Stanley Memories Jim,
I enjoyed your website. First time I've seen the layout. I grew
up in our village being a 1948 born kid. I went to our village
primary. I remember one of our teacher's Miss McIntosh. How she used
to rap my knuckles with the ruler when I was up to mischief in the
class. She was a great character and I met her by chance several times
when I had left the village and caught up with village tales. My
family lived at Summerhill Cottage on the Perth Road. It was a tied
house and the old man, Ernie, was the gardener/handyman for the McDonald's
who had the "big hoose". For a few years we also stayed in Murray
Place in a top flat. My mother was Maureen Taylor who used to take the
village Guides. Money was scarce in those days with the old man poaching
salmon and ferreting for rabbits to make extra cash for the family. I was
regularly dragged out to keep watch while he got up to his antics but
enjoyed every minute. It seems so long ago now. My grandparent's
were the Taylor's who were in the mill garden house. Old Davie Taylor,
my grandfather, told me he used to harness up his "garron"
and with the cart loaded with mill garden produce head off to the Dundee
shops. Quite a journey before the car came along. When he passed
away my Uncle John was the gardener for the mill and he also did the night
watchman job at the gate house for the mill near the end of its
working life. I remember going every weekend to Ballathie, where my
other grandparents lived. the Murray's. Every Saturday we would get
McLennan's bus at the Cross. Old Jock, the driver, used to wait on the
Taylor's if we were late and give us a row. When we got home on
Saturday night the Haggart's, who had the shop opposite the Co-op, used to
keep it open so we could spend the half crowns we had been given by our Gran
on comics. Great days. I used to do the tattie howkin' at the
Baxter's farm on the road to Luncarty every year. I worked for Willie
Baxter many times, bringing in the harvests and later labouring work in the
fields with his brother and Ian. The Baxter's were good to us and I
owe them a lot for teaching me what an honest day's work was. Willie
used to often drop off a bag of spuds at our house telling my mum it was for
the kids when times were hard. He wouldn't take anything for them. I
have lived in Musselburgh, East Lothian now for most of my life. I did
30 years in the Edinburgh City Police, mostly based in Leith. I just
retired this May. Once again enjoyed reading your information.
Take care. There's no many like the Stanley folk. Les Taylor 27th December 2006 |
I read
Gordon Howie’s bee story with a smile. I remember when I was about 10 in
the late fifties when Bob Donaldson the roadman was called out to our
house in the
Old Angelo at the chippie gets mentioned a lot.
I remember him coming to Ballathie on his motorbike and sidecar. The
sidecar had the urns with ice cream. It was like Xmas when he came and he
always got a cup of tea from my Gran and blethered for ages. Years later I
attended a call in Les Taylor 30th December 2006 |
Jim, I saw a
photo of Fiona McConnell in your website which made me remember when I
stayed at I used
to go up to the Tofts and spent many a day with pal Willie Burns.
Did we have an egg collection! We used to go for miles to get
nests all so environmentally wrong now but great fun. We used to go
to ‘King’s Myre’ and fight the swans to get their eggs. I
nearly drowned there in the mud but then that’s what us country folk
did, climbed trees and did country things. I took a jackdaw chick
home one day because I heard I could get it to talk and was ‘skelped’
by my old man and told to take it back to ‘craw buts’ on one of those
days. I went all the way back and put it back in the nest. Willie
and me were shot at by a wild gamekeeper on our egg collecting adventures.
We ran for what seemed liked miles and worried about the ‘polis’ for
days. All great fun. All the best to all Les Taylor 8th September 2007 |
Jim, I
wonder if anyone remembers the circus that came to I
remember the year that swine fever hit the countryside and watching the
lorries taking pig corpses away from the Boyce’s piggery. I was
pals with Bobby Boyce at that time and I know it was a bad time for his
family. We used to play ‘chicken’ up at the piggery daring each
other as to how long we could hold the single wire electric fences.
A lot different to watching TV. We were a hardy lot in I’m
sure the readers will always remember the ‘tatty howkin’. We
always went to the Baxters. I’m sure memories of the ‘double
diggers’ must bring back nightmares. As kids we would do the
‘half bit’ then graduate onto the ‘full bit’. The ‘double
diggers’ churned out a lot of spuds and it was hard graft. I can
remember getting 21 shillings for a ‘full bit’ which we thought was a
fortune. It paid for our school clothes. We had great ‘sing
songs’ in the tractor trailer coming back at nights. I had been at
Willie Baxter’s ‘tattie pickin’ so many year that I was allowed to
drive the tractor and empty the baskets for many years. Remember how
we used to let the tractor run itself in the drills at a slow speed.
These grey Massey Fergusons and then the great ones, the Fordson Majors.
I know the farming machinery has got a lot more sophisticated now but
these were great machines. Old John Baxter used to like his
‘dram’ and was a cantankerous old ‘b-----d’ at the best of times.
