The Raws

Blantyre, Lanarkshire, Scotland

Blantyre history

The Raws

Another bite sized chunk of Blantyre History

Set in beds. Underneath would be for storage or even coal. If the size of the family required it, pull-out beds would be kept there. TDH, “a miners raw with the very unusual name of THE HONEYMOON. I KID YOU NOT. How it got that name I could never find out, still trying,…”

TDH, The name “Honeymoon” came from a block of single-end houses, because they weren’t big enough to accommodate families they were usually occupied by newlyweds until a family came along, hence the nickname “Honeymoon Terrace”..

That was a latter-day name, 40 or 50 years earlier single-ends would have housed families plus lodgers!

Jim wrote, “I lived in one of the rows at Auchinraith, this was a two-room but we couldn’t use the back room because of dampness & rats. So my parents & three weans & an aunt & uncle lived in the front room. There was a bed in the wall with a trundle bed underneath, no cooker, only a single gas ring to supplement the open range.

There was the luxury of piped cold water, (no geyser) and an outside toilet. This was in the mid 1950’s, we moved out to a new council house in East Kilbride when they condemned the miner’s rows! What luxury that was, but my parents didn’t like the move out of Blantyre so a year or so later we moved back into Blantyre into a 100 year old tenement in the village”.

Jim

Your Comments:

Marion Mcpartlin: They look so hard and the chair, no wonder people were tough then.

Anthony Smith: We lived at 93, Baird’s Raws. I can still remember the open fire which had a hinged bracket on the left side to put the kettle on and swing it over the fire. Two gas mantles over the fireplace for lighting. And I can still remember when my parents got a GEYSER and we had instant hot water at the sink. At least, our outside toilet, shared by our next door neighbour, was a FLUSHING toilet.

Moira Macfarlane: I remember them well.

Brenda Carrigan: We had 2 set in beds in the kitchen with curtains at each side of them, thought we were toffs lol.

Anne Quinn: We stayed in the Honeymoon, mum dad and three wains, I was 2 when we moved, out so don’t mind much about it.

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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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