Down Memory Lane

Mar 11 2010 by Andrew McGilvray, Hamilton Advertiser

Down Memory Lane

JASON T. Forgie, managing director of William Baird and Co. coalmasters, was elected chairman of the Parliamentary Commission on the use of electricity in the coal mines of Britain.

A REPORT into the tallest trees in Britain revealed that Lanarkshire had quite a few ‘monarchs’. At Craignethan, Crossford, there was an ash 98 ft. high; at Daldowie beeches 100, 111 and 118ft. tall and at Mauldslie there were white poplars 103 and 119ft. high.

THE Duke of Hamilton celebrated his 48th birthday on Sunday. The Premier Peer of Scotland held over a dozen titles, all of them Scottish except those of Duke of Brandon and Baron Dutton, by which he had right of entry to the House of Lords. He had recently taken East Knoyle House in Wiltshire, the birthplace of Sir Christopher Wren, as his residence..

HIS Majesty the King expressed a desire that schools should share in some appropriate manner the celebration of his silver jubilee. Lanarkshire Education Committee duly agreed to make May 6 a holiday.

WHEN speaking at a Hamilton Presbytery Club lunch, the Rev. Professor Main of Glasgow University told of an experience visiting Melbourne, Australia, as Church of Scotland representative at the centenary celebrations. Singled out by the Australian press he was peppered with questions until one bold article asked: “What is your standing in Scotland, Professor Main?” Without missing a beat, but with tongue firmly in cheek, he replied: “My standing is such that practically every town in Scotland has named its principal street after me!”

LANARKSHIRE’S telephone exchange bosses revealed some stupid requests they had received, including one from an elderly lady who said: “The cord on my telephone is really much too long. Only this morning I tripped over it. Would you be so kind as to pull it in a bit from your end?”

IT was announced that Hamilton was to become the centre of training for teachers in the West of Scotland. It was also to be the centre of the county’s administration when the County Council skyscraper was to be built in Beckford Street, and Hamilton was also to house Lanarkshire’s principal technical college.

A ‘CROSS NOW’ pedestrian sign was to be installed at the Cadzow Street crossing of the Old Cross, at an estimated cost of £900. This was decided at Hamilton Town Council’s monthly meeting.

THIEVES stole copper cable worth about £2 from two motorway lamp standards – and did £1000 of damage to get it. The theft happened on the M74 near Bothwell at the weekend but wasn’t discovered until Wednesday. A County Council lighting engineer said the thieves had forced a small door at the base of the 100ft. lamp standards and cut a steel hawser which holds the huge lamp frames at the top. The frames, with their clusters of four lamps, then shot down the standards to crash against a protruding part 10 feet from the ground. Debris was scattered over a wide area. To replace the two lamp frames both standards would have to be taken down and rewired, at a cost of £1000.

Explaining that the thieves could easily have been killed, the engineer said: “This is the craziest theft I’ve heard of.”

A HAMILTON youth was fined £10 for smashing a £153 window to steal a £1.75 box of chocolates. The 18-year-old was walking in the Regent Way precinct with friends at 1am on Sunday when he pretended to karate chop shop windows, but succeeded in smashing that of Boots, where he stole the chocolates.

THIEVES stole a safe containing £2500-worth of jewellery plus cash at a house in the Silvertrees area of Bothwell.

HAMILTON District councillors visiting the Commercial Hotel in Townhead Street expected to find a few people enjoying a quiet drink and a meal, but instead found it “jam-packed” with drinkers. At a Licensing Board meeting to discuss whether pubs should be given permission to open all day, it was claimed the hotel was an example of how afternoon opening was “just not working out”.

HAMILTON District Council reacted angrily to a report that their planned new HQ could put £21 on the area’s poll tax bills. A joint statement by council leader councillor Sam Casserly and chief executive Alister Baird claimed “the community charge payers need not worry about a £21 increase”.

The option of a £21 increase was, however, still on the table.

THIEVES broke into Hamilton Odeon Cinema in Townhead Street and stole a safe containing about £8000 and spirits and cigarettes worth another £400.

BOSSES at Lanarkshire Primary Care NHS Trust were under fire for planning to hold “brainstorming” meetings at the four-star New Lanark Hotel. The Trust executive said they wanted “protected” time away from desks to frame future strategy, and planned to book the hotel for a full day each month for their five-strong management team.

But the move was questioned by a union leader and slammed by staff at Bothwell’s Kirklands Hospital, which was part of the Trust. And it came in a week in which figures from the Scottish Executive showed the Trust to be in constant breach of rules aimed at curbing the number of hours worked by junior doctors. One staff member said the cost of the hotel was to come from a budget set aside for patient care.