that
a building extension was erected to provide an up-to-date kitchen and modern toilet
facilities. In those early years, the ‘privy’ was at the top of a little incline leading down
to the cottage from an upper level. It was a wooden structure located next to the pig-sty,
where one rapidly-growing piglet grunted its way through life and fed ravenously until
fat enough to be slaughtered by an itinerant butcher, and replaced by a little one who
would face the same future.
My father came from the immediately adjoining village of Glencarse, a short
distance to the east, where his parents occupied a hill-top cottage with the magnifi-
cent name of ‘Drums of Ardgaith’. The almost primitive thatched cottage, which was
certainly of a great age, did not appear to warrant having such a grand address, taking
account of its dearth of modern facilities, including, notably, the wooden ‘privy’ at the
bottom of the garden, which seemed to be the hand-work of ‘the Specialist’, along with
the adjacent accommodation for farm animals in an extension to the building. It was, of
course, part of the ‘Mains of Errol’ farm. As far as I can calculate, my father’s family
numbered about 6 or 7. One had to walk the best part of half a mile along 2 sides of a
large cultivated field to gain access to the isolated dwelling.
In 1913, my father had obtained a position in Stirling with the Caledonian Railway
Company and had taken up lodgings at 36 James Street, Stirling. My mother followed
him to Stirling, I know not when, but obviously in sufficient time to arrange for my
coming. She did, in fact, work ‘in service’ at a house in Royal Gardens, Stirling, called
‘Novarra’. I remember seeing this house for a number of years while that name was
clearly visible in gold paint on the window above the entrance door. Now the name
has been removed.
The escapees from the Perth area, after their marriage, settled down in the let flat at
1 Abbey Road to await my arrival. I feel sure that the young ones were looking forward
keenly to my arrival and were preparing to lavish on me an abundance of love and care.
I make this assessment in the knowledge of the help, love and kindness shown to me
throughout their lives.
Before I proceed further, I would like to put on record the result of my researches
into my ancestry. I recognise that the information which I have gleaned is not in any
way exhaustive, but it does throw a little light on where some of my predecessors came
from and the type of folks they were – especially from about the beginning of the 19th
century. I have in fact concentrated mainly on my father’s side of the family in the
meantime, with just a small bit of information covering my mother’s side. It is as far as
my research has taken me to date. Whether I shall be able to accomplish more remains
to be seen, but I hope that, some day, my son will complete the search at the Scottish
Record Office.
My father [Alexander] was born on 12th December, 1890, his birth being registered
at Longforgan, to my grand-parents, Alexander McIntosh, a Ploughman and later an
Engine Driver, and Margaret McIntosh [nee Keay] , who had been married at the ages
of 24 and 21 respectively, at Inchture Church, Errol, on 27th August, 1886. The parents
of my grand-mother, Margaret, were Andrew Keay, a Farm Servant, and Isabella Keay
[nee Duff], they being great-grand-parents. My great-grand-parents on the male side
were James McIntosh, of Clayton, a Ploughman, born at Inchture on 27th April, 1832,
and Ann McIntosh [nee Clark], of Dron, who were married at Dron Manse on 11th
December, 1861, at the ages of 29 and 22 respectively. The parents of James, my great-
great-grand-parents, were Alexander McIntosh, an Agricultural Labourer, and Susan
McIntosh [nee Menzies], who were married in Blair Atholl in 1828. It is believed that
they ultimately settled in Blair Atholl and lived at East Lodge, Lude, Blair Atholl. The
parents of my great-grand-mother, Ann, were John Clark, a Shepherd, and Mary Clark
[nee McDiarmid], they also being great-great-grand-parents.
My grand-parents on my mother’s side were, as I have already indicated, Blythe
Miller and Annie Miller [nee Spark]. Before coming to Kinfauns after her marriage,
my grand-mother lived in Ladybank. Her mother was affectionately known as Granny
Spark, from Wick in the north-east of Scotland. In the early 50’s, after I had purchased
my first car, my grand-mother was well over 90 years of age and she encouraged me to
take her on an outing to Ladybank. It was a fascinating excursion for both of us, she re-
capturing, as best as she could, the familiar views and corners of the small town which
she had known so well in far-off years, and I leading her through the streets which
contained many memories for her and listening to her running commentary. The after-
noon which I spent visiting and touring Ladybank has always been a treasured memory
for me. She was at one stage inspired to tell me she was surprised that she never saw
anybody whom she knew. In other words there were no longer any ‘kent’ faces. My
grand-mother lived in Ladybank at the time of the Tay Bridge disaster when the bridge
collapsed during a violent storm, resulting in a train and its passengers plunging into the
river. She always claimed that she heard the crash on that fateful night.
My grand-father and grand-mother seem to have been born about 1857 and 1859
respectively, because, when I wrote to the Lord Lieutenant of Perth in 1949 to arrange
for a Royal telegram to be sent on the occasion of their Ruby Wedding, they were 91
and 89.
The ancestral researches may give the impression that our branch of the family
had ‘gravitated’ from the north southwards to the Carse of Gowrie to the east of Perth,
rather than the other way round. By the beginning of the 19th century, about which
time my great-great-great-grand-parents were born, Culloden, in 1846, was very re-
cent history. It will be recalled that the McIntoshes were fighting on both sides and
that Murray of Blair Atholl helped many of them in their subsequent lives. There are
many McIntoshes in the cemetery at Blair Atholl, and in the battlefield there exists the
famous ‘Clan’ stone indicating the burial place of many members of the Clan. Further
researches will inevitably provide the missing link back to Culloden.
While all of the foregoing is valuable background historical information, I must
return to the story about the early days of my life.
My earliest memory was of an incident which must have occurred before the end
of the War. My memory is carefully geared to avoiding remembering any occasions of
naughtiness as a very small child, but I do recall being scolded by my mother for some-
thing that caused her to be upset over my behaviour. The War could not have come to
an end because I was told that the ‘Gerries’ – the Germans – would get me. That was,
in all likelihood, the usual form of threat by parents to their youngsters in these dark
War-torn days. As a three-year-old, I could not possibly have understood what it meant,
but it is one of the surprises of the human brain that it has remained a firm recollection
throughout my life.
I had gone through all the stages of early childhood in the Riverside district. I had
been taken by my mother and other friends on picnics to the meadow land off Millar
Place, which is now the site of the Shiphaugh housing area which I saw the workmen
erect. I had quickly learned how to spend my Saturday half-penny each week in Miss
Goodwin’s Dairy and Confectionery shop, which was situated, along with a number
of other ‘corner’ shops – grocer, butcher, newsagent, and boot repairer – at the eastern
end of Forth Crescent, after on each occasion carrying out a detailed inspection of her
window to see what she had to offer. I remember that, in these early days, ‘dolly mix-
tures’ gave me the best value for money and that Miss Goodwin, being a very friendly
person, who lived next door to our family, was sure to give me as a bonus one or two
extra sweets above my entitled quota. After all, Miss Goodwin had insisted that I ought
to be called ‘Sandy’, which family and friends adopted and which has remained with
me throughout my life, in preference to ‘Alex’ as wished for by my parents.
I had given pennies and half-pennies to the street singers who regularly appeared
in the back court to regale the tenement dwellers with a variety of melodies for their
small rewards, always attracting bands of youngsters to stand beside them providing,
as it were, appreciative concert audiences. I had become friendly with the lamp-lighter
when he did his rounds with his long pole to switch on the gas street lamps.
I had played all the childhood games, had made tents using old sugar sacks obtained
from Mr. Chalmers, the Grocer, the tenant of the Grocer’s shop in Forth Crescent, these
being ‘lean-to’s’ against the drying green wall, after discovering the best way to ham-
mer nails into the stone-work, and, while my pals and I occupied them during the lovely
long summer months of yester-year, had exchanged our boy hood secrets and evolved
plans for future exploits. I had played marbles, or ‘bools’ as we called them, on the soft
earthen footpath and along the kerb-side of Millar Place, and had won and lost precious
glass specimens in games of ‘squarey’ and ‘chippy-scorey’, as well as other games with
marbles whose names I have forgotten.
I had become proficient at climbing over the boundary wall of the property, and also up
a tree in an adjacent no-man’s-land in Millar Place. I had helped my father by doing
some elementary work in his allotment garden near our home, although I was probably
more of a hindrance than an assistance, the jobs I particularly remember doing being
planting potatoes in an orderly manner in well-formed trenches he had prepared, and
also searching for and pushing into the ground rows of twigs and small branches to sup-
port the growing peas.
There was no electricity in Abbey Road in the 20’s, inside or outside of people’s
homes, requiring all the cooking and water- heating to be done on open coal fires in the
living-rooms. The iron ranges, which incorporated the fire nests, had ovens - not the
sophisticated ones with temperature controls which a cook would expect today. House-
wives were skilled in operating them, however, through years of experience in the case
of the older folks and by the training given to the younger girls by their mothers in the
arts of home baking and cooking.
In each flat there would be a girdle conveniently at hand for ready use and a jelly-
pan for the jam-making season, when the local people invaded Cambuskenneth on
the occasion of the annual Berry Fair and returned with all their berry supplies on the
ferry-boat, this providing the means of transport to and from ‘the Abbey’ via the foot of
Abbey Road. There was always a large black kettle hanging from a rail above the fire,
generously filled with water, as it was needed continuously throughout the day, and a
toasting fork was normally to be found on the brightly polished fender which provided
the barrier between the fireplace and the ‘clootie’ hearth rug. The toasting fork also was
in fairly constant use, due to the large number of slices of bread needed for the growing
family and ‘toasting’ was something of a chore, causing argument among the younger
children who were generally allocated the toasting job.
I can visualise my mother preparing to bake a large quantity of soda scones and
pancakes on the girdle, with a growing family assembled around her, in eager expec-
tation of the first lot of steaming hot ‘goodies’ being ready, and, after buttering with
Miss Goodwin’s special fresh butter, being greedily attacked, not because the children
were hungry as young birds, but because the fresh baking aroma and the anticipation
of mother’s hot well-buttered scones and pancakes created a healthy appetite where no
hunger existed.
I joined with my young friends in chalking ‘wickets’ on the wall of Pratt’s petrol
depot on the south side of Abbey Road, opposite our home. The function of the depot
was to fill petrol into small cans which could be purchased and then strapped to the run-
ning boards of such cars and commercial vehicles as were around in these days. The
main supply to the depot was from bulk containers – just little tank wagons far removed
from the magnificent delivery vehicles which are common nowadays – the petrol being
discharged into 2 or 3 large storage tanks which were partly embedded in the ground.
This was an early model of a filling station. Jimmy Bertram was in charge, and in
course of time he proved to be a real friend to the youngsters of the area when my pals
and I decided to create Riverside Cricket Club and join the Stirling and District Junior
Cricket League.
Later on, when the Waverley Crescent children’s playground was completed,
we staked a claim to the southern corner for our cricket and continued there until we
formed a proper team which enabled us to join the League. As an extra, reflecting our
enthusiasm for sport and exercise, we measured the distance round the encircling foot-
path and concluded that it was a quarter of a mile, and that if we ran 4 laps we would
complete a mile run. We also calculated that if we ran round once in a minute, and
maintained that speed, we had a good chance of running a mile in 4 minutes. We soon
learned, however, that our stamina did not match our enthusiasm. Nevertheless, at the
end of the evening of cricket practice, we did keep trying.
All the while, I was advancing very satisfactorily through the Allan’s School, to
and from which I walked the nearly one and a half mile journey four times a day from
the day I started at 5 years of age – except the very first day when I was taken by my
mother.

