Down Memory Lane- 7th Feb 2008

Feb 14 2008

THE monthly conference of the Lanarkshire Miners’ Union was held in the Victoria Hall, Hamilton, with Mr James Tonner presiding.

An application was submitted from the men who were employed at Craighead Colliers, Blantyre, for liberty to strike owing to the refusal of the management to reinstate two discharged employees who were members of the local committee and pit inspectors.

The conference agreed to the request and the executive were empowered to fix the date of stoppage.

The scrutineers also submitted their report on the appointment of office-bearers by ballot vote.

TWO youths were each fined £4, or 30 days’ imprisonment, for stealing coal from loaded rail wagons in Blantyre.

The accused had been apprehended by constables who had observed them throwing a large quantity of coal from a wagon.

Each of them had previously been convicted for stealing coal, and indicated that they wanted to take the 30 days in jail rather than face the fine. One of them remarked: “£4! I should think so!”

And as he left the court in the custody of two officers, he said to the justices: “See you again some other time.”

PETER Manuel (31), of Birkenshaw, Viewpark, was charged with the murder of taxi driver Sydney Dunn.

Mr Dunn was found shot beside his vehicle in December, 1957.

Earlier that day he had picked up a passenger at Newcastle Central Railway Station.

Manuel had already been charged with the murder of the Smart family in their Uddingston home on New Year’s Day, and 17-year-old Mount Vernon schoolgirl Isabella Cooke.

Her body had been found in a field near her home on January 16, 1958.

CAGED birds were stolen from a number of Hamilton homes.

The raider took a total of 41 budgies, four zebra finches, five canaries and one parakeet.

One of the Hamilton bird owners who lost 13 budgies estimated that they were worth between £15 and £20.

He had returned home to find the door of his aviary forced open and the birds gone.

“They even took a hen off eggs,” he said.

A police spokesman said that a report on the thefts was being sent to the procurator fiscal.

And a Hamilton pet shop owner said that several owners in the area had complained about bird thefts.

WORKERS at a Hamilton light engineering factory were out on strike after a dispute about the temperature on the shop floor.

The walk-out from Erhart and Mathieson Engineering Ltd, Hillhouse, took place after the temperature in the factory was 54 degrees fahrenheit

The workers decided to wait in the canteen for two hours, and the decision to strike was taken after they were told that they would not be paid for those two hours.

There was no organised union in the factory and, according to the workers, a letter sent to the factory by the Amalgamated Union of Engineering Workers was torn up.

Attempts to bring in the Advisory Conciliation and Arbitration Service into the dispute had been futile.

FIREMEN were trying to discover the cause of a blaze which swept through a Hamilton factory causing an estimated £1m in damage.

Flames gutted the Allanshaw Industrial
Estate premises of Lloyd Brothers, manufacturers of wax cotton jackets and motorcycle leathers. Large quantities of stock, materials and machinery were destroyed.

A CID officer said the cause of the blaze had not yet been discovered, but added that he considered that there had been no suspicious circumstances. The fire was discovered by a passing police car. It began in the factory shop and spread to other parts of the building.

MORE than 11,000 people signed a petition against plans to axe two Hamilton old folk’s homes.

A further 5000 signatures were added to the petition by passers-by and shoppers in Hamilton town centre.

The group organising the protest — the Community Campaign Against Closure — were to present the petition opposing the closures to South Lanarkshire social work chairman Jim Handibode.

The campaign issued an open letter to councillor Handibode and his colleagues calling on them to reconsider the proposals — but there were no signs that council chiefs planned a rethink.