Forrest Street to Clark Street
Forrest Street to Clark Street
From Forrest Street to Clark Street, there was, 1st Masonic Temple, Dr Jope’s Surgery, Chemist, Tempelton’s Grocery, Clarkston Newsagent, Wee Don’s (Valerio) Ice Cream, Marshall’s shoe shop, Butchers and the Wellington Bar, not necessarily in that order.
Thomas Dunsmuir Hartman wrote, “On this block from Forrest Street to Clark Street again all two storey type tenement homes, there were a couple of stores which I remember very well. The first ‘Templeton’s’ this store was unique in that they would display a lot of their dry goods in shelves and canvas bags on the pavement directly outside the store, and as you can imagine this was asking for trouble with us kids around. I recall many a stolen mouthful of Oats, Pea pods, Biscuits. You name it; we stole and ate it.
The Cheese was in a rounded ball of about 50 lbs. This too was up on the counter. Outer layers of cheese cloth stripped off and duly cut into the proportions required by the customer. The hand cutting of cheese was done with a piano type wire. The butter was hand cut and shaped with two wooden paddles, again into the size required by the customer. You have to remember that there was no refrigeration then and things could get rather sticky, so a fair amount of water was being used to counteract the stickiness.
The other store of note belonged to a family of Italian immigrants into Scotland, there name was Valerio. They were three families of Valerio’s Blantyre; all of them owned ice cream shops. There was Mickey’s at the West end, Peter in the middle and Wee Don in the East side. They served up some great ice cream treats through the years, from their push carts and up to their motorized vehicles in the later years. The family was so well respected that they have a modern street in Blantyre named after the family. They made a wonderful pea dish with lots of vinegar that all of us young kids loved to eat.”
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