Down Memory Lane

Jan 28 2010 by Andrew McGilvray, Hamilton Advertiser

Down Memory Lane

MOTHERWELL laid claim to two links connecting it to the National Bard. In Mr Gilbert Burns Begg, they could claim as townsman a grand nephew of Robert Burns, Mr Begg being a grandson of the poet’s brother Gilbert. A less well-known link was the fact that a Mrs Weir, of Hamilton Road, was a great grand-daughter of Burns’s ‘Bonnie Annie’.

MUCH alarm was raised when a fire erupted at a house in Leechlee Road, Hamilton, in a garret occupied by Mrs Paterson, a widow, who had left a key with a downstairs neighbour. The door was opened but flames and smoke forced a retreat. As the fire raged, occupants of the houses in the building, and adjoining houses, removed as much of their furniture as possible. After stripping the building of its thatched roof, firefighters extinguished the flames.

THE raising of the curtain at the first house of Hamilton Hippodrome on Monday was delayed for a few minutes when one of the chorus girls of the ‘Little Red Riding Hood’ panto met with a mishap. Just as the opening number was about to begin, Newcastle girl Betty Forman slipped and fell, injuring her spine. Manager Mr Gardner and producer Mr Davis administered first aid and the girl was later taken to the Royal Infirmary. Apart from severe bruising she was found to have sustained no serious injury.

A QUARREL over a ‘friend’s’ advances on the girlfriend of another man at the ‘Rink’ dance hall erupted in violence in Quarry Street, near Hamilton Old Cross, the next night, and a fight between three youths. A baton was drawn at one point as punches and kicks rained in. At the Burgh Court all three were fined 15s or 10 days’ jail.

A STATUE of Blantyre explorer David Livingstone, erected in George Square, Glasgow, in 1877, was removed to make way for the Corporation’s information bureau, which was being transferred from St Enoch Square. After cleaning, the statue was to be re-erected on a site at Cathedral Square before March 19 – the 147th anniversary of Livingstone’s birth in 1813.

The Cathedral Square site had connections to the explorer’s life, as Livingstone had attended the Medical College farther down the High Street and had lodgings for a short time in nearby Rotten Row.

MOTHERWELL and Scottish international swimmer Nan Rae started training for the trials from which the members of the national team were to be chosen for the Olympic Games in Rome. Nan was studying for her highers at Dalziel High.

A YOUNG Larkhall girl had an hour-long ordeal when her hand was trapped in a garage door. Firefighters used a crowbar before being able to release six-year-old Jacqueline Johnstone, who was pinned by her fingers. The accident happened after school when Jacqueline went to her father’s garage to get her bicycle, and her fingers got caught in the spring mechanism of the ‘up-and-under’ door. Jacqueline’s mum Patricia and neighbours were quickly on the scene and she was freed by the fire brigade before being taken to Stonehouse Hospital. Luckily no bones were broken.

RUMOURS of large-scale redundancies at the Daks-Simpson clothing factory in Larkhall were quashed by the firm’s managing director Joe Guzzan. The firm employed 1800 people, and it was feared that 200 were to be paid off.

A HAMILTON man described as being “in a towering rage” was fined £50 at the town’s District Court for committing a breach of the peace. The 39-year-old originally denied the charge, but changed his plea to guilty after two witnesses had given evidence. The accused, one of two men having an argument in a hotel reception, was also said to be “actually grinding his teeth” by the manager.

SHOCKED disbelief turned to fury when the fate of Hamilton’s Beckford Lodge Hospital was revealed. In what was described as a “flagrant breach of trust” Lanarkshire Health Board decided against using the defunct maternity hospital as a day hospital for Lanarkshire’s old folk, opting instead to use it as administration offices.

AMBITIOUS plans for a £40m redevelopment of land at Douglas Park in Hamilton were unveiled. They included a new football stadium for Hamilton Accies, a swimming pool, major superstore, four retail warehouses and parking for over 2000 vehicles. Developers LAW Estates planned to bulldoze Accies’ present ground and the controversial Cadzow Coal Company plant to make land available for the scheme.

A purpose-built 10,000 all-seater stadium, based on St Johnstone’s McDiarmid Park, was to be built, with high-tech businesses, office space and restaurant facilities beneath the stadium’s stands. The store and retail warehouses would create 500 new jobs.

ANGRY workers claimed to have been betrayed after electronics giant Philips announced they were to make 223 staff redundant at their plant in Wellhall Road, Hamilton. Philips said the decision followed a major restructuring in which manufacture and packaging of household lightbulbs was to be switched from Hamilton to Poland to take advantage of cheaper Labour costs. Although Philips gave assurances about the remaining 375 jobs at the plant, leaders from the AEEU union accused the company of betrayal.

SOUTH Lanarkshire Council’s director of finance Archie Strang said he was “cautiously optimistic” about the efforts of Hamilton Accies to fulfil their new stadium dream.