Blantyre Celtic Football

Blantyre Celtic Football

Another bite sized chunk of Blantyre History

Margaret,
Where your dad lived in Baird’s Rows there was no street as such, running down from the Main Street to the homes of the miners, it was basically a cart path, I would say it had to be about 10ft wide, just enough room for a cart and horse to pass through and pretty rough on occasions. The path followed down past the Rows on to the Blantyre Celtic Football ground where it ended. I cannot ever remember it being called by a name, other than the street going down to the B.C.F. Ground.

At the end of the football ground were some fields with cattle usually grazed. Blantyre in the 1930’s – 40’s – 50’s was still very rural, so it was not uncommon to see livestock being driven through town.

Further on you came to the Blantyre Oil Works, whose main entrance was in Forrest Street the next street over (North). After the oil works you hit the L.M.S.R. Railway lines. This was the main railway line for carrying the coal into Glasgow from the surrounding coal mines.

Over the railway lines was the “Clyde Braes”. This was a sloping area of grass and gorse where you could most times find the miners and their sons either swimming in the river Clyde or just hanging around. In my memory of these times we always seemed to have great weather and always ran around in our bare feet. This was also a great area for the local couples to do their courting or Winching as we called it then. Directly across the Clyde was the town of Bothwell. There was a suspension bridge where you had to pay a toll to cross between the two towns or you had to walk a few miles by the main road to get between.

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Continuing the conversation between Thomas Dunsmuir Hartman in Chicago, formerly Logan Street, (known as TDH or Drapadew) and Margaret in Queensland Australia on TalkingScot.

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