Down Memory Lane

Dec 31 2009 by Andrew McGilvray, Hamilton Advertiser

Down Memory Lane

“The Road to Heaven” was the title of a prayer book stolen by a burglar in Hamilton. It was reported that it led him to a pawnshop and subsequent arrest.

IN the January 1, 1910 edition, it was reported that Lanark County Council conferred in Glasgow with representatives of the various burgh councils in the county on the proposal to establish motor fire brigades in Lanarkshire “that would be regularly available in the burgh as well as the county districts”.

A TOLLCROSS man was fined £2 at Hamilton Sheriff Court for a railway fraud. When travelling to Newton the man gave the ticket collector a piece of cardboard instead of a ticket and when he tried to do the same on return he was arrested.

THE Advertiser reported that after a man had been fined at the county court, his law agent approached the press representatives and expressed the hope that they would not publish the accused’s name. Minutes later one of the journalists was told by friends of the accused that “the agent took a pound for the reporters” in addition to his fee – money that was never offered to, nor would have been accepted, by the press.

DESCRIBING a childhood visit to his Uncle Angus, the 12th Duke of Hamilton at Hamilton Palace, in his memoirs the Duke of Manchester recalled an incident in which he found an alabaster casket and was told it had been found in a tomb in Egypt. It was filled with corn, as a provision for the dead. As an experiment, rolls were made from the 2000-year-old corn and reportedly tasted “excellent”.

WHEN his 13-year-old son Robert didn’t return from his gran’s house following a Christmas party, Motherwell man John Todd became a hero. On visiting the house of his mother-in-law Roseanne Broomfield in Muir Street, he smelled gas and borrowed a hammer from a neighbour, which he used to break down the door. He found Mrs Broomfield and his son had been overcome by gas fumes and rescued them, before both were taken to Law Hospital.

CALDERPARK Zoo officials were stunned to find that all five lion cubs remained in the shop window months after their birth, although other parks had snapped up six tigers very quickly. The reason given for their reluctance was that tiger cubs were less common, and buying a lion cub “meant another mouth to feed in the winter months”.

A NE’ERDAY party in Blantyre was also a wedding reception – without the groom. Janet Duncan (22) married her Czech pen-pal in Prague the previous Monday. She flew home two days later, but without Josef Veverka, who had to await his emigration papers. Janet, of Stonefield Crescent, set out on December 19 for her wedding. The romance had started through Janet’s Czech pen-pal Dagmar, and when she went to visit her and met Josef, she decided to correspond with him.

TWO brothers, members of different political parties, were to contest the same seat in the District Council elections in May. William Grove, who won the Fourth District Council Dalserf seat for the SNP in 1967, was up against older brother Duncan (Labour).

LANARKSHIRE’S first baby of the 1980s was a boy, born to Lena and Jim Jardine of Monteith Crescent, Carstairs. The baby, to be called either Jim or Sandy, arrived at the William Smellie Memorial Hospital, Lanark, via Caesarian section and weighed a hefty 9lbs 12oz. SUN Lanarkshire’s Model of the Year, Audrey Bayne, gave them a cheque from Baird’s Stores in Hamilton to celebrate the birth.

BURNBANK singer Jim Miller was given his big shot at stardom following an offer to take on some cabaret work... in Los Angeles. Jim, better known as Paul French, was spotted singing in a club by an American compere who was on a fishing holiday in Scotland. It would be some time before Jim knew for sure if he was USA-bound, but he was certainly hopeful.

HAMILTON athlete Anne Woffinden returned from the second World Youth Games for the Physically Handicapped in Miami, Florida, with gold medals in each of the seven events in which she competed. Her success was particularly remarkable as it included two gold medals for swimming, a sport the 18-year-old had only taken up at the beginning of the year.

Anne, of Beckford Street, won gold in the 25m freestyle and back-stroke, shot putt, 100m, 60m, wheelchair slalom and club throw. In the latter she broke her own world record by 2.5metres.

The 27-strong Scottish team won a total of 123 gold medals at the youth games.

LITTLE Kris Johnston was Lanarkshire’s first baby of the new millennium when he arrived at the William Smellie Maternity Unit near Carluke at 1.25am on New Year’s Day. Kris, weighing 8lbs, was four days early but he and mum Helen, a staff nurse at Monklands Hospital in Airdrie, were doing well. The proud parents were from Strathaven. Dad Billy was a 29-year-old electronics engineer.

Kris was one of 16 babies born in Lanarkshire on the first day of the 21st century. Eight were delivered at Bellshill Maternity and seven at the William Smellie Maternity. Another was born in the Glespin house of Margaret and Harry Thomson – and the bouncing baby girl was Margaret’s NINTH child.