CHAPTER 3 - TRAFFIC, PARKING AND RELATED MATTERS
When anyone looks down Abbey Road today, all that can be seen are 2 rows of
parked vehicles – one on each side of the road as far as the eye can see – plus several
mounds which are generally referred to as traffic calming measures, but which I have
always regarded as ‘sleeping policemen’. There is also an over-sized roundabout at
the entrance to Cooperage Quay. The road is now tarmacadamised. There is a fairly
regular movement of motor-driven traffic, but, regretfully, not many children. In the
20’s, one would find many more young people, those of school age and below. Then
there were bigger families in a young post-war community and advantage was taken of
the fact that the street was a natural playground.
Abbey Road was still an earthen roadway which especially in times of heavy rainfall,
built up a surface layer of mud. The Town Council would then produce a man-operated
mud-scraping machine to have the offending mud scraped to the side of the roadway
from where, in course of time, it disappeared ultimately to the river, flushed through the
kerb-side gutter drains by still more rain. The mud-scraper was a fascinating piece of
machinery, giving the appearance that it had been developed from some kind of farm
machine, with a row of flexible prongs or teeth to provide the operational part. It had
2 handles, roughly the same as one would see on a large lawn-mower and the operator
pulled the contrivance across the roadway, enabling about a one-yard strip to be cleared
at a time. It’s funny that I have never seen a surviving model in any museum. Maybe
the machine was in some way special to the Royal Burgh of Stirling.
In the 20’s you might observe, if you were looking down the whole length of Ab-
bey Road, a couple of motorised vehicles, depending on the hour of the day, each set-
ting off from near the ferry. There was little chance of seeing any cars. Even funerals
were conducted on the basis of using horse-drawn hearses and horse-drawn hackney
carriages. One of the motorised vehicles which I mentioned would be the ‘General’ bus
and the other would be Mackenzie’s wee bus, vying with each other to pick up wait-
ing passengers along the route to the centre of the town. The ‘General’ bus, although
of somewhat primitive design reflecting its early years, was what one would regard,
even in these early days, as a fairly normal bus, but Mackenzie’s was a quaint bul-
bous vehicle, which always seemed to manoeuvre itself skilfully from stopping place
to stopping place to collect the waiting people ahead of the ‘General’. They were, of
course, rivals I business. Mackenzie’s had the unusual faculty of travelling while lean-
ing over to the left-hand [near] side, as if to make it easy for any old people to get on
board by bringing the entry step nearer the ground. It did not run that way because the
preponderance of passengers was sitting along the near-side. It just appeared to like
to travel that way. Probably there was an inherent mechanical problem which today
would be rectified on an M.O.T., but, of course, there were no such tests in these far-off
days.
Down the street you might see the horse-drawn 4-wheeled flat-topped coal lorry
with a large number of one-hundredweight bags on it, along with a notice to the effect
that the coal-man was selling his coal at ten-pence, one shilling and one-shilling and
two-pence a bag, depending on quality, to give customers an element of choice between
the stony variety and something much better. All the coal was from local pits which no
longer exist. You might also see Jock Gilvear’s horse-drawn 2-wheeled milk-cart, with
3 big milk-churns on the back, stopping at nearly every close. I well remember that,
many a time as a very small boy, I was sent out to Gilvear’s cart for milk. Jock never
needed a measure to calculate when he had given you a pint of milk. It meant that when
you handed over to him a large jug you got a big pint and if you were daft enough to
take a small jug you got a wee pint.
About the only other vehicle which one was likely to see on the roadway was the
horse-drawn 2-wheeled ash cart – the fore-runner of the magnificent refuse collection
vehicles which are around today. There was no refuse in the 20’s such as we put out
nowadays. Everything that was capable of being burned was put on the living-room
fire. One might find an occasional poke [paper bag] on the footpath, but there was re-
ally no litter then except maybe a discarded ‘fag-end’ – the remnants of a Woodbine
cigarette. Burnable items were much too precious to be thrown away. It meant that the
refuse was only ash, with possibly an empty bottle, all carefully collected in a pail and
carried out to the pavement for the ash cart. Jam jars were stored for the next jam-mak-
ing season, or maybe, once in a while, used as currency for a child to gain entry to the
Kinema [Picture House], in The Craigs area, 2 large [ 2-pound] jars being required to
achieve the basic 2-pence entry charge. This was the lowest-priced cinema in Stirling
and it featured very popular children’s matinees on Saturdays. The ‘serials’ which were
included in the picture programmes always ended on very dramatic notes to encourage
the children to come back and see further instalments in ensuing weeks. On ash collec-
tion days, there was a great row of metal pails arranged along the edge of the footpath.

You had no difficulty in getting your own pail back because the ‘bucket-man’ carefully
replaced it on the spot from which he had picked it up. We often felt that the old horse
supervised the proceedings and ensured that all the work was carried out efficiently and
correctly. After the ash-cart had gone, the pails were quickly removed by the house-
wives.
The ash-cart was of an interesting construction. As I indicated earlier, it was
horse-drawn and had 2 large wheels. There was an elevated top-centre ridge to enable
4 hinged roof sections to be thrown back to expose the relatively small area under-
neath into which the ‘bucket-man’ emptied the filled pails. These quarter lids were
lifted one at a time obviously to secure a level distribution of the load which, in total
volume, could not have been more than a few cubic yards. It was, however, all good
land-fill material, and much of it found its way to the river bank to heighten the low-ly-
ing ground adjacent to the river and form a foundation for the fine footpath and railing
which was in due course constructed. The riverside development reflected much credit
on the fore-sight of the then civic fathers. It is a pity that the footpath and railing are in
such poor condition today because of inadequate maintenance over the years.
The footpaths were usually fairly crowded with parents and children in perambula-
tors, or older children engaged in ball games or playing with skipping ropes, or with
their girds, many of which were made by the Abbey Road blacksmith. The smiddy was
situated between the petrol depot and the salt pans. It is worth recalling that the export
of salt was, for many years, the 3rd largest industry in Scotland, it being centred far-
ther down the river at Culross. In the earliest times, the pools of sea-water were left to
evaporate naturally by the warmth of the air. In course of time, it began to be realised
that the process could be speeded up by creating coal fires underneath the water and
thereby generating a great deal more heat, utilising coal readily obtainable from the
many coal fields in Central Scotland. While I was never inside the salt pans premises
I would imagine that these would, at least in later years, have coal-fired water heating
although in earlier times it is quite possible that the natural drying method would be
used. The river was, of course, tidal at the point of entry to the salt pans.
There were at least a couple of important figures who were regularly seen down
our way. One was the local ‘Bobby’, who visited Abbey Road nearly every day. He
was a very friendly person, well-known and well-liked in the community, and he related
well to the locals - especially to the children. He wasn’t regarded as an ogre or spoil-
sport. He clearly made an effort to be part of the community which he was serving by
getting to know the local people and generally taking an interest in the on-goings of the
district. The other person worthy of mention was the district nurse – always there or
thereabouts - flitting from one appointment to another on her bicycle, with the little bag
containing the ‘tools of her profession’, and, apart from attending families who were
due to have a call, ever ready to see a mother about something troubling her or one of
her brood without the formality of making an appointment through an administrative
assistant in some far-off office.
I think it would be wrong not to include the ferry-boat in any summary of trans-
port. This was the normal means of travel to and from Cambuskenneth Abbey, the fare
or charge being one penny per adult. The rowing-boat came into the side of a sloping
ramp at the foot of Abbey Road and was carefully held in position while passengers
embarked and disembarked. There was a similar ramp on the Abbey side of the river.
It was always interesting to walk down to the ferry and see what was happening, espe-
cially when there was a high tide or the river was flowing rapidly. The ferry-man was
adept at choosing the route he had to take in all the changing conditions of the river. If
the boat was not in motion when you arrived at the Abbey Road side, it would be tied
to the landing-place at the Abbey side and you knew that the ferry-man would be in his
white-painted cottage situated just a few yards beyond the top of the landing-place. If
you really meant to engage him to row you over to the Cambuskenneth, then you had to
shout ‘Boat’ in the loudest voice you could muster, and if it was windy and stormy, as
it often was, you had to cup your hands round your mouth and really ‘let rip’ with the
call. We were quite amazed how, within his cottage, the boatman could hear the calls
and how quickly he would respond by hurrying down the landing- stage and getting the
boat across to the Abbey Road side of the river – and all that for maybe just one penny
of income, an old-fashioned one at that. He must have had wonderful hearing, as well as
courage to face the river on a stormy day. Cambuskenneth was not an island, however,
and if the worst came to the worst, you could trek the whole way round via Causeway-
head and Alloa Road to reach your destination.
For the boatman, the busiest day of the year was the day of the ‘Berry Fair’ when
many of the residents of Stirling undertook the outing to the Abbey to purchase fruit
supplies to make their annual stocks of jams and jellies. There were 2 large orchards,
Ferry Orchard and St. James’s Orchard, and many of the local people also had mini-or-
chards behind their cottages. On the day of the Fair, there were numerous tables in front
of the cottages, laden with the fruit products of their gardens, offered for sale to eager
customers. My mother, and I’m sure most visitors, knew exactly what they were look-
ing for, based upon their knowledge from previous years of what was likely to be on of-
fer. That day marked the inauguration of the jam-making season in many homes. The
jelly-pan ‘came into its own’ for several days and there were always youngsters around
to ‘clean it out’ and to ‘lick the spoons’ which had been used. The young ones played
their parts by helping to cover the jars after marking the labels to denote the contents.


CHAPTER 4 - SCHOOL DAYS
AFTER THE SCHOOL SUMMER HOLIDAYS IN 1920, I was enrolled at the Allan’s School. As
I have already indicated, my mother took me along on that first memorable day. My
mother, with young children to look after, could not afford the time or opportunity to
take me back and forwards to school so I was immediately left to my own resources
to cope. Her twin aims on that first day were to ensure that I learned how to get to the
Allan’s School and that I could find my allocated class-room. The route she showed
me was naturally the most direct way which any adult would take, but it was not long
before I was to find interesting deviations which gave me the opportunity of exploring
and passing areas of interest to me.
The class-room which was to be my day-time home for the first year was called ‘the
baby class’. Whether that name still persists I do not know. I would imagine, however,
that, with the creation of so many organisations over the years calling for change, some
pressure group of 5-year-olds will have demanded that such a name should be done
away with in favour of a more enlightened name which would reflect their maturing
position in life as budding adults.
I wish I could remember precisely what happened in that class-room during those
first few months of my attendance at school. My memory is somewhat hazy about it,
but I do recall that I relished the opportunity of attending school and settled down to my
new life quite rapidly. I remember being introduced to the letters of the alphabet and
also to numbers as they were demonstrated on the black-board and that I had a slate and
a slate-pencil to copy them down as best as I could. I know that it was some considera-
ble time before we were issued with jotters – small lined ones – to help us develop some
skill in writing. The school seemed to have a ‘thing’ about good hand-writing, with the
up-stroke light and the down-stroke heavy. The ultimate issue of pens and ink, filled
by the teacher into ink-wells on the corners of our desks, from a large bottle, facilitated
the gradual creation of a good standard of penmanship. This has remained with me
throughout my life and it was indeed copied by younger members of the family when I
sat at the living-room table and did my home-work under my mother’s supervision dur-
ing the evening. When I look back I consider that it was a form of art or drawing.
So far as there were possible dangers from traffic along the route, none really
existed. The traffic in my early school-days comprised mainly horse-drawn vehicles.

