Post
by drapadew » Thu Feb 09, 2006 10:02 pm
Margaret.
When talking about the Streets that run off the Main Street of Blantyre one has to bear in mind that at the backside of these tenement type buildings,there was usually a row of bunkers where people kept their coal, wood kindling,and what ever was too large for them to be bring in to their homes. My Granny had such a place, and all us boys in the family when we reached the age of 10 on our way home from school had the job of stopping off and chopping the firewood and to bring upstairs enough coal to last for the next day,until we refilled.
There would be a common washhouse at the back of each tenement, big enough for two women at a time to do their families wash.There would be two boilers with fires underneath for a hot wash and an other for rinseing. Attached to a folding table was a extra large hand wringer. Times of washing was laid out on a schedule on the wall or prearranged somehow with the neighbours. If you missed your day forget it until the following week,or else do it at night time,which was not too good,for you could not hang the washing out on the lines to dry.Usually the drying area was very large and took up most of the area behind the Tenement buildings.So you can imagine with about 50 homes in a block there was a lot of poles with clothes lines attached in this area,and of course this was where most of the kids played,a lot of the time. The ground would be covered with small broken up shale from the coal mines,or just plain dirt.The words brilliant white were not used too often in Blantyre.
One of the smells that sticks in my mind of Blantyre is the smell of the wash being boiled,I do believe that this was the smell of a particular lye or carbolic soap, being the cheapest it was what everyone used for cloths washing and everyday use. When ever you passed by the washhouse even when no one was doing a wash as you passed the smell though not as strong was still lingering in the air.
From Forrest street the Main Street ran west for about 200yds down till it met Clark Street.as seen in the photo on page 34 'OLD BLANTYRE BOOK'.The pub on the corner was the Wellington.
On this block from Forrest Street to Clark Street again all two storey type tenement homes, there were a couple of stores which I remember very well.
The first was "Tempeltons" this store was unique in that they would display a lot of their dry goods in shelves and canvas bags on the pavement directly outside the store, and as you can imagine this was asking for trouble with us kids around. I recall many a stolen mouthful of Oats,Carrot Peapods,Dog Biscuits.you name we stole and eat it.
In them there good old days there was very little of packaged goods,mostly everything came in bulk,and most of that was in canvas bags and wooden casks.The butter arrived in a cask probably weighing around 100lbs it was hoisted by hand up on the the marble counter top where the cask was stripped away. The butter was wrapped in cheese cloth which had to be wetted down and stripped off. The Cheese was in a rounded ball of about 50 lbs.this too was up on the counter, outer layers of cheese cloth stripped off and duly cut into the proportions required by the costumer.The hand cutting of cheese was done with a piano type wire .The butter was hand cut and shaped with two wooden paddles. again into the size required by the costumer. You have to remember that there was no refrigeration then and things could get rather sticky, so a fair amount of water was being used to counteract the stickiness.
The other store of note belonged to a family of Italian immigrants into Scotland, there name was Valeria.(Valerio) The were three families of Valerias in Blantyre all of them owned ice cream shops There was Mickey at the West end, Peter in the middle and Whatshisname in the east side. They served up some great ice cream treats through the years, from their push carts and up to their motorized vehicles in the later years.The family was so well respected that they have a modern street in Blantyre called after the family. They made a wonderful pea dish with lots of vinegar that all us young kids loved to eat.
On page 34 you can see a large S on the wall (LEFT HAND SIDE LOOKING AT PICTURE) This would be a part of the entrance into Clark Street.Clark Street again was made up of the same 2 storey type tenement building with some detached bungalows.
At the end of the street was another entrance into the Blantyre Victoria Football Field,The football field was running from Forrest Street over to Clark street, again in between all of the tenement type buildings there was the common washhouse and drying lines for clothes with the coal bunkers for storage.
If we cross the street and back up again to the start of the co-op on Herbertson Street.The co-op took up all of that block in the 1930's where you go west till you reached Jackson Street. Jackson street was a little bit more fashionable, in that it contained some private 2 storey homes and bungalows all made of brick with baths and toilets inside the homes,all of the other tenement type homes I have been explaining about here and there, had their toilets on the landings of the staircase, or in the entrance of the close.
