Down Memory Lane.

Jan 7 2010 by Andrew McGilvray, Hamilton Advertiser

Down Memory Lane.

A COURT to dispose of Hogmanay and early New Year offenders was held in the Burgh Buildings on January 1. A seasonable spirit of leniency seemed to have prevailed at the court as all prisoners were either admonished or allowed to go on forfeit of a pledge. These admonitions served to cover the aberrations due to Hogmanay excess.

ONE of the brightest features of the New Year in Hamilton was the pleasure brought to many of the poorer folk of the town through donations subscribed to by “kind friends”. Over 400 gathered at a party in the Town Hall on New Year’s Day, with more than 700 children screaming themselves hoarse over the evening. Inmates of Hamilton Combination Poorhouse were similarly treated, thanks to donations.

A START was made with the lifting of the old tramway lines between Bellshill and Fallside, which were among the last of the old Lanarkshire Tramway system. Small parts of the old rails still awaited the ‘road mender and scrap iron merchant’ in the Hamilton district.

LANARKSHIRE educationalists were delighted to see that in the New Year’s Honours List Mr T. B. Maxwell Lamb had been honoured with an OBE. For 16 years he had been one of HM Inspectors of Schools in the county and before being transferred to Fife in 1922 he was the guest of the Lanarkshire Education Committee’s luncheon in the Grosvenor Restaurant, Glasgow. Possessing an attractive personality, it was felt that Mr Lamb had more pleasure in praising than criticising, and was always fair to teachers.

IN housing areas in Motherwell and Wishaw over the past five years 470 trees had been maliciously destroyed. The Town Council decided to replace them, at a cost of approximately £500.

A 21-YEAR-OLD Motherwell man was fined £10 at Hamilton Sheriff Court, with the alternative of 60 days in prison, after pleading guilty to breaking into a shop in Brandon Street, Motherwell, and stealing two radio sets. He had been visiting the house above the shop, and stole the wireless transmitters on leaving there.

HAVING collected over 600 photographs and pictures for a record of Hamilton, Burgh Librarian William Stewart planned to extend the local archive by making a tape record local sayings, rhymes, songs, proverbs and customs.

A FIGHT to save their modernised cottages from demolition was started by residents in Auchinraith Road, Blantyre. The houses were due to come down to make way for a new road. Residents claimed the new road, to link East Kilbride with the M74, was originally to take only half their gardens and a disused railway line.

One young couple who bought their house only 18 months previously said they were assured by the County Council that their home was safe.

A spokesman for the county roads department said: “The line of the road had not been fixed accurately enough two years ago to say where it was going.”

HAMILTON was at the centre of a legal battle that was claimed could result in a better deal for every homeless person in the country. Hamilton District Council were fighting a decision made in the town’s Sheriff Court around what actually constituted ‘homelessness’ under the Homeless Persons Act 1978.

A Blantyre family claimed to be legally homeless because they were living in overcrowded conditions, but the council said they had “intentionally” made themselves homeless. Normally the family would have taken their case to the Court of Session in Edinburgh, but instead took it to Hamilton Sheriff Court, where Sheriff Lockhart controversially took it on – and warned the council he would award damages against them if they lost.

SANDY Sinclair, of Blairston Avenue, Bothwell, was awarded an OBE in the New Year’s Honours List for his services to golf. Mr Sinclair (69), an insurance broker by profession, represented Scotland in 1950 and was Scottish National champion twice, before captaining the Scottish team in 1966-67.

Mr Sinclair was involved in golfing administration for over 30 years, holding posts such as president of the Scottish Golf Association and European Golf Association. He was chairman of selectors for the Royal and Ancient.

SANDFORD man Roger Phayre (57), was awarded the OBE for his work with the conciliation service ACAS Scotland.

He played a part in settling some of Scotland’s bitterest industrial disputes, including the Lanarkshire bus dispute of 1989.

HAPPY couple Lynda Morgan and John Rodgers made history at Hillhouse Parish Church by becoming Hamilton’s first newlyweds of the millennium. Lynda (54) and retired policeman John (59) had both been married before and tied the knot following a one-year romance.

The couple first met while on holiday in Majorca 31 years ago when both were married, and the two families kept in touch.

SIX houses in Bothwell had to be evacuated after a resident fractured a gas pipe while he was erecting a fence.