There was no need for School Crossing Patrols to give safe conduct to children across
roads. There was only one main thoroughfare between my home and school, i.e. Barn-
ton Street, and there was little or nothing to encounter at that crossing. Indeed it was a
good number of years before motorised vehicles began to emerge in any numbers, and
a considerable time before the first double-decker bus appeared. I recall that its ap-
pearance created quite a sensation. People got a thrill of excitement when they found
it possible to travel on an upper deck.
I shall tabulate my class subjects later in the paragraph, as well as my marks. The
results I achieved during my near 7 years at Allan’s School pleased my parents. My
mother supported me a very great deal during my home-lesson sessions and was an
inspiration. I remember how she encouraged me to enter a newspaper competition,
sponsored, if I recall correctly, by Allied Newspapers. This involved the submission
of a series of papers covering a wide variety of subjects. While I did not gain a major
award, I did receive a handsome miniature edition of Shakespear’s works, attractively
accommodated in a small book-case. Years later, I saw a similar one in the antiques de-
partment of Selfridge’s store in London. The price sought made me feel that my work
had not been in vain.
I mentioned that I had walked to and from the Allan’s School from the age of 5. I
was normally accompanied by some of my pals. Like all children, we regularly did not
take the direct route. If we had time, and we nearly always had, we managed to deviate
from the recognised paths, especially when there was something interesting to see or
do – and, indeed, even if there wasn’t. We might be lucky enough to come
across a cargo boat at the harbour discharging a large load of grain from its hold. We
had to investigate this to see how the unloading was being carried out, and finding that
there was a simple crane, whose operator controlled a large bucket dangling at the end
of a rope, the bucket swinging loads of grain to a waiting vehicle on the shore. We saw
that there were a couple of men in the hold of the boat, on top of the grain, shovelling
grain furiously into the bucket to fill it and so enable it to be swung over to the wait-
ing vehicle, and so on backwards and forwards until the shovellers gradually began to
disappear from our sight as the grain stock in the boat diminished. In these days, we
gazed in awe and wonderment at the efficiency of the whole operation – now realising
that these procedures were somewhat primitive.
We would walk, or run, in the general direction of the town centre, along a well-
used path at the top of the parapet wall which restrained the embankment above Shore
Road, examining all the trees as we went on our way, maybe to play with the ‘aero-
planes’ which had dropped from the sycamore tree growing at the top end of the tree
belt between Forth Crescent and Shore Road. As I wrote earlier, it was not in the nature
of active young boys to follow the pathways preferred by adults. They easily sought
out more adventurous alternatives. Thus, instead of continuing over the railway bridge
leading on to Maxwell Place and following the direct route to the school, we would turn
into a pathway which led past the railway station. We were well aware that the station
was always beautifully painted and decorated with generous floral arrangements, and
it was nice to catch a glimpse of the flowers, as well as getting an idea as to what was
going on at the station. We also greatly admired the Caledonian Railway trains, pulled
by the smart blue-painted steam engines, and watched them coming and going from a
suitable vantage point.
From the station, we would walk up Station Road to view the long row of horse-
drawn hackney carriages waiting to provide the taxi service for people arriving at or
leaving from the station. The carriages were well polished and cared for. At the end of
a journey the driver would place a ‘nose-bag’ over his horse’s head to allow the animal
to have a ‘munch’ at some tit-bits in the bottom of the bag before it was called upon to
undertake another journey. In the station, which, of course, we had now passed, Mr.
McWhirter, the Station-Master, would in the morning be in full-dress uniform to bid
farewell to his important customers – the commuters travelling on the train which left
around 8 o’clock for Glasgow to attend to their various businesses. He was always on
the platform – very visible to these special, mainly professional, travellers. We would
next cross over to the Arcade, instead of walking up by Friars Street, the more direct
route. In the Arcade there was always something to see. The most inspected window
was that of Howatt’s toy-shop, in which the owner was skilled at laying out a most
attractive display of toys which varied with the passing months of the year, being con-
scious of the interest the window display created for the young on-lookers, even if there
was no prospect of owning any of them. There was always the model railway lay-out
during the run-up to Christmas – a magnificent set-piece working railway to fascinate
the young. Howatt’s was a big corner shop in the middle of the Arcade just along from
the entrance to the Alhambra Theatre where bills showing the current and forth-coming
attractions would hold the attention of the young school-children for a few minutes.

They would learn whether it was to be Harry Lauder or one of the other popular enter-
tainers who were welcome at the Alhambra and who were guaranteed to play to packed
houses. Maybe they were contemplating the possibility of a family outing to a show,
and climbing that narrow entry staircase which led on to the vista of an exciting stage
production.
At the top of the Arcade we would turn right to proceed up King Street towards the
Steeple, little realising that one day I would have the weather cock in my hands to fill
it with up-to-date coins and newspapers, to supplement those already there which had
remained untouched since the 1870’s. And so, via Spittal Street, we would arrive at the
Allan’s School to begin another period of study. At mid-day we had no time to linger
because it was just a matter of rushing home, having a quick meal, and hurrying back to
school again. We seldom encountered anything to delay us. There was one occasional
exception. The Live Stock Marts Company had a cattle market adjacent to the railway
bridge leading to Maxwell Place, and in these days the cattle and sheep were driven to
the market by drovers and their dogs. Many a time I found myself facing a large herd
of cattle or sheep approaching me. The sheep did not cause undue concern to young
and old, but it was a different matter trying to weave your way past really big animals,
especially so if the roadway was narrow and there no refuges to which you could es-
cape until the animals had passed by. It might be thought that one of the Abbey Road
closes would give adequate protection, but no, unless there was a staircase conveniently
located in the close. I have seen numbers of beasts decide to ‘make a bolt’ up a close,
and believe me, it was a very difficult job to encourage them back to the road primarily
because of the narrowness of the close and the size of the animals, the difficulties being
contributed to by the animal’s reluctance or inability to turn.
There was another item in the run-up to Christmas, of considerable interest to
children, which caused them to dally on the way home from school. McCulloch and
Young occupied a substantial store at the foot of Baker Street, and, to the delight of
the youngsters –and not a few adults too- they erected a beautiful festive house behind
a large first-floor window. It was, of course, very visible from the roadway of Baker
Street, as it was intended to be, and many children gathered there each afternoon to see
the regular appearance of Santa Claus. The attractive house was so constructed that
there was an ample chimney, inside of which there must have been a ladder or steps to
enable Santa to emerge from the chimney with his bag and descend from the roof to
the area in front of the house to demonstrate some of the ‘goodies’ he had been making
for Christmas. The performance justified the ‘oohs’ and ‘aahs’ of the spectators. There
was a feeling of disappointment when he concluded his little performance and returned
to the house – again by way of the chimney. It was a great temptation to wait for the
next appearance – and the next – and the next – and abandon any thoughts of tea and
toast getting cold at home.
My first memory of a dabble in hand-work was an experience early in my Primary
School days. Along with my young class-mates, I had been given a piece of modelling
clay to fashion anything which took our fancy. My model did not take the form of a
usual day-to-day object which one regularly comes into contact with, as selected by
the other members of the class. From a very early age I had become fascinated with
the Grampian Mountains which I regularly saw in the distance from various vantage
points in Stirling. They were so near – and yet so far away. I knew all their names
– Ben Lomond, Ben Venue, Ben Ledi, Ben Voirlich, Stuc-a-chroin – the peaks which
can normally be seen from Stirling. My mother had told me all these names and about
the small townships which lay near them. She was a very good tutor and she clearly
wanted me to be a success in the world. She used to tell me that her mother, as a village
girl in the middle of the 19th century, was extremely well educated, attending school
until she was 13 years of age. So I utilised the clay to make a model of the Grampians
and I was able to tell the teacher the names of all the peaks I had formed in their proper
order. This was regarded as such a fine effort on my part that I was trotted round the
other class-rooms to demonstrate my hand-work. I remember being taken aback by all
the excitement – I didn’t particularly relish the fuss that was being made.
There were no playing fields attached to the Allan’s School nor any grassed area
where the pupils could participate in organised games or physical exercise. There was
also no gymnasium. Pupils just had their tarmacamised playgrounds – one for the boys
and a separate one for the girls – for their regular play-times in forenoon and afternoon
and such exercise as was probably needed. I cannot remember any supervised training
by school staff.
For the teachers, it was a case of educating and informing the children, with the
much-used black-board as the principal aid. The children had slates and slate pencils
as their tools, as I said earlier, these being replaced in due course by jotters and pencils,
and later by pens and ink. The pens, with their nibs, took a bit of difficulty in getting
used to but soon you became attached to your type of nib, being all the while reminded
from the words of the then current advertisement that ‘They come as a boon and a bless-
ing to men – the Pickwick, the Owl and the Waverley pen’.
The 3 r’s of the old-fashioned Scottish education system were much in evidence.

