Topic Of The Week: April 27,  2001
"Signs of the past"

Definition:
-Signs visible in the three towns pointing to the past.

Possible discussion topics:
-Personal recollections
-Old buildings
-Air raid Shelters
-Horse troughs
-Outdoor Curling Rinks
-Cobbled roads
-Other

Topic of the Week is simply a tool to promote conversation and bring up subjects which have not necessarily been covered before or very often.

Hugh McCallum

Hi all ,
I seem to remember an air raid shelter in the back door of Barrie terrace ( railway side ). I never was in it but I do remember you could catch a glimpse of something round one of the back door perhaps around 111 or there abouts. Maybe I'm completely wrong !
I remember the Mill Farm when the McKinnons owned it. It was a really old building with lots of roof space and a farm workers cottage attached to it, that is before it was made into separate dwellings. I also lived in Ellwood in Arran place ( no 6) it is a dreary old building although the outside is a horrendous colour scheme ) with a very strange basement which MUST flood when we get a really high tide. Anyone got any clue about the air raid shelter ?

Regards to all
Sandra

Hello:
My name is Grace (Leckie) Mann and I was born in Stevenston in 1907. I've lived in Canada for the past 22 years. I am currently visiting my youngest son, Alistair, here in San Diego. He has recently discovered the 3Ts website and prints all the stuff for me to read - my how memories come back! He is typing this for me. The mention of air raid shelters took me back.......

We were living at 90 Glencairn St. in Stevenston and we and two other families had an air raid shelter behind the house (don't know if it is still there). It kept getting flooded and we had to keep bailing it out with pots and buckets. I remember very clearly the night German bombers came over to bomb Ardeer factory. When the air raid siren went off, my husband Willie, had to go out on warden duty and I gathered my three sons, Bill, Harry and Robert (Alistair wasn't born) and ran to the shelter.

We sat there huddled up listening to the planes passing overhead and the bombs exploding. I think they are still finding unexploded bombs in the sand around Ardeer. This also reminds me of one of the funnier moments of that time. My son Harry was
coming home when it was dark and noticed that our black-out curtains were not completely closed. He rushed in and exclaimed "Mum, your shite's lining out!"
If any of my old friends are still alive, please say hello through Alistair's e-mail. I'm here for a month.

Hello to Grace:
I hope you are having a wonderful visit with your son and his family (and hello to them too).  I wonder where in Canada you live.  I am writing to you from Calgary, Alberta.  My father was born in Ardrossan in 1907 too - but unfortunately he has been gone for 24 years, in fact 25 this June.  I hope you keep in good health, I presume that you must in order to have just traveled down to San Diego and I hope that you and your son enjoy your time together.  San Diego is a lovely city, and it will probably be getting quite hot there now. Your son is very lucky to have you with him, and also it seems that you remember things very well - that's wonderful.  My own mother lives in Calgary also, and will be 81 this year (a spring chicken you say!) and lucky for me her memory is wonderful.  She has been a tremendous help to me with my genealogy.  She is not Ayrshire.  She was born in Glasgow as was I, but I emigrated to Canada with a friend at 18, (in the 60's).

I save some of the three-towners tid-bits on my computer to let my mum see them
when she visits.  Yours will be a saver!  Thanks for contributing to this wonderful list - it IS wonderful, isn't it !!!
Regards,
Phyllis, Canada

Hi to Grace Leckie and Alister,
I am assuming your hubbie was Willie Mann who ran the YMCA dance hall for years during the war, If I'm right I knew him well, so did every one else. I also knew your son Willie, though he's a little younger than I. What would be the relation to you of the postman I met here in Toronto 25 years ago, drove him home from a Scottish dance, He was a gaswork 'Mann" I never saw him again.

I learned just last week that Cathie had passed away, chatted with her daughter on e-mail. Cathie and I were same class at school, I used to go up Glebe st and pull her ringlets, she had 4 blond ones, thats when we were 11-12.You lived at 90 Glencairn, must be close to Sanny Ballantine the Policeman, and across from Norman Gaw. I lived at 13 Glencairn isn't that lucky. Can you remember when Lamont's the butcher on new street burned to the ground? First barbecue I ever smelled. Well Grace, it's 4 AM I could not sleep, so I thought I'd just get up and have a chat with you, It's been a pleasure, We'll do it again soon, have fun.
Richard Maxwell, "Dun's son".

