Down Memory Lane

Apr 22 2010 by Andrew McGilvray, Hamilton Advertiser

ROBERT Smellie, of Hamilton auctioneers L. S. Smellie and Sons, was appointed president of Queen’s Park Football Club. Mr Smellie was a former player and had a long association with the Glasgow club.

COUNTY publicans were falling foul of various new legislative changes and a variety of bye-laws drafted by local courts.

Features of that week’s Licensing Courts for the Middle Ward were the calling forward and admonishing of publicans for such offences as failing to see that the supply of biscuits wasn’t given out before the cheese.

A HAMILTON miner was sentenced to six months’ imprisonment with hard labour for a charge of child neglect which saw two youngsters going without sufficient clothes or bed clothes, and being kept in a filthy and verminous condition. His wife was also jailed for four months.

ON the eve of Hamilton’s Scottish Cup final against Rangers it was hoped that a victorious Accies would parade the trophy in front of a large crowd of townspeople.

The tentative arrangement was that the directors, officials and players would arrive at Douglas Park at about 7.30pm. A Town Council function, which was expected to be a win-or-lose affair, was to take place at a later date.

HAMILTON Town Council agreed that, as part of the King’s Silver Jubilee celebrations, entertainment should be given to school children in the local cinemas.

This was duly arranged for May 6 and a sub-committee of the Lanarkshire County Council suggested that local authority grants be spent on entertainment on the day rather than souvenirs.

FEW were better qualified to speak on refugees than Mrs Major Black of the Salvation Army, who was to address a large youth rally in Dalziel High Church Hall.

She was to stress to them the importance of displaced persons and the need for great steps to be taken to help them.

Mrs Black who, with her husband, was in charge of the Motherwell Citadel, had worked in Germany immediately after the war, looking after people who had been interned in slave labour or concentration camps.

Although based in Hamburg, Mrs Black travelled extensively in Germany and one of the most horrifying moments in her life was when she went through the village of Belsen “where the smell of death was so pronounced”.

HAMILTON postman William Walker (59), narrowly escaped serious injury when a car crashed into a pillar box seconds after he had emptied it.

The accident happened in Blackswell Lane when a heavy lorry hit a car parked in Townhead Street, pushing it nearly 10 yards across the pavement and into the box.

Said Mr Walker: “I had just emptied the box and was standing beside it when, out of the corner of my eye, I caught sight of the car coming across the pavement. It rammed the pillar box only yards from me.”

IT was announced that the government would pay nearly £1m towards the proposed Strathclyde Park cost.

Work was to start next summer and the remaining £200,000 would be paid by Hamilton, Motherwell and the County Council.

UDDINGSTON man William Fulton (60), had an unknown Dutch holidaymaker to thank after he nearly drowned while on holiday in Benidorm.

Mr Fulton, a foreman at the Caterpillar factory in Uddingston, had been enjoying a swim at a rocky cove beside the harbour on the second-last day of a one-week holiday when he was swept away by a current.

He said: “I was swimming and then I felt myself being dragged. I went under but I don’t remember panicking. It was a very gentle sensation.

“I was sure I was going to drown. The next thing I knew I was in hospital.”

William’s wife admitted that at the time of the accident she thought he was dead.

A HAMILTON councillor had her bank account frozen by her own council over a poll tax row.

Strathclyde regional councillor for Hamilton West, Jeanette Timmins, had the action taken against her for non-payment of the Poll Tax.

Councillor Timmins defied her own Labour Party’s policy by deliberately refusing to pay the tax on a matter of principle.

PLANS for a prestigious £10m office development in the heart of Hamilton were unveiled.

If the plans, for a site at the corner of Leechlee Road and Brandon Street, got the go-ahead, the development was set to become one of the prime office sites in the town.

HAMILTON Accies were stunned when they were deducted 15 points by the Scottish Football League for a players’ strike on April 1 that meant their game at Stenhousemuir couldn’t go ahead.

The hefty punishment meant Accies would be relegated to the Third Division if an appeal lodged with the Scottish Football Association wasn’t successful.

Accies were also ordered to pay Stenhousemuir’s expenses.

Boss Ally Dawson said: “I think the league gave out the punishment without thinking of the consequences. How they can come up with 15 points I just do not know.”