There was regular reading aloud, the teacher calling on pupils, in turn, to read an ex-
cerpt from some book we were at that time studying, and frequently the class members,
either individually or as a combined body, had to pronounce letters and words which
were chalked on the black-board. It was a pleasant change when the class were intro-
duced to figures and adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing, with the same pro-
cedure being employed by the teacher to secure the involvement of as many members
of the class as possible. These basic attainments were the main targets especially in the
early formative years when the teachers moulded their fast-growing charges into young
people with an understanding of language, grammar, and figures. In course of time, the
words and sentences learned were enlarged into the writing of compositions, normally
about a subject which was prescribed, and into more complicated ‘sums’.
The speed with which the class proceeded from scratch was quite remarkable, so
much so that, at the beginning of the 3rd year, 1922-23 in the case of our class, we were
able to be given examinations or tests, properly marked and recorded on report cards
which we had to take home to our parents to countersign. Some time in the late autumn
of 1922, I proudly presented that card to my mother and father, who were no doubt
pleased to sign it so that I could return it to the teacher to enable the detailed results
of a further 3 examinations in that school year to be listed. The report card showed 4
subjects with marks out of 10 and 3 subjects with marks out of 20, giving an over-all
percentage mark out of 100 without any special calculation. The class subjects in the
3rd year at school, with the possible marks attached, were – reading [10]; repetition
[10]; writing [10]; spelling [10]; composition [20]; arithmetic [20]; class work [20]; and
there were to be 3 further examinations and updated report cards for parents during the
course of that 3rd year at school. My marks in that very first examination were – read-
ing [9]; repetition [10]; writing [10]; spelling [10]; composition [15]; arithmetic [18];
class work [17]; giving an over-all percentage of 89. During the next 3 examinations
my percentages advanced to 95, 97 and finally 98, When I was issued with the report
card giving the final examination marks, there was a little sticker on the back with the
words ‘First in Class’. During the second year [1923-24] my averages were 97, 98, 86,
and 85, and I still had the magic words denoting that I led the class.
I held on to that position until my final year at the Allan’s School, when there was
an unfortunate occurrence which resulted in me being demoted to second place. In
the course of the most important Qualifying Examination which took place towards
the end of the final year at Primary School and was designed to ensure that one was
capable of proceeding to secondary education, I was caught talking by the invigilator.
My pal at the adjoining desk across the narrow passage from me said something to me
and I was caught replying. What he and I said was probably of no consequence, but it
was immediately assumed that we were helping each other, and since I was the person
caught doing the speaking I was called out to the floor to be reprimanded. My guess is
that it was during the composition part of the examination because I finished up being
awarded a very low mark of 13 out of a possible 20 for that subject in the final test of
the year – much below the mark which I normally obtained. I hazily remember a con-
sultation on the floor as to what to do about my misdeed and that I was ordered to return
to my seat and proceed with the examination without any apparent penalty. Maybe it
had been decided to deduct what turned out to be a few critical marks. For the record,
my averages throughout that last year in primary school were 91, 87, 90, and 87, and
my report card for the very last examination of that final year gave my marks as – read-
ing [9]; repetition [10]; writing [10]; spelling [10]; composition [13]; arithmetic [19];
class work [16]. It will be noted that the subjects were precisely the same as in my first
examination at the school when I was 7 years of age, and now I was almost 12. If, in
the course of the years, we gained some elementary knowledge of history, geography,
art, music, etc. then our attainments in these fields must have been buried in the ‘class
work’ mark.
My conduct at school was also noted in the report cards, and it was invariably
recorded as ‘very good’. There was a fall from grace, however, towards the end of the
penultimate year when the school report reduced my category to merely ‘good’. This
was in large measure due to my involvement in a fight in the play-ground. It wasn’t a
brawl – it was a good scrap which was worthy of a better venue, and it attracted a few
spectators. It was always so when a fight developed in the play-ground. I can’t remem-
ber who started the fight or what it was all about, but I do know that it finished with the
2 pugilists being ‘arrested’ by the janitor, who was responsible for maintaining order in
the play-ground, and consequently we both paid a visit to Mr. Taylor, the Headmaster,
to receive the appropriate penalty. We were each given, on crossed hands, ‘six of the
best’ by the Headmaster, as we called punishment with the ‘belt’ in these days, and at
the same time we received a lecture emphasizing our misdeed and about how to behave
in future. My hands stung a bit but the disciplining never did me any harm. It prob-
ably did me a power of good. I cannot understand why, over the years, there has been
such an uproar culminating in such punishments being brought to an end. Incidentally,
I never found it necessary to visit any Head Teacher again in similar circumstances.
Near the end of my final term at Allan’s School I paid another visit to Mr. Taylor.
I soon learned that he had long forgiven me for my blemish of the previous year. Mr.
David B. Morris, the Town Clerk of Stirling, a former pupil of the school, had called to
see the Headmaster. Mr. Morris wished to give a small sum of money to a pupil who
was going on to further education and who could benefit from the award. He sought
Mr. Taylor’s recommendation as to whom it should be given. The Headmaster informed
him that I should be the recipient, and so it came about that I received Mr. Morris’s £5
gift. It was a lot of money in these days, being one quarter of my first year’s salary of
£20 when I took up employment with the same Mr. Morris as the office boy in his office
in March, 1930, following a similar type of visit to Mr. A.S. Third, Rector of Stirling
High School, in search of a new assistant, resulting in my selection once again. This
second event was indeed more profitable for me than the first one as it led, in course
of time, to my becoming a Law Apprentice to him, my qualifying as a Solicitor, and a
life-time career in Local Government.
While there was much of routine in the days at school, there were occasional hap-
penings which remained in one’s memory. One such memory was of the Baker Street
murder which occurred when I was in one of the early classes. The normal route to
and from school was via a public passage opposite the school gate giving a short cut
to Baker Street, and on the other side of that street there was a close in which the foul
deed was done. We were shocked and bewildered that such a thing should happen, and
we became exceedingly afraid that some unseen forces would attack us. In our inno-
cence, we were very unworldly, this, I think, emphasising the protective environment
in which we had been brought up and the extent to which wrong-doing was excluded
from our experience and knowledge. For many months we gave the scene of the crime
a wide berth by avoiding going anywhere near Baker Street.
On a happier note, I recall the old lady who had a shop opposite the school. Apart
from the titbits she had on sale in the shop, she baked doughnuts and walked on the
pavement alongside the school boundary railing, during every forenoon and afternoon
play-time, with a large basketful selling them to the pupils whose outstretched arms
through the railings passed over the halfpenny charge for each one. Then again there
was the memory of the transformation of the class-rooms into what was really a goodly-
sized assembly room for some important event such as the annual prize-giving ceremo-
ny when many books were awarded. This was achieved by the rolling back of partition
sections which divided, if I remember correctly, 4 classrooms from each other.
It was not long after starting school that I learned the merits of visiting the Public
Library in Corn Exchange Road. In due time, I was able to join and this opened the
door to me being in a position to borrow books. Like many of the young ones in my
class, I became a regular borrower and reader. In these days, under the supervision of
Mr. Waugh, Miss McClurg and Miss Brodie, the 2 lady assistants, had charge of the
issue and return of books. The procedure was entirely different to that in operation
today, being an ‘over-the-counter’ service, with the customer not being allowed to han-
dle the books when making a selection. You had to decide which book you wished to
take out and then, by fingering through card index boxes, you found the number of the
book which had been allocated to it by the staff. Having memorised or jotted down the
number on a scrap of paper, you consulted large glass-fronted frames along the outside
edge of the counter, displaying the numbers given to all the books in the library stock.
This did not present too much difficulty as all the numbers were shown in correct nu-
merical order. One was faced with a sea of red and blue – in other words, each number
had either a red or a blue background. If your preferred number was in red then it was
an indication that your book was out to another borrower, but if in blue it was available
for you.
The membership card was a chunky narrow one of thick card-board which was
capable of being accommodated in the relevant book ‘boat’ which, of course, when you
had received your book, was turned around to show red, thus indicating that that par-
ticular book was not available for anyone else. It meant that the assistants were running
backwards and forwards all day long producing desired books, and that those returned
had to be carefully placed in their correct positions after the now empty ‘boats’ had
been replaced to show the blue sides to the public.
The practice of not allowing people to handle the books was so completely different
to that obtaining in the normally unsupervised Reference Library upstairs where one
could take whatever one wanted from the shelves and enjoy scrutinising
the volumes at the ample tables in the middle of the room. During our later period of
attendance at the Allan’s School a number of us became regular visitors to the Refer-
ence Library, as well as being avid book-borrowers. We also occasionally visited the
Reading Room to scrutinise the large selection of daily newspapers available there on
their specially constructed stands.
I probably should have mentioned earlier that there was a regular feature of re-
seating the pupils in the class-room after the results of each examination were known.
This involved placing those who had gained the highest marks at the back of the room,
thus resulting in those with the lowest marks being at the front, closer to the eye of the
teacher.
My particular friend throughout a large part of the primary school days was wee
Peter McGregor, an only child who lived with his widowed mother in a flat near the
top of Wallace Street. We had various harmless exploits together, and, on the many
occasions on which I accompanied him to his home, I always received a very warm
welcome from his mother. Among our various jaunts we for ever seemed to be going
for a haircut to the Viewfield Street Barber’s, my recollection being that in these days