Hi Grace,
Hope you are enjoying your wee break. I was born in Ayrshire central, Irvine in 1972 and therefore don't remember any wars but I do remember an air raid shelter that stood behind a house in Barrie Terrace in Ardrossan. Your memory of yourself and three sons huddled together in the air raid shelter while your brave husband was out on patrol brought a tear to my eye because I can't imagine what it must have been like for you. Worrying about your husband, protecting and reassuring your sons and all of you being so brave. I don't know how you all done it and I think everyone who survived any war deserves a medal. Enjoy the threetowners I'm sure you'll get a laugh and a few forgotten memories back.
Regards Sandra

Hi everyone, Here's a little story from 1940 from the Higher Grade School, 11AM out the school everyone, "quickly" no coats, just run. Three Policemen standing outside chasing everyone up new street, "go home". On the way, my cousin and I heard, there's a bomb in the school football field. So At Stevenston Cross, we headed up bogle mart st, crossed over the sandy hills going towards the caley, over the wall and into the old grave yard and across to the far wall. Now over that wall was the school football field, the clothes change hut, was higher than the wall, so I said let's climb the wall at the hut, then we can peek round the hut, in case the police are there. Now that hut was standing three feet from the wall on the playing field side.

Well up we go, and lo and behold, the bloody bomb was lodged between the hut and the wall. It came in at that angle missed the hut and dyke. Two feet wide, showing three feet above ground, two more feet below where it kicked the sand out.
Grey colour stencilled in German. Three fins connected by a metal ring, it was ticking like hell. We stayed ten minutes clapping it, I was using the ring as a steering wheel, then Got hungry and headed home. Dick Maxwell.

Dick Maxwell wrote in part:  I'm right in the mood Hugh---What's next.

Hi Dick, Be interesting to know if you recall any outdoor curling rinks in the area. I know there was one behind the mansion houses in South Crescent Ardrossan. That is beside the bowling club and on the track from the Cannon Hill over the railway bridge on the way to South Beach It's a sunken asphaltarea and they used to flood it.

Grace it's so nice to hear from you, that was a lovely bit of nostalgia. As I recall the "Bonnie Lesley" monument is on the street where you lived - Glencairn Street. I read the memorial was put there in 1929.  Rabbie Burns was fair smitten by Stevenston's Lesley Baillie hence the two songs written about her by him. I was and still am smitten by my Stevenston lass. There I'm almost sure to get bacon and eggs for breakfast tomorrow. <grin>

Hugh McCallum

I remember when I lived in Union Street, Saltcoats when  the air raid siren went we all went into a Mrs Kelly's house on the ground floor and there we all waited huddled together until it was all over. My distinct memory was of an older woman wailing and crying all the way through. I remember her name but I won't mention it here, not wanting to offend any still living relatives.

Another time mum and I were going visiting someone. The warning came. We went back home, collected our gas masks and then continued on our journey.Then my mum and I went to Aberdeen, I was about 6 or 7 at the time, because my father was stationed there, ski training for the invasion of Germany via Norway, as I found out much later . The siren went during the night and we all had to go into this very dark air raid shelter Someone shone a torch through a closed fist just to give a little light. I was so frightened I went outside and stood beside my father and watched the search lights in the sky. We were OK that night. Later in life I became very claustrophobic and it has been traced back to that time in my childhood. Dreadful time altogether in my childhood.
David Young.

Hi All,
         I am fair enjoying the stories about the air raid shelters, I remember there was one at the bottom o Dalry rd; in Ardrossan? to the right as you go down when we were at Eglinton we used to go and play there  I wouldn't go in but the big brave boys did & some o the lassies but even then i was clostra phobic!! well that's my excuse & i am sticking to it. when I had my first house ( a prefab in Stanley rd; Ardrossan ) we had big tin coal bunkers  massive big things someone told me that people used them for shelters during the war? I don't ken if that was true? probably someone having me on as usual!!.
Anyway the closest I got to air-raid shelters was playing on the grass on the top of them & making daisy chains for oor necklaces & rings!! I would have the odd peek through the door but that was enough too feert!!. ( i would never have able to go in one ) gid job I was born in 48. keep the good stories coming. Liz Scott.

Hi Folks
I used to play in the one which is now "Millglen Caravan Site" Ardrossan, on the backroad to West Kilbride, back in the 50's. We made it our "wee den", and sat up there at night round a fire tellin ghost stories, jeese it was creepy. We carried the old curling stones back home, nae wonder ma back gees me trouble. We also had another wee den at a farm (name ?), which Lawson Drive Ardrossan, is now built on. That was owned by 2 sisters (Cissy Anderson I think was one) don't know the other.

Hello grace, I hope you are pleased with all the interest that you have sparked, I thought that I would let you know that my aunt lives in 76, Glencairn st and her next door neighbour is bella McCreadie aged about  82yrs, upstairs is Mrs. Matheison who is blind. my aunt is married to George McKay (louie), his mother is lizzie McKay who will be about the same age as yourself and father is Geordie McKay (from the H.L.I.0 or so he used to sing.

I was telling my uncle about you and he asked me to find out if you remember the egg farm? I hope you inspire people to find out more about the local history and all the stories that you remember, I find it fascinating, I always loved to hear my own granny telling me about during the war when she would whitewash or distemper the walls in her house/sublet. I hope you keep good health and have a lovely time reading all the e mail, bye for now,
mildred