Masonic Lodge

Masonic Lodge

Another bite sized chunk of Blantyre History

So Margaret, are you ready to walk some more through the old Blantyre Streets.

As we go along the Glasgow Road (Main Street) from Church Street, the first store on this block was a millinery Store which sold all kinds of cotton, needles and lace for the local gentry. I personally can never remember going into this store, just a wee look through the window every so often to see what was going on.

The next store was a greengrocers, that store I went into a lot of times, it was where we as a family bought all of our vegetables over the winter period my dad had a garden at the back of our Council House and he tried to grow everything that could be grown during the summer months, a fair amount of which was pickled for the winter. We did not know what refrigeration was in those days. The only refrigerator I ever saw in Blantyre had a few cows sheep and pigs hanging up in it. Will talk on that subject later.

The next large door on the block was the entrance to the Masonic Lodge or Masonic Hall as we called it, big double door with brass fittings, quite impressive as opposed to the other doors around, I must have tried to open that door at least a dozen times being the nosy kid that I was, it never did budge for me, I guess that’s why I went back trying to see if it was open.

Among us kids it was well known to stay clear or some big guy would come out and smack your ear. I was lucky, in Blantyre that was allowed in those days. If you misbehaved or gave cheek back to your elders, it was accepted that they had the right at that given time to reprimand you with a good slap up the ear hole and if you went home and told your dad what happened he in turn gave you another slap up the ear hole. This kind of control was accepted by most miner families, very little was missed and the whole story if it was worth telling, was talked about at the pit head and the father always knew if the kid deserved it or not. So as kids we just used to do the wrong things with the thought in the back of our minds, if we get caught we were going to be punished, so we had better take what ever comes and say nothing at home. But of course this some times backfired on you and you think you had got away with it until all of a sudden WHACK!! I heard what you were up to yesterday WHACK!!.
It wasn’t me dad it was Jimmy so and so, you always tried to pass the blame on to someone else, it seemed to ease the pain of the whack a little knowing that someone else was going to get their comeuppance

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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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