we paid much more attention to having ‘short, back and sides’ than we trouble to have
today. Of course, there were none of the fancy hair-do’s which are common-place
nowadays and which cost quite a lot of money, our sixpence a time being somewhat of
a pittance for the barber.
A few days after the conclusion of my final term at Allan’s School, I received a
letter from the Education Authority which determined the arrangements for my further
education. The letter, dated 14th July, 1927, said that I had been awarded a School
Bursary – Junior – for 3 years, tenable at Stirling High School. The letter indicated that
I would be entitled to ‘free education, free use of necessary and approved text books,
and if necessary, approved travelling expenses to the said school’. I do not know how
many of my former class-mates were given similar bursaries, but, when I entered the
High School after the summer holidays, I found that I had lost touch with all of them. I
later learned that most of them had gone, in normal course, to the Craigs or Territorial
Schools.
I selected the ‘A’, or Latin stream which, for my career, proved to be a fortunate
decision. It resulted in me meeting head on the best pupils in that year’s entry, and it
placed me in line to be under the care of such fine teachers as ‘Popski’, ‘Pa Soote’,
‘Mousie’, ‘Jocky Amess’ and Jimmy Atterson, as well as other fine teachers who did
not manage to get ‘pet names’ from the students. They were a highly respected and
well-liked team who did their best to imbue in us a knowledge of English, History,
Geography, Latin, French, Mathematics, Science, Art, Singing and Physical Exercises,
with German added in the 3rd year. The competition was exceedingly keen, but I man-
aged to hold on to the 5th or 6th position in class throughout the nearly 3 years during
which I was a member, after a bad start in History in the first examination in the first
year when I could only muster 39 per cent. Fortunately, I almost doubled that mark in
the 2nd exam in History and had over 80 per cent continuously in that subject by the
3rd year against a class average in the 50’s and 60’s. Following that slow start at the
beginning if the first year, I learned that I had to work much harder than I had been ac-
customed to doing at the Allan’s School , and this I set about doing. As a consequence,
I able to advance my over-all average fairly rapidly to close to 80 per cent and maintain
that figure in subsequent examinations.
There were, of course, some subjects which I liked and some which I didn’t, and
the marks often reflected the position. I did not relish exercises on the ‘horse’ in the
gymnasium, although I loved to climb the ropes which were suspended from the ceil-
ing, while I had reservations about dangling from the wall bars. On one occasion, the
Gym Teacher decided that we should learn a little about boxing and I was somewhat
taken aback when I was selected to participate in a match with another fellow. Whether
the teacher had heard about my involvement in that pugilistic incident at the Allan’s
School, I do not know, nor can I remember whether points were awarded to determine
who won. All I can recall is my opponent telling me that ‘I had punched him very
hard’. Also, it was no pleasure for me to go to the singing lesson. I found the double
period which was regularly allocated to Art most enjoyable. My colour-blindness did
not seem to detract from my marks. I never seemed to conquer Geography however,
and thereby enable me to produce a good mark in that subject, but, apart from these
items which I have mentioned, I did manage to obtain a good sprinkling of over-80’s.
As I touched upon earlier, if one wanted to make a success of secondary education
at a higher grade school such as Stirling High School, one had to work hard, do the re-
quired home-work, and, equally importantly, increase knowledge and ability to do well
in examinations by reading about and researching the subjects in which a good standard
of proficiency was demanded. That prescription for reasonable success speedily de-
veloped and grew within me from the first days at the High School, and resulted in me
really setting about studying with enthusiasm, although I must confess that there were
numbers of occasions when, at the last minute on my way to school, I was cramming
into my head the vocabularies in French and Latin which I had to learn for that day.
All of that diminished the opportunity to participate in activities which were less
essential, such as sports. There was a lengthy period when I had a great longing to
be involved in competitive racing at the School Sports, probably arising from the en-
thusiasm we had for running round the Waverley Crescent playground. It was not to
be, however. The nearest approach to sporting events came when I allowed myself
to become involved in a rugby practice at Williamfield at which I was supposed to be
introduced to the finer points of the game. I found it much too rough for my liking and
I declined to give in to pressure from the rugby enthusiasts who made every effort to
coax me to continue.
I have often wondered whether there was an inbred key to success at school. During
my 7 years at Allan’s School, the class size was around 50, according to calculations
which I made by counting the number of pupils in some old class photographs. I can’t
recall over-working by doing a super-abundance of ‘swotting’ and yet I seemed to have
no problem in gaining and holding on to the top position in class. In these days, all
my class-mates were very much alike in social standing. In other words, there were no
minority groups capable of being identified according to degree of affluence. At the
High School, the classes comprised 2 categories of pupils. On the one hand, there was
a large group of fee-paying students who had arrived from the Primary High School
where they had also paid fees for their education, and on the other, there were those,
like myself, who were there by virtue of having been awarded bursaries. There was a
distinct difference. Those who paid fees were obviously from mainly professional fami-
lies, and it seemed to place the bursars at the disadvantage of needing to catch up. It
was clearly obvious that the non-fee-paying schools did not produce pupils of the same
standard as the fee-paying schools, and, simply put, it meant that boys like me had to
work a good deal harder for at least some time. It has crossed my mind that this same
reasoning could be applied to any minority group.
My stay at Stirling High School lasted for just under 3 years and it was brought
to an end by the visit of Mr. Morris, the Town Clerk, to the Rector in his search for an
office boy in early March, 1930, and my selection for the post. Following an interview
with Mr. Morris, I received from him a letter, dated 11th March, 1930, formally offering
me employment in his office on the basis of a salary of £20 for the first year, £30 for
the second, and £40 for the third. When Mr. Morris interviewed me, I recall him say-
ing that ‘after that, we’ll see how you have got on’, so implying that I had to justify a
further increase. As it turned out, by dint of hard work, I put myself in a position to pass
the Solicitors’ Entrance Examination, this being equivalent to the University Entrance
Examination, in 1933, at more or less the same time as the school-mates whom I had
left were sitting their Highers.
CHAPTER 5 - OUTWITH SCHOOL HOURS
The game of football comes naturally to boys, but I was never very good at sending
messages to my feet. My reluctance to persevere at the game was largely due to my
inability to match my friend, Iain McIntyre, who was a super ‘dribbler’ and exponent
of the game. He easily ‘made rings round me’, as well as around other boys. That is
probably why I developed an interest in cricket as a preference.
For us young ones, we had the opportunity of attending football matches involv-
ing teams demonstrating 2 levels of skill and experience. First there was King’s Park
Football Club, a staunch and regular member of the ‘Scottish Second Division’, playing
home games at Forthbank, just over the railway bridge on the road to Fallin and Throsk.
To attend these matches, a boy had to have sixpence to enable him to enter by the ‘boys
and unemployed’ gate at that charge. Adults were charged 9pence – extra of course for
a seat in the small stand, which came to a grievous end when a land-mine was dropped
on it by a German bomber during the night of the Clydebank ‘blitz’. I can never re-
member my parents giving me sixpence in the very early days so that I could go to see
King’s Park play. It was a lot of money, and my father was not a keen supporter. Later
on, when I began to get tips as a result of my employment as a message boy, I occasion-
ally managed to see a match.
The Forthbank pitch became very sodden and muddy in wet weather, which was
not uncommon, and many a time we witnessed a huge kick travelling about 20 yards
– not the whole length of the field as happens today. The footballs were made of leather
and became extremely heavy when soaked. I understand that players got a bonus of £2
for a win and £1 for a draw. Baird, the local ‘Beckham’ of these days, was a yeoman
centre-half who was certain to stop all attacks. Many a time we shuddered when he
headed such a heavy ball – we never knew how he developed such a hard head. There
was a low banking on the north side of the ground, beyond which there was always a
row of railway engines, steam ones of course. On top of them stood a goodly number
of railway personnel making certain that they had an excellent view of the match. Their
function in life was to clean out the engines’ fire-boxes. The team was always enthu-
siastically cheered on by Jimmy Wordie, who, suitably decorated in the club’s colours,
took up his regular position on the high banking behind the goal-posts at the north
[town] end, and his usual words of encouragement – ‘ability is bound to tell’ – rang
around the ground. King’s Park Football Club never won the Scottish Cup, but they
provided entertainment for the 1,000 – 2,000 supporters who walked over the railway
bridge every other Saturday or joined the special trains to Alloa or the Falkirk area as
the occasion demanded. The accomplishments of the team were not transmitted by
television in these days but were admirably reported in the 3 Stirling newspapers – the
Observer, the Journal, and the Sentinel.
The other team was a juvenile ‘outfit’ which played on a pitch at the foot of Abbey
Road along-side the mill building. This team did well each year in the relevant Scottish
Cup competition by proceeding a long way towards the final stages and, as a result, the
games commanded exceptional attendances. Boys like me had no difficulty in being
present at the games and adding our weight of support to the locals. If I remember cor-
rectly there was a voluntary ‘collection’, but that was a matter for grown-ups.
It will be appreciated that the normal procedures and routine of each day – school
attendance, being at home with the family, and playing with the younger ones and
friends – did not create any spectacular or note-worthy happenings. To amuse myself
and the family, I occasionally played our barrel-organ. This gave many hours of pleas-
ure to the members of the household – young and old – and it is a pity that in an effort
to build something else by utilising the fine box in which the mechanism was held, it
came to the end of its days. How much I have regretted over the years not taking care
of such a dear old friend. We had numerous paper rolls, all perforated as required, to
provide the music. These were fed over the mouth-organ type notes which produced
the magical melodies when the operator kept turning the handle. The favourite tune
was ‘Only a Pansy Blossom’, a tune which I have never again come across.
Sunday was a special day, and it is worth bringing back to mind the high-lights.