There was a side entrance into the back of all of the co-op stores here in Jackson Street.You went through a large close type opening between the buildings into a cobble stoned square, from there it was possible to enter each and every store for the delivery of goods.The public was not allowed to use this entrance,especially with all of the horses mingling around, I can still hear the clip-clop of hoofs on the cobble stones and the shout of whooh" Nelly and of course the habitual smell of dung in the air, remember this was a closed in type square where all sounds and smells being accentuated by the surrounding buildings. It was Hustle and bustle of a certain kind.I know of this for there was I standing outside the entrance with my pail and shovel awaiting for you know what.
As you may be able to tell from my writing,I had a great amount of exposure to the co-op as did all the other kids in Blantyre.A lot of our weekend activities were organized by people from the co-op.One of our big celebrations which I believe took place on May-day 1st.All of us kids and their parents,which of course would be mostly all of the miners and their children,had a parade.We would all meet at ?????????(I shall try and fill in at a later date) and there all of us kids would receive from the co-op what we called a Tinney!this was just a wee tin can with a ribbon on it so we could hang around our necks. We would then parade along the Main Street with the local Miners Silver Band,with all the the Magnificent Clydesdale Horses all decorated up with ribbons and the high polished brass bells, and their highly polished harnesses,it truly was a sight to behold.We'd march along proudly,having great fun along the way, until we reached our destination, where we had our Tinney's filled up with all the milk we could drink,and of course there were a lot of those yummy cookies from the co-op.
We then played and raced in all of those wonderful games and sports we knew as kids.
Everyone went home full and exhausted. A memory as you can see I cherish deeply.
As this was a an annual event throughout Scotland at all the co-op's, I would think that in your childhood you too may have enjoyed this experience Margaret?.
Jackson Street was a dead end street, unlike the rest going south it did not enter into Auchinraith Road.If you look at page 34 Right hand side looking at the picture there is a man about to pass a pole, directly behind him on the ground is a beam of sunlight,that opening where the light is coming from is the entrance to Jackson Street.
Travelling west are the usual 2 type storey homes with the usual amenities, downstairs upstairs, and around the back. this block of tenements can barely be seen on page 34 .the photo ends with a good showing of a gas fired lamp-post,this was the common lighting in Blantyre up until the late 1930's when electricity was introduced.Not seen in the photo at the end of this corner was a pub called the Smiddy-------------I HAVE TO MAKE A CORRECTION HERE ----------
In my last writing I said that the Smiddy was on the corner of Auchinraith Road and Rosendale, I was wrong .The name of that bar was Kellys Bar------CORRECTION APPLIED. .Here on this corner starts the famous Merry"s Row's or Murrays raws as we the folks of Blantyre called It.Now called Elm Street.
I have some figures that I come across in my research that I am going to post which may be hard to believe but the census will back me up on this.
There was a family that moved into Blantyre in 1877 they were the first family of that name to stay in Murrays Raws.
From 1877---1922 a matter of 45years there were 20 families all from the same Grandfather with slight variations of this name, who lived at 20 different street addresses in Murrays Raws
The offspring from these 20 families was 134 children all born in Murrays Raws.Some had 12,13,children in the family all living in a wee raws house,they had nothing else.
So for this particular named family there were 20 husbands who worked at the Auchinraith pit for Merrys and Cunningham(@%$*&%^$*&#@$!) sorry about the language.
Murrays Raws ended at Auchinraith Road, for the miners It was a trip across the street, through the pen close of the tenement building, then through the washings hanging out to dry ,leg over the railway sleepers and over the railway line and in to the hands of the masters. You may ask why did they not get an other type of job ,and of course the answer is there was no other to be had, and those who owned the mines made it very hard for you and your kin to escape from their clutches.
I wont go any further into the lives of the miners,there are a lot of historians who have covered it much better than I ever could.
Across the road on the other corner of Clark Street was a cobblers shop which I know you are very interested in Margaret,one of those shops that specialized in Clickity Clackity boots . The cobbler was a Lithuanian immigrant and without a doubt one of the best in Blantyre.He could take a pair of boots for mending and fix on a nice piece of leather and then add his touch with the steel plates and studs,when you put them on, you felt like Fred Astair and it took all your will power to stop yourself from dancing.NOW WOULD I KID YOU MARGARET!!. There was a large influx of Lithuanians and Polish miners into Scotland when their country was overrun by the then U.S.S.R.