For some reason we always got on well and we did the ‘tattie pits’
together which had to be just right. One day John disappeared and
Willie gave me a roastin because I hadn’t told him he was away. John had
flung a sheep in the back of his car, taken it to Just a
few more thoughts Jim. |
|
Just
a few more late at night thoughts. Having
been a City slicker in Edinburgh now for over 35 years I identified myself
with the Port of Leith. The Leith folk were straight talkers,
didn’t take life too seriously and their community spirit reminded me of
Stanley folk. Caught up in City life I used to often wonder at how far
removed it all was from ‘country life’ and Stanley. However, the
lessons learned from our village and our ability to get on with things
ourselves because we just had to, have no doubt stood us all in good stead
for the lives we all later had. It’s amazing to see where many of
your readers have ended up, so many doing the village proud. I’m
sure lots of us would have liked to still be living in Stanley but
‘needs must’ and many of us had to move to get work. I ended up
working in the Foyers tunnel where the ‘Hydro Electric’ made the
tunnel down to Loch Ness, then moved to Scunthorpe of all places where I
did my apprenticeship in the ‘blast furnaces’. I had a good few
years there where its Scots and Irish community were great. British
Steel were showing signs of major problems and my ‘cockney’ boss who
looked after us Scots and is still a good mate, told me to get out of
Steel and get another job. It was a big shock to me as the money was
great but I took his advice and moved back to Scotland. Edinburgh
had always been good to me so I ended up there in the police having always
wanted to do something about the ‘bad guys’. Years before, I had
been critically injured after being knocked out by a ‘blow’ from an
iron bar in an assault and robbery on me in an Inverness street, dragged
into a grave yard unconscious and left for dead. The guy who did it had
known I had three pays on me from the Foyers tunnel and had followed me on
my way home to my hotel. He got 7 years for attempted murder when he
was caught by my shift, my ex Welsh miner and Irish lad mates who had gone
looking for him and had handed him over to the police in a bruised bundle.
I took a few years to become ‘normal’ again due to the fracture to my
skull and memory problems but I never gave up and regained full health
about 2 years later. This spurred me on and when my engineering ambitions
were thwarted by British Steel I knew what I needed to do and joined the
Edinburgh City Police. Stanley always gave me that fair minded
approach to things with a ‘never give up’ attitude and always made me
want to ‘do it right for the decent folk’. I think it gave us
all a good standing in life as we all were conscious of our village, not
wanting to be the latest gossip. The Mill, farm and estate workers
all had a hard life as did all who lived there. We all had to work
hard to get a wage and knew what the value of cash was. The school,
church, shopkeepers, publicans and local farms all made us what we are. It
was years later when at the age of 40 I had my ‘dam’ tonsils out which
went all wrong and having lost my voice totally because of a surgical
mistake I found myself ‘on the sick’ for 3 months. I was OK but
just couldn’t speak which was good news for my wife and kids. My
wife got so fed up with me she bought me a fishing rod and told me to get
out of the house. I started fishing again and it all came back.
My old man’s art for Salmon fishing on the Tay, Geordie Stewart’s
knowledge, ‘Jock’ Townsley’s ability to make hazel rods and his many
chats on the riverbank with me and my old man, the ‘Black Doctor’, a
consultant from Harley Street who used to have breakfast with us at
Summerhill Cottage at his insistence and let us fish free when he had a
permit for the Tay and all those great Stanley fishers whose angling tales
will go unknown. They were great memories. There was a 46 lb
salmon one night which had to remain a secret as it was illegally taken,
weighed in front of an admiring crowd at a famous hotel in the county with
suitable remuneration given. What a night that was, it took us 1 ½ hrs to
land it. It all came back and I never looked back with my Stanley
experiences enabling me to have many memorable border fishing nights.
Memories like being caught by my Uncle ‘Jock’ Taylor’ stealing
apples from the mill gardens with a bunch of Stanley lads will always be
there. Les
Taylor 5th November
2007 |
Hi Jim, I hope you are keeping well and wish you all the best for 2012. My Goodness the years just shoot past. I have a young lass who works as a temporary member of staff at my work from Stanley who is a joy to talk to as she tells me all the stories about the snow, buses and the village. She is so outgoing and has all the modern qualifications which "get you on" it is good to hear her talk. When I think back things like college, university, engineering courses, apprentices were like 'Mars' to a lot of us Stanley kids. It's good to hear some of this generation are doing it. Yeah we can glorify the Mill Work but it was hard going and poor wages. There was not much else about and I know all the Stanley lads and lasses worked the harvests such as the 'tatties', berries, hay, and whatever the local farmer could give us. Petrie's Currie's, Baxter's and many more saved the day. I can honestly say that Willie Baxter and his wild brother John from Gowrie Farm made me what I am today. God we did the 'tatties', the field clearing of nettles and boulders, the cattle, the 'neeps', the 'neep' thinning, the hay, the harvester days and yes we even got paid as kids to kill the rats, rabbits and mice when the hay cutting machine chased them out as we were going in along line with clubs with nails. It was all 'guid' fun and so different now. Memories of Bradley Thomas down at the Linn netting station which was Burnmouth where he gave me a chance to work with him and him being a legend Tay Salmon Fishery guy. To have done fishing with Geordie Stewart the Tay Boatman and boxer legend was another of my highs as I'm sure Geordie remembers that night with Ernie's laddie McElroy and a few others from the village. All a long time ago but great fun. Hunting with ferrets, snares and nets to catch rabbits for money and poaching for salmon to get cash when money was in the depression years. Sniggering, netting, ferreting, trawling, tracking, and all that stuff I could still do. I still know a rats track, a foxes mess, a hare 'cowpin doon', a sea trout cruising and how to set a 'gin trap', a snare etc. Oh how us City slickers have changed. Anyway all the best and next year will be the best ever. St Johnstone for the cup! Les Taylor |
9th January 2012 |