First of all, I had to be properly dressed in what was called – my ‘good suit’ - and that
meant I had to wear it from breakfast-time on. This was to ensure that due regard was
paid to the importance of the day and to distinguish it from other days when ‘working
clothes’ would be worn. My father did not work on Sundays. He was very much the
head of the family on that day, making himself responsible for taking the young ones
for a walk if weather permitted, and presiding over the family meals in the living-room.

It was quite normal for us to retire to the ‘best room’ – or rather ‘the better of the 2 we
occupied’ – and bring into use the best chairs which were arranged round the fireplace,
with or without a coal fire, depending on weather conditions. He would talk to us about
a hundred and one different things concerning his life and work, and give his views on
current topics, judging the standard of the conversation by the extent to which he felt
the little ones had the ability to understand.
My father was a fine man who had become Foreman in the Stirling Railway Goods
Yard, where the main function was to sort out the goods traffic which had congregated
there and to make up goods trains to proceed on their way – mainly southwards. He
enjoyed good health, although when I think back to the dreadful hours which he had
to work, this fact was almost unbelievable. For 51 weeks of each year, for seemingly
countless years, while he occupied the Foreman’s position, he worked a continuous
rotating shift of 6 a.m. to 2 p.m.: 2 p.m. to 10 p.m.: 10 p.m. to 6 a.m.: week after week
after week. How his body was able to adjust to that life of perpetual change I never
knew. The 52nd week was the one week of his annual holidays when he was able to
relax and live like a normal human being.
His holiday week flew past. We would be taken to see our grand-parents in Kin-
fauns and Glencarse, where for a day we would sample the atmosphere of country life
in the rural surroundings of their homes. On another day we would enjoy a sail round
the Kyles of Bute, where on board, we would join the throngs of happy holiday-makers
on the Waverley, the Columba, or the Jeannie Deans, or maybe it was on some other
well-known and well-loved steamer regularly sailing in the Clyde estuary. We knew all
their names and recognised them from far off. We appreciated the music of the bands,
or little orchestras, which always sailed with the cruise steamers and we relished the
outing an exciting and memorable one. We had relatives in Crail, Falkirk, Greenock
and Motherwell, and periodically time was found to call on them, and enable the adults
to refresh childhood times or speak about more recent family matters while we played
with our young cousins. With my father having such a rigid working structure, it is dif-
ficult to envisage that there could be any substantial alterations to the routine. But life
proceeded apace, and I was fortunate to find myself in a happy growing family of chil-
dren and to have in the neighbourhood many other comparable families which included
boys of about my own age whom I could consider to be my pals.
I mentioned that Sunday was somewhat different. It was dominated by attend-
ance at the North Parish Church Sunday School in the old North Church which was
demolished to facilitate the erection of the shopping centre. It was a very large Sunday
School which assembled at the conclusion of the morning Church Service. Mr. Allan
was the Superintendent. We were divided into classes of about 8-10, each class being
led by a young lady, and it was her function to explain the deeper meaning of a pre-
scribed text. This was occasionally a difficult role to fulfil when she was faced with
a row of alert little boys who were bent on teasing her and generally putting her ‘off
her stride’. The class could, of course, be very attentive and listen carefully to what
she had to say. At a point towards the end of the class-work session, there would be a
general assembly, involving all the children being brought together in the centre of the
Church as a hall audience and given a final lesson or lecture by Mr. Allan. Maybe, if we
were lucky, someone would be present to provide a lantern lecture, a diversion which
pleased us very much. On these occasions the class meetings would be suspended, or
severely curtailed. We would then look forward to being shown wonderful pictures on
glass slides, these being projected on to a big screen, by a skilled operator manipulating
a projector or epidiascope.
Apart from these weekly programmes, there were 3 main events in the Sunday
School calendar. One was the prize-giving ceremony some time in June, marking the
termination of the long period of work since the preceding Autumn, during which time
we had assiduously applied ourselves to our scripture lessons and invariably had good
attendance records. On this particular day, when we arrived at the Church, we found
that the Communion Table was covered with piles of books, these to be awarded mainly
for good attendance and class work. When you were adjudged to have applied yourself
especially well in the class, you were rewarded for this by the award of a certificate. It
meant that, after being called forward to the front of the Church and having your attain-
ments announced, you would normally manage to collect a certificate and a couple of
books, prizes which we thought highly of at the time even if we had read them before.
This was due to the fact that the popular books, e.g. Robinson Crusoe, Treasure Island,
Little Women, frequently cropped up at these ceremonies. Still, it was a happy ending
to what was always an eventful year. We were confident that Mr. Allan had ensured that
everyone had a little encouragement and reward for taking part.
During the course of the winter months, the Sunday School had a soiree in the
Albert Hall. It was a social evening for parents and children. Everyone present re-
ceived a bag of cakes and there was as much tea available as you wanted. We had been
encouraged to bring our own cups or mugs. The entertainment was provided by the
children, usually in small groups singing popular songs. I remember my own very early
appearance on the stage of the Albert Hall, along with 5 or 6 of my classmates, when,
having been suitably attired in old clothes, we sang about the ‘Cries of London Town’.
The Church Organist was the piano accompanist. I remember that the audience in the
well-filled Hall was very charitable by giving us rousing applause.
The third memorable event within the year was the Sunday School Trip, which
always took place on the first Saturday of June. On that day, one would find, in early
afternoon, the railway station crowded with youngsters, parents, teachers and helpers
from a number of Sunday Schools, waiting for special trains to take them to their cho-
sen destinations. Doune Castle grounds and Callander were favourite venues. Each
of the principal Sunday Schools in the town had a train all to themselves, starting their
journeys from the cul-de-sac platforms. The children were sorted out by their teach-
ers and helpers and carefully shepherded to the correct trains to be whisked off to the
selected venue stations. After the rail journey, which was exciting for the chattering
young ones, we walked to the chosen park in an orderly manner, there to receive our
bags of buns and tea. There were lots of races – ordinary, three-legged, egg and spoon,
and sack – and hosts of small prizes for the good, the bad, and the indifferent. I never
recall a day when the weather damaged our enjoyment of the outing. As you can re-
alise, the whole Sunday School package of events was one that a young person could
treasure as a significant part of the yearly round of activity.
I would be remiss in my reporting if I failed to mention the Annual Regatta in
the vicinity of the boat-house in Dean Crescent. The competition and accompanying
entertainment were provided by members of the Boating Club and their colleagues
from other Clubs around Central Scotland. Just off-shore from the steps of the Boating
Club-house, there was anchored a large flat-topped barge, and projecting from it was a
very long pole – something like a caber. This was to play an important part in the day’s
proceedings. For the rowers, the principal items of interest were the inter-Club races,
involving teams of 4, 2 and also one-manned ‘skiffs’. 3 buoys had been placed near
the railway bridge to the west of the club-house, providing a reasonably straight river
course for the racing boats. Starting in the vicinity of the club-house, the racing craft
were rowed westwards, turned round the buoys, and then back to the finishing line,
which coincided with the starting line. The spectators assembled along the footpath
beside the river in Dean Crescent and took a keen interest in the racing programme.
The real excitement, however, was when the barge and that long pole came into
use. The pole was well-greased and a little flag was placed at the end of it. This prepa-
ration inaugurated the ‘greasy boom’ competition when large numbers of swimmers
made strenuous efforts to slide along the pole [or boom] and pick off the flag. It wasn’t
so easy and I never saw anyone skid along the pole to the end. Nevertheless, the winner
was the one who came nearest to the flag and he was presented with a ham gifted by M.
A. Blyth, the Butcher in Forth Crescent. This competition was, for the spectators, the
high-light of the afternoon, as they followed the fortunes of the competitors as they ran
over the top of the barge and attempted to reach the end of the pole –most of them not
getting very far before splashing into the murky waters of the River Forth. The regatta
was always an enjoyable entertainment, especially for the young ones who probably
visualised themselves emulating the attainments of the oarsmen and swimmers. The
date of the event was carefully selected to ensure that it took place at a fairly high tide
when the fresher sea water entered the river to largely take the place of water containing
the untreated effluent from the growing number of houses in the town.
According to my school report cards, my attendance at school was very good.
In other words, I did not appear to be troubled by many illnesses. I was thus fortunate
in this respect. The family had to do its best to avoid being ill because mother consid-
ered that the remedy for all ailments was the castor oil bottle. This meant that the so-
called cure was a good deal worse than any health upset. Apart from all the children’s
troubles, such as chicken pox and measles, scarlet fever was quite common in the 20’s.
While young children, my 3 sisters all contracted that illness, more or less at the same
time. It was highly infectious and it involved them being taken to join other similar
patients to the Kildean Isolation Hospital in Drip Road. Fortunately, this illness is a
thing of the past and the hospital stands empty today or has been put to another use.
The procedure on entry was interesting. Not having the opportunity to receive visitors,
each new patient was allocated a number which was listed on the hospital bulletins each
day. If all was reasonably well with a young patient, then, against that patient’s number
on the daily bulletin, you would read the word ‘satisfactory’. The hospital was not very
forthcoming in the amount of information which it gave. As the children became better,
they were allowed to range themselves along a large window so that parents and other
relatives and friends could wave to them. If I remember correctly, the spell in hospital
was a fairly lengthy one, and this increased the warmth of the welcome when they were
discharged.
Having come from a blacksmith’s family, it is possible that I inherited some vari-
ety of technical genes which helped to create within me a special interest in practical
and mechanical things. Although my career development later required me to become
much involved with statutes, Government pronouncements, legal work, and written
material generally, I relished the opportunity, when it arose, of getting my teeth into
technical subjects and problems – how best to modernise run-down areas of towns,
environmental improvements, architecture, town planning, parks and garden lay-outs,
and the large number of other challenges which present themselves when one takes on
a senior position in Local Government.
When I was quite young, I spent occasional holidays at the home of my grand-
parents at Kinfauns, just east of Perth on the Dundee road, where my grand-father was
the village Blacksmith. These holidays would sometimes be occasioned by my mother
preparing to increase our family – every 2 or 3 years – by producing for me another
brother or sister, or maybe they were merely breaks in my long summer holidays from
school. As I have mentioned earlier, my grand-father occupied the Burnfoot Smiddy
and many a time I watched him – and even helped him, so I thought – in some of his
work. I looked at him intently as he fitted shoes to the local farm horses. He knew them
all. Some of them were even-tempered and some were bad-tempered – just like human
beings – and the bad-tempered ones were liable to try and kick him. He had a shed,
where the floor was covered with old railway sleepers, immediately adjacent to the
smiddy, and it was there that I often saw him, with his leather apron on, busily engaged
in the horse-shoeing work. He would coax the horse to lift the appropriate leg, then
tucking it in between his legs, he would set about removing the worn shoe, while all the
time facing towards the rear quarters of the animal. After removing the old damaged
shoe, he would prepare the hoof for the new shoe which had been made from a suitable
piece of iron, hammered into shape in the adjoining smiddy. When red-hot, the newly
made shoe was brought through to the shoeing shed and clamped on to the hoof, with
much hissing and steam, at first to determine that it was the correct size and shape, and
then finally to be nailed on with the special nails he had for the purpose. I remember
how I shuddered at the thought that the horse might be suffering, having such a hot shoe
attached to its leg and with such long nails. I soon learned that there was no feeling in
the horn –rather like the nails on one’s own hands and feet. One of the jobs I liked to
do around the smiddy was to operate the bellows to stimulate the forge fire.
I also found it good fun to help when he put metal tyres on the large cart wheels.
There was a circular concrete base for this operation in the yard, on which the wheel
would be placed. It had a space in the centre for the hub so that the wheel would be
level when it was put in position on the concrete. Then the old worn metal tyre would
be eased off with the tools which he had for the purpose and the wood surround would
be tidied up. He had carefully measured the circle required, and to check, he placed the
freshly-made cold tyre in the position which it was going to occupy, although at this
stage it could not be hammered home, being over-tight and needing to be expanded.
Being satisfied that he had made a tyre of the correct dimensions, he returned it to the
forge where it was heated up until it became red-hot. Then my grand-father and his as-
sistant would carefully, with tongs, bring the heated tyre back out to the yard and they
placed it over the wooden framework of the wheel. The heating had, of course, expand-
ed the metal and it merely required a few taps with a hammer to get it bedded into place.

Our function at last became clear. We had filled half-a-dozen pailsful of water from the
nearby burn, where I regularly collected minnows in a glass jar and admired them for an
hour before returning them to their home in the burn, and had placed these filled pailsful
around the concrete area where the un-tyred wheel was awaiting renovation. When the
red-hot tyre came into contact with the dry wood of the wheel, the wood began to burn,
so the water was quickly and lavishly poured over the tyre. The water served the dou-
ble purpose of dousing the burning wood and contracting the metal. The new tyre just
required a few taps with a hammer to put it into position. The end product was a fine
new metal-tyred wheel for a cart, designed to give again many long years of service.
The final operation was, of course, to re-fit the wheel to the cart. My grandfather not
only carried out extensive and minor repairs to farm machinery, such as ploughs and
harrows, he built them as well and there was ample evidence of these activities around
the smiddy premises. His many skills impressed me considerably.
The grandparents’ home in Kinfauns was an excellent place for a youngster to spend
a holiday, with so much of interest always going on. As a side-line, my grandfather
tenanted a nearby field which he cultivated by growing potatoes. The field had a gen-
tle slope down to the old Dundee Road and there was an attractive wooded area at the
top – the edge of the trees facing south and creating an excellent sheltered sitting-out
area, especially welcome in these long summer days which seemed to be the regular
pattern when I was young. Thus it was that I was inspired to make a contribution to
the family’s well-being by constructing a rustic seat. I gathered from the copse a fairly
large quantity of sturdy branches and sorted them out by size as my main raw mate-
rial to enable the work to begin. With the aid of a hammer and saw, plus a quantity of
horse-shoe nails from the smiddy, I put together a fine, though not necessarily the most
comfortable, rustic bench and this was given a place of honour at the edge of the copse,
above the potato field and the Dundee Road beyond. The interest in, and attention to,
my grandfather’s activities obviously had a great influence on me and inevitably con-
tributed to the development of my interest in technical things. I was fortunate to be his
occasional apprentice and he was certainly an extremely good master.
Another important element in the jigsaw which contributed to my early technical
training was provided by Santa Claus. He gave me a number ‘0’ Mechano Set one early
Christmas. Now I knew that other boys had Sets with larger numbers than ‘0’ contain-
ing many more interesting and complex contents, but my number ‘0’ was my pride and
joy over several years. I made every model in the demonstration book, plus a few more
besides, and spent countless hours using the metal strips, nuts, bolts and wheels making
one model after another. No amount of formal schooling could have been better than
the knowledge and experience which I gathered from being with my grandfather and
meeting the challenges of my Mechano.
CHAPTER 6 - WHY HAVE A BOGEY
While I have endeavoured to set out the background to life in the 20’s, against
which I proceeded with the task of constructing and owning a bogey, I had to examine
various questions, such as garaging, security, and possible snags in its day-to-day use.
You had to decide whether there was going to be a need to take it on the ferry-boat to
Cambuskenneth or on any other form of transport. The idea of having a bogey came
to me in the mid-20’s. It no doubt pleased me that a bogey operator did not require
a licence, nor insurance. The driver was not obliged to pass a driving test, and there
were no regulations or legal encumbrances preventing the wheeling of a bogey on the
footpath similar to the one involving bicycles.
One had to decide what would be the real intended use for a bogey. Was it to be a
purely recreational vehicle, or was it to be utilised for cartage in some shape or form, or
in fact a bit of both? My earliest bogey was mainly for recreational purposes, although,
gradually, its use expanded and it became also a conveyance for shopping and produce
from the allotment garden. In other words, it became a useful commercial vehicle ben-
efiting the whole house-hold. For example, my father occasionally urged me to take the
bogey and collect horse-manure or ‘dung’ from the local roads where there were regular
large deposits due to the great number of horses going to and fro. I had been well taught
that horse manure was ‘good for the garden’. My father was happy to get the manure
and he ‘dug it well in’. One, of course, does not contaminate a nice bogey by scooping
up horse manure from the road and throwing it into a well-kept vehicle. You had to
ensure that there was a separate container, and this, in my case, was usually an old pail
which was sat on top of discarded newspapers. Due to the large quantities of manure
on the roads, the pail was likely to be filled rapidly. When full, I had to empty it at the
garden plot and continue my road survey for more, and so on.
On the recreational side, the bogey was a ‘fun’ vehicle, and many happy hours
were spent giving joy-rides to the smallest children. The little ones enjoyed the joy-
ride events. They all loved a ‘hurl’ in the bogey, and many a child born in these early
post-first-world-war years can look back to the days when the were taken for a ‘hurl’.
I remember that the arrangements were so well organised that the children had to form
a queue, as if waiting at a bus stop, for their turn, and then they re-joined the queue at
the tail end for their next turn.
The bogey had a very special journey in 1926 when I was 11 years of age. It
was the year of the national General Strike which involved countless thousands of men
being called out on strike bringing hardship and misery to many families. It was a
period of great bitterness on the part of the working people. During the Strike and in
its aftermath, most people had no income other than small hand-outs from the Unions
where they had available funds. The family income was reduced to a small pittance.