But all kidding aside he was a great cobbler and did all of the miners boots who lived across the road in Murrays Raws.You could most times tell he was a miner, or a miners son, because even dressed in his very best they probably had steel tips and steel hells to their shoes, this was mainly used as a buffer against the quick wear of the leather. There was a time in the early 1950's in Blantyre when it was the Fashion to have steel caps on your walking out shoes, everybody could hear everybody else coming down the road , this only lasted a very short time, I would say a year at the most.Many different Fashions had a revival soon after the war years,everybody was trying something different from the other person.
This was the time of the Teddy-Boys The first teddy -boys that I ever saw was in London 1951. this was also the time that I got out of the army.almost all of the young men who had been in the services, came out with a completely different approach to the way of dressing and their outlook in life.They had a much more positive approach to the world around them,and dress or the fashion of the day was a way of showing to the community where they lived the type of person they would like to be known as, Of course the attention that the girls gave was of the highest priority.
There were three types of fashion for the young men in Blantyre. We had the Teddy-Boys, We had those that had the Beetle look, long narrow pants with a short 3 button jacket and a slim tie and then there was us yin's,we thought we were the cat"s whiskers.
We wore the Saville row business mans cut to our suits,2 button medium length, made from the latest materials,(Mohair) tailored in Glasgow by what we thought were the the top tailors in the Business,Our shirts were hand made had French double cuffs,and with the Billy Ekstine, Tony Curtis high Collars,We had on our feet the latest soft Italian shoes or a nice leather Brogue,or ties were Italian made but not to slim. Our hair cuts were a copy of the Tony Curtis look, our version off. Our outer wear was usually a large Crombie Coat. The cat"s whiskers indeed.
We had by this time through working 12hr night shifts the money to spend on ourselves and fashion at the time dictated that this was for us the way. I know I did not want to look like a Teddy-Boy, and my pals were of the same mind.Not that I had anything against Teddy-Boys they lived all around me and I worked and socialized with them, I just did not like the cut of their jib.
In the 1950"s A change was taken place in Blantyre and the then structured life of the miners and their sons. Most of the fathers were advising their sons that the mines was not the only jobs available to them. With their better schooling they were now tackling anything and everything,and at this time a lot of the mines were closing.
On the other corner of the Murrays Raws was an Iron Duke.This was a open air toilet made of cast iron It was real handy for the men in the later years when the buses started to run,you could stand there and have a pee and still look through the perforated mesh at the top and see if your bus was coming down the road. This was right at the bus stop, it could not have been pleasant for the ladies queuing up for the bus
THIS IS A VERY VALUABLE PIECE OF INFORMATION NOT TO BE LAUGHED AT!!
No Margaret I have never ever written any other books or writes ups like I am tackling know. I have in my family research over the years seen a lot of, who he is, he and she is, and they married this one or that one ,but you do not or very infrequently see what I call the substance of the research ,just a lot of names and figures. That’s right that is in fact what genealogy is mainly, just numbers, but given a chance and being of at a certain age one can see that there is a lot more that could be expressed than just the numbers. It is only when one sees the time slipping away and knowing that your children or their children do not have the memories that you have ,you then think to yourself,surely I can try to give them more. I can give them dates and talk to them on occasions, but dates to a child without a story attached can be very boring.As a child I can remember that most things that I was ever taught or told went in one ear and out the other,so I am hoping that at a future date just like your Grandchildren may do they can sit down and read the ramblings of a frustrated writer come genealogist.If I sent you just a bunch of dates ,just to say where each street is in Blantyre I am sure it would be to say the least VERY BORING! So I hope you do not mind if I attach a known fact of mine and in so doing spice up our little chats.ALL THAT I HAVE WRITTEN IS TRUE TO MY MEMORIES OF. THERE ARE NO SPICING ,JUST FACTS.
I am off for some sun and fun for a couple of weeks ,talk to you when I get back
TDH
Some buttoned up the front with rubber buttons 
The others pulled over your head,and they were same shape as todays vest top t-shirts,only not so low cut 
and were quite fleecey.I could fair have done with one in today's chilly wind. 
Cheers Nancy.