My parents were caught up in the Strike, which my father, being a Caledonian Railway
employee had to join. It was coming near to Christmas and Santa Claus could not be
depended upon to bring along his usual ‘goodies’, not that they were ever so grand or
valuable in these days. The District Nurse took an interest in parents with young fami-
lies, of which ours was one, and realised the poor prospects our young ones had when
they looked forward to Christmas, and the serious difficulties and concerns of parents,
especially mothers, who never wanted to disappoint their fledgelings. The District
Nurse told my mother to arrange for me, as the oldest of a growing family which now
numbered 4, to take my bogey up to the Nurses’ Home in Princes Street a few days be-
fore the 25th of December, where, she said, I would be given a quantity of toys which
would be suitable for the children. I remember so clearly that journey, as if it only oc-
curred only yesterday, - up Forth Crescent, over the Railway bridge, though Maxwell
Place, along Barnton Street, and finally the short incline to my destination in Princes
Street - a big house on the left-hand side of the street with a shiny plate on which were
the letters “Nurses’ Home”. Leaving my bogey at the entrance, I climbed a few steps
and announced my presence by ringing the door-bell. A young lady answered my call,
and then there was an interminable wait while she went into the house to find the pre-
cious bits and pieces which were earmarked for our family. The long delay resulted in
me conjuring up in my mind all sorts of concerns that maybe there was nothing at all
for us and that my mission was going to be completely unsuccessful. In the fullness
of time she did, however, emerge with an armful of toys and picture books which I was
instructed to convey back to my mother without the other children being made aware
of my errand. And so it was that, with the aid of my bogey, I accomplished my mission
successfully. I knew that my mother would put the toys and books in a cupboard to
which the younger ones would not have access to await the late evening of 24th De-
cember. I was conscious that, some time in the past while in their pristine condition,
they had made some other unknown children happy and that they had been generously
handed down to us. Christmas Day morning that year was something special for me.
I had reinforced my knowledge that Santa Claus was not the generous anony-
mous legend that he was pictured to be by most small children, with a bottomless pit
of presents which were all of his own making and which he gave to children out of the
goodness of his heart, and that parents can have many worries and may indeed make
many sacrifices in trying to provide the best they can for their little ones – especially at
Christmas Time. I say that because even in that difficult year, my parents made a point
of supplementing the donations from the Nurses’ Home at some personal hardship for
themselves. The experience of that Christmas had a tremendous impact on me. It made
me more mature and advanced my age and understanding by several years over-night as
it were. In previous years I had never seen the gifts from Santa Claus until Christmas
Day morning – that year I had played a key role. Notwithstanding my parents’ noble
efforts to provide as well the traditional gift of an apple and an orange for each child,
there was little else to see that Christmas morning apart from the contents of my bogey
of a few days previously. It was good to see the young ones relish their gifts, as if they
had been newly made in Santa’s workshop and delivered hot foot by himself and his
reindeer overnight. The innocence of the younger children was so apparent that morn-
ing. The traditions and routine of our family Christmas morning had been marvellously
maintained, but my parents would have had their special thoughts, as I had mine, on
that memorable day.
It was probably about 18 months after that eventful Christmas day that my mother
was approached by Matthew Blyth, the local Butcher in Forth Crescent, to allow me
to act as a delivery boy for him on Friday evenings and all day on Saturdays. My
mother readily agreed, probably because a little bolster to the family income would be
welcome, and so it was that I became the local Butcher’s message-boy. Whether my
engagement arose because I had a bogey, or whether it was because I appeared to be
reasonably capable, I do not know; but I did have my bogey and it was a potential asset
in my employment. The details agreed with my mother, or as one might say nowadays,
the terms of my contract of employment were that I would work on Friday evenings
from after school to shop closing time, just after 7 o’clock, and all day on Saturday
from just after 7 o’clock in the morning until shortly after 9 p.m., the normal closing
time on Saturdays, and that I would be paid one shilling and six-pence, that is 18 old
pence, each Saturday night. My remuneration worked out at about one old penny an
hour. I learned that, as a bonus, I would also share, along with the other member of the
staff, Jock Samson, from Wellgreen, any sausages, or ‘links’ as they were called, which
remained unsold at closing time on Saturday. Apart from serving in the shop at busy
times, Jock drove the 2-wheeled horse-drawn float from which he sold cuttings of meat
etc. over a wide area of Stirling during the week. Mr. Blyth was a working Butcher, and
the only other assistance he appeared to need to operate the ‘front shop’ was provided
by his wife helping out at busy periods on Saturdays. When fortune favoured the staff,
and I collected a reasonably large allocation of sausages along with my wage, our frying
pan was kept busy late on Saturday night and the McIntosh family had a lovely ‘tuck-
in’, often with home-baked soda scones fresh from the girdle. The cooking smells must
have been mouth-watering around the 2-storey tenement in which we lived. Of course,
there was an odd occasion on which I failed to arrive home with any sausages and the
hoped-for barbeque did not materialise, much to the distress of everybody.
Working for the Butcher raised the question of the value of the bogey as a delivery
aid. It was regularly used when multiple deliveries had to be made in the same area, but
for isolated packages, such as steak pies, or a few chops, or sausages, whether linked or
square-cut, it wasn’t of any special value. No doubt, the neighbours concluded, when
they saw me with the bogey, that the Butcher was having a busy day and that they had
better get a move on to visit the shop if they had delayed unduly doing their Butcher’s
shopping, just in case the stock had been reduced to only a few bones for the dog.
During my spell with Mr. Blyth, there were 2 tragic, but exciting, incidents involv-
ing the float that Jock Samson used for his local sales, both occurrences being exactly
similar. The little cart was standing on the roadway at the entrance to the shop, with the
horse fully attached to the vehicle which was in course of being loaded up. The horse
knew what was expected of it – it had stood patiently there many times before. On this
occasion, maybe arising from a fright, it decided to take off, and, with the attached vehi-
cle, it quickly gathered speed and went helter –skelter down the whole length of Abbey
Road towards the ferry ramp. It was indeed fortunate that there was no-one waiting on
the ramp for the boat because the horse could not stop and it, along with the float, fin-
ished up in the river. We understood that the horse was drowned. An effort was made
to find out what had caused the horse to run off but there was no apparent explanation.

Time passed. Whatever action was taken to tether the new horse and the renovated ve-
hicle was soon relaxed, probably on the basis that it could never happen again – but it
did. Whether that second horse was saved, I do not know. What I do know is that from
then on the Butcher’s horse was severely restrained from loping off by having a huge
weight on the pavement led by a rope attached to the harness. I can’t exactly recall how
long I worked with Matt. Blyth. It certainly was long enough for Jock Samson to try to
teach me how to twist the sausages to form the traditional links with which everybody
is familiar. I would guess that I was the Butcher’s message-boy for nearly a year.
At the end of my period with Mr. Blyth, I got a golden opportunity to act as the mes-
sage-boy for James Chalmers, the Grocer, whose shop was about 4 doors away from
Mr. Blyth’s, at the corner of Forth Crescent and Millar Place. There I had to work every
evening from school break-up time to shop closing time, about 7 o’clock, and all day on
Saturday from 9 o’clock in the morning to 9 o’clock closing time, for 5 shillings a week
– a real ‘man’s wage’. I do not know what considerations weighed with Mr. Chalmers
when he approached me to work for him and whether he took into account that I had a
bogey. In any event, the bogey was of greater value as a delivery aid in the Grocery en-
vironment. People were more inclined to have larger orders covering greater numbers
of packages and, while the Grocer’s basket was quite useful for a single delivery, it did
not ‘hold a candle to’ the bogey when it came to several orders needing to be delivered
in one vicinity.
No doubt, I became a kenspeckle figure doing my rounds. The possibility of having
your shopping delivered, at no extra cost, was undoubtedly of considerable advantage
to residents of the community, and seeing me rushing around the Riverside area with
my bogey did not do Mr. Chalmers’s business any harm – it probably urged people to
believe that he had an ultra-modern delivery service. I suppose that, if I had properly
thought it out, I would have had a large notice pasted on each side of the bogey, and
also on the back, advertising Mr. Chalmers’s wares and especially his current bargains.
I continued working with Mr. Chalmers for a fairly long time, doing a wide variety
of jobs, collecting eggs from Manor Powis Farm once a week, delivering shopping to
addresses as far away as the old Causewayhead school-house, where his brother was
Headmaster, helping occasionally in the shop, buzzing over to Cambuskenneth on the
ferry boat, assisting in filling one and two-pound brown paper bags with sugar from a
one-hundred-weight canvas sack, and frequently being rewarded by being given, dare I
say, some welcome pennies as tips from generous house-holders.
My working days with Mr. Chalmers were brought to an end when I was 3 months
short of my 15th birthday. At that point, Mr Morris, the Town Clerk, in collusion with
the High School Rector, induced me to take up the appointment in Mr. Morris’s office.
All that is another story which I hope to cover in another booklet. The end of my em-
ployment with Mr. Chalmers marked the end of my bogey-owning and bogey-operating
days. Now I had more important things to do. I had suddenly found my real career,
which involved a great deal of study and my main recreational pursuits took a dramatic
turn to the world of cricket.
CHAPTER 7 - HOW A BOGEY [MARK 1]
WAS CONSTRUCTED
T
HE PRINCIPAL INGREDIENTS OF THE MARK 1 BOGEY WERE [1] A GOOD STRONG WOODEN
BOX WHICH WAS NOT DIFFICULT TO LAY HANDS ON IN THESE DAYS FROM A FRIENDLY GRO-
CER; [2] 2 WHEELS WHICH PROBABLY DESCENDED FROM A BABY CARRIAGE [OR ‘PRAM’
AS WE CALLED IT], EACH WHEEL BEING ABOUT 12-15 INCHES IN DIAMETER; [3] AN AXLE, ALSO
FROM A PRAM, PREFERABLY JUST WIDER, BY ABOUT 2-3 INCHES THAN THE WIDTH OF THE BOX;
[4] 2 SHORT PIECES OF WOOD, ABOUT HALF AN INCH THICK, THE WIDTH OF THE BOX, MEASURED
ON THE BOTTOM INSIDE; [5] 4 PIECES OF WOOD, NORMALLY AROUND 3 INCHES WIDE, AND NOT
TOO THICK, SAY HALF AN INCH, 2 PIECES BEING ABOUT 2 YARDS LONG AND 2 ABOUT 1 YARD; [6]
A QUANTITY OF ORDINARY NAILS OF VARIOUS LENGTHS AND SEVERAL SHORT SCREW NAILS IF YOU
COULD FIND THEM.
With regard to the box, one would think in terms of a fruit box, e.g. an apple box,
which, in these days, would be strong, with reasonably thick wooden sides and a sub-
stantial base. Such boxes have disappeared from view nowadays in favour of a large
variety of card-board cartons, some quite strong but none capable of taking the place,
for bogey-building purposes, of the old-fashioned wooden box which had been deliv-
ered straight to the Grocer’s shop from a far-off place, with its precious contents of
fruit, and which had withstood the rigours of much handling whilst, in all likelihood,
being taken to a ship, being put on board, and being roughly handled by stevedores at
some British dock, before finding its way to one of a host of corner shops from Land’s
End to John o’ Groats. There were no shipping containers then, such as exist today,
nor centralised delivery depots as developed by Super-markets. The need for boxes to
be inherently very strong was reflected in the manner in which they were constructed
at some box-building plant, many hundreds, if not thousands, of miles distant, often by
the use of local hard-wood such as you would not normally find in this country, and
they would be of generous thickness.
In these days, there was a good supply of second-hand wheels from baby carriages
which had served the bringing up of one or more families and had become due for
replacement arising from the rigours of long-term use, coupled with normal wear and
tear. One had, of course, to ensure that they were a pair of the required dimensions, as
near as possible, and that they had a matching axle. The wheels had to move freely,
without scraping the wooden handle pieces which were due to be attached to the sides
of the box. Having fastened the wheels to the axle, one of the short pieces of wood was
nailed across the bottom of the box about one-third of the way from the end which was
not to have the handles protruding, and the second short portion on the outside bottom
immediately below that first piece so that you could fix them firmly together through
the box base by using screw nails which did not protrude beyond the surface of the
wood.
Having completed that operation satisfactorily, and with the box upside down on
the ground, you now were in a position to lay the axle, with the wheels attached, along
that strengthened part of the base and screw or nail it to the wood as efficiently as you
were able. If there were holes in the axle, then you could take advantage of them. If
not, one had to find the most satisfactory method to fix the axle so that it was firm and
remained as steady as a rock, capable of withstanding substantial punishment. Nuts
and bolts were the ideal attachments for the axle and wheels, because they prevented
any side-ways movement.
It was essential to position the nuts below the axle to keep the inside of the box as
smooth as possible, with no unnecessary rugged protrusions which could damage the
items in the load. Depending on what I could lay my hands on, I found a variety of
ways of making certain that the axle was held in a firm position. You will appreciate
that the retention of the axle in a fixed position was a critical operation and the job had
to be done effectively. A little bit of ingenuity was called for. Maybe you will be able
to find exactly what you were looking for in your secret store of odds and ends. If not,
close collaboration with your neighbours’ families was always a good investment. The
fixing of the wheels to the axle did not usually result in any problem, as they were all
generally of a standard construction.
Having completed the wheels mechanism you could now turn your attention to the
wood attachments. The 2 longer strips of wood were for the hand-pieces. These had
to be nailed – preferably with screw nails – along the 2 long sides of the box, sloping
gently downwards , so that when the driver was walking with the bogey, the box was
maintained in a reasonably level position, all as shown on one of the drawings. In nail-
ing these long sections, it was a good idea to ensure that a few of the nails were driven
through the fore and aft ends of the box to give a better hold. As an alternative, I have
occasionally put corner pieces of wood, sometimes triangular, within the box to catch
the ends of the nails where the box ends were not very thick. Naturally, I had to trim
and maybe shorten the ends of these long wood strips, where the hands were to sur-
round them, to give a comfortable grip.
The 2 short pieces of wood were fixed for standing the bogey in a level parking po-
sition, again as shown on the relative drawing. These pieces were placed immediately
adjoining the protruding hand sections and affixed to the end of the box. Once again,
their length had to be measured carefully to ensure that there was a level stance and
surplus wood at the top or bottom or at both ends was sawn off as required. To improve
their rigidity, it was wise to insert some additional nails through the handle pieces and
into the sides of these supports.
You may well wonder where I managed to get the wood. If you knew your neigh-
bourhood well, you would soon learn where some repairs were being carried out and
where pieces of wood could be found from old flooring, for example. As for nail sup-
ply, nowadays if one needs several nails, he has to go along to one of the local D.I.Y.
supermarkets where you find that you have to buy a packet or packets containing far
more than is required. In the ‘good old days’ there was a continuing demand for fire-
wood for the living-room fire and one was constantly on the lookout for, and finding,
odd bits of wood, mainly disused packaging boxes discarded by shopkeepers as being
of no further use. These boxes and box parts were eagerly sought after by house-hold-
ers, whose children were normally charged with the job of undertaking the collecting.

The scrap wood was used for ‘kindling’ the fire and also to supplement the coal which,
of course, was the main ingredient of the fire.
There were usually lots of nails in the wood and it was sensible to remove them
before consigning the wood, which had been broken up into smaller pieces, to the
flames. The nails were stored in an old jam-jar for future use as necessary. In this way
a good stock of a variety of lengths and types of nails was built up, and, at a time one
was constructing a bogey, these would become most useful. The nail-extracting opera-
tion was carried out the boxes and other odd bits of wood were being broken up for
firewood.
Finally, the bogey was thoroughly tested to make certain that it was strong and
firm, and fit for all the jobs for which it was likely to be needed. I would then stand
back and admire my completed project and it opened the door for my mother to say to
me – ‘Sandy, take your bogey and do this – or that’. It probably gave me a new sense
of importance and feeling of being needed. When I came across Parkinson’s Law many
years later, I realised how accurate it was when it stated that work expanded to fill the
space provided. For so it was with my bogey.
Fortunately, there was no record of bogey-stealing, so I had the choice of parking
it either in the back court under the living-room window, where there was a cul-de-sac,
or pushing it into the coal-cellar on top of the coal stock. Our coal-cellar was located at
the far end of the close, next the toilet, the latter being too small to provide the accom-
modation. During the day, the bogey was safely left on the road or footpath, wherever
I happened to be.
While I never set up in business as a bogey- builder, I joined some of my boyhood
friends in creating bogeys and evolving the best methods of construction. We shared
the raw materials required and assisted each other in finding all the bits and pieces.
They could never be regarded as major construction projects, which justified awards,
but both in the building and the pleasure derived in using them, we had a great deal of
fun and we contributed to the enjoyment derived by many of the younger kiddies in the
neighbourhood. I did not have a mileometer attached to a wheel of my beloved vehicle
to record the extensive mileage which I completed and thus it is a pity because I would
like to have been able to include the figure in my story. I am sure, however, that, taking
into account the distance travelled during my message-boy employment along with the
pleasure use, it would have amounted to a substantial figure.
CHAPTER 8 - THE MARK 2 BOGEY
T
HE MARK 2 VERSION OF THE BOGEY WAS BASICALLY A 4-WHEELER, WITH STEERING AND
BRAKING CAPABILITIES. IT WAS MORE OF A RECREATIONAL VEHICLE THAN THE MARK 1.
THE INGREDIENTS FOR THE MANUFACTURE OF THIS BOGEY WERE [1] THE STURDY BOX
AS REQUIRED FOR THE MARK 1; [2] 2 PAIRS OF WHEELS, 1 PAIR BEING OF THE SAME SIZE AS THE
MARK 1, AND A SMALLER PAIR FOR THE FRONT; [3] 2 AXLES OF THE SAME LENGTH AS USED IN
THE MARK 1; [4] A SUBSTANTIAL PIECE OF WOOD TO FORM THE BASE, OR SEVERAL MATCHING
PIECES CAPABLE OF BEING FITTED SNUGLY TOGETHER; [4] VARIOUS STRIPS OF WOOD FOR CORNER
REINFORCEMENTS; [5] A SELECTION OF NAILS AND SCREW NAILS; [6] 1 STRONG NUT AND BOLT
TO PROVIDE THE SWIVEL MECHANISM FOR THE FRONT AXLE; AND [7] A PIECE OF ROPE ABOUT 3
YARDS LONG.
The work began by removing one of the short end pieces of the box so that it ceased
to be a container any longer. The stresses imposed on the now unsupported sides made
the fixing of corner strengthening pieces highly desirable. Before attaching the wheels,
as the builder did next on the Mark 1 version, the operations on the amended box had
to be completed by fixing the long board or boards to the bottom of the box so that
they extended forwards – that being the end from which the section had been removed.
The projection of the base portion should be about 18 – 24 inches and, near the front,
one firmly nailed a chunky wooden strip to which would be attached the front axle and
smaller wheels with the nut and bolt in the centre to enable the wheels to swivel. To
ease the swivelling, washers were inserted as necessary. Any unevenness in the base at
the locus of the rear axle and wheels had to be remedied on attaching these items, and
this could be done by inserting bits of wood cut off from the front of the base board. The
back wheels were set well towards the rear on this occasion.
Finally, the rope was either tied round the ends of the swivelling portion, or it was
fastened through 2 holes. The rope was, of course, slack so enabling it to be held by a
wee fellow sitting in the bogey and used as a guiding mechanism. There was, of course,
a big problem with the Mark 2 used in this way. The bogey, on a down-hill stretch
could run away as if out of control and the occupant/driver had to rely on some kind
of braking method to keep it under control, for example by putting his shoes against
the front wheels or by having a wooden brake in such a position that it operated by re-
straining one of the back wheels. There was scope for improvisation here in creating
a braking device. I have seen various methods employed and one had merely to use a
little bit of initiative.
While I have helped my pals construct a Mark 2 bogey, I never built and used one
myself for the simple reason that I got along famously with my Mark 1. It was a real
work-horse for me. I realised the limitations of the Mark 2 in using it in my particular
field, but my story would not be complete without, at least, a passing reference to it,
being not uncommon in the 20’s down our way.
CHAPTER 9 - CONCLUSION

I HAVE ENDEAVOURED, as far as I could, to set forth the recollected information about my
experiences in the 1920’s. Understandably, the list cannot be a complete run-down
of every event and happening during these years, but it will give a whiff and flavour
of what life, both in school and out of school, was like in that decade - at least, in the
Riverside district of Stirling. I hope that my booklet will give readers a few moments
of pleasure and will enable them to appreciate that there were indeed quieter times in
which the young grew up before the stressful and noisy life-style of today. In these
days a family outing or walk-about was a cherished experience and one often relied on
such a thing as an old-fashioned gramophone, with its records, to provide musical en-
tertainment, with a younger member of the household being designated to keep wind-
ing up the instrument.
I shall now set about recording my recollections of the 1930’s from taking up
employment, all the way through to my call-up for service in the Royal Air Force,
overtaking on the way further education, attendance at Glasgow University, qualifying
as a Solicitor, nearly 6 months in Kirkcaldy as a Legal Assistant in the Town Clerk’s
Office, and returning to Stirling as Depute Town Clerk and to war-time positions. I just
hope that I shall have the health and stamina to see that production completed as well.
There is one benefit arising from the current work, and it is that my typewriting ability
and speed have somewhat improved with the efforts I have put into typing this Booklet.

Trudi and the family will, I hope, keep me in good humour and fair health while I ‘bash
out’ the second volume over the next month or two. Once again, it will not be a work
of fiction but all very real.
I enjoyed every minute of the 20’s part of my journey through life and I had a very
full second decade to follow. There must have been many difficult times in the 20’s but
my laundered memory will not permit me to record or dwell on them. Such is the as-
sistance given by the selective way in which my memory has developed in old age and
I’m sure that it is generally one of the customary benefits of advancing years.
In the early stages of this Booklet, I paid a tribute to my parents who sacrificed
so much for the family. My father was offered advancement in his railway career on a
number of occasions, but the burden and expense of moving such a large house-hold,
coupled with possible educational set-backs, to another area were too great to enable
him to take advantage of the opportunities. I am conscious of how much they toiled for
their off-springs, and how much they inspired me, particularly, in laying the founda-
tions for, and developing my own career. It would be a wonderful world if all young-
sters could match the extent of admiration for their parents which I have for mine.
I have just come across a newspaper cutting which my father had removed from a
newspaper reporting his retirement after 49 years’ railway service. It recorded that he
started at Glencarse in January, 1907; that he was a summer Ticket Collector in Blair-
gowrie; that thereafter he worked at Dunning, Guthrie and Callander; that in 1910 he
became a Goods Brakesman in Perth; and that in 1913 he was transferred to Stirling,
being promoted to the position of Freight Yard Foreman in 1920.

Goodbye for the present. I hope to be with you again soon.