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Since the school
playground was out of bounds, street games were part of everyday life in
the thirties.
Traffic in Armour St. consisted mainly of horse drawn delivery vans, from
the local Co-op, selling butcher meat, and bakery products, from the shops
in Laighcartside St.
I remember a motor cycle and sidecar causing quite a stir when it appeared
for a wedding at Number 7. Bags of coal were also delivered by horse &
cart, to everyone in the street, including the School, when the double
gate in Armour St. had to be opened, the only other time this gate was
open, was when the dust cart collected the ashes and refuse. Later, this
gate would be opened every morning, for the delivery of free school milk.
Our class was chosen to take part in an experiment, before decisions were
taken about free milk. Each pupil was weighed and examined by a doctor,
then one quarter of the class had 2 bottles of milk per day, one had 1
bottle per day, one had a shortbread biscuit per day and the last quarter
received no sustenance at all. After a given period, we were all weighed
and examined again, when it was decided, that every pupil should have one
free bottle of milk per day.
Childhood games included kick the can, rounders, hide and seek, peevers,
beds, marbles, queenie queenie whose got the ball, skipping ropes, headies
against the waa wae a tanner baa, relievers, and ledgy with a tennis ball.
Cigarette cards used to change hands playing ‘skippy’, where each player
skipped a card, the one whose card landed nearest the wall collected the
others’ cards.
Football and headers were played up and down the street almost every day,
beside the school wall, which was used to rebound off, to side step
opponents. The high part of the wall was also used for cricket, by
chalking the wickets on it, and bowling across the road with a tennis
ball, or tuppenny rubber ball about the same size.
The first house beyond Number 7 Armour St., was the East Church manse,
and, when the Minister, the Reverent Mr Runciman, was elected Provost of
Johnstone, two ornate Provost lamps were erected outside the Manse gates.
As they were wide enough apart, to act as goal posts, and being positioned
almost opposite a lamppost, and a telegraph pole, across the road, it soon
became a ready made shooting and heading ‘pitch’.
Considering all the ball games taking place, very few windows were broken.
However, I remember one occasion, when we were playing football alongside
the school wall, with the afore mentioned lamp post, as one goals, and
probably a rolled up jersey for the other, Mrs Porter’s bedroom window, at
number 7 Armour St., developed a hole of less than 1 inch diameter, and
despite her daughter Jean, finding a stone on the floor inside, the
footballers, including yours truly, were blamed. The damages, of one
shilling and fourpence, were taken from each of us, after a visit from
constable McFarlane from Ellerslie St., on a Halloween night, as I was
getting ready to proceed to a party in the Thorn Hut on Beith Road.
Understandably, the police put an end to ball games in the streets, and
back greens, so, as one got older, The Basin, (the old canal basin, where
the barges used to tie up, long before our time), was our sports arena.
Football was by far the main activity, almost every morning, noon, and
night, although there was not a goalpost in sight. The workers from Louden
Brothers, played every lunchtime, and on a summer night as many as three
games of different age groups, were going on.
Because Ellerslie St. is on a hill, and the Basin cuts into it, concrete
retaining walls were built, adjacent to the houses at Number 26. At the
corner where steps were situated, this wall was around six feet high, and
obviously dangerous, so, to prevent accidents, the Blacksmith from
Walkinshaw St., fitted railings around the Basin, as instructed by the
local council, and about this time swings were also erected by him
opposite 19 Ellerslie St.
We chalked wickets on the afore mentioned retaining walls, and played
cricket, although the basin had only a hard ash surface. We even tried it
with wooden stumps, and a cheap, hard cork, cricket ball, in the centre of
the area, and enjoyed ourselves in this way, until joining Johnstone
Cricket Club, as junior members.
Kite flying, (flee your dragon) as we called it, was tried on summer
evenings, the ‘dragon’ was home made from crossed wooden strips, covered
with brown wrapping paper, a long string tail, was decorated with rolled
up strips of paper, the cross was kept upright by tying a suitable grass
divot to the end of the tail.
Hamish McKellar played rugby at the Paisley Grammar School, and coaxed us
to have a go, the results were a disaster, as most of us ended up with
grazed hands and knees, after coming in contact with the hard ash surface.
I had won a pocket watch, from Charlie Drummond’s shop, through collecting
eight pieces of a picture of King Edward the 8th, each macaroon bar
contained a section of the picture, and anyone collecting all eight
received the watch. Almost everybody had seven pieces, and kept buying the
bars looking for the prize, and I turned out to be the lucky winner.
However, in this rugby trial, it fell out of my pocket and broke on the
hard ground.
Electricity came into our lives not long before the war, I recall, every
other segment of the concrete pavement being dug up, for the installation
of the cable. When these trenches, which measured roughly two feet wide by
three feet deep, were filled in and cemented, the workmen ran a knurled
roller over the cement while it was still soft, to leave a nonslip
surface. Tenants had to install their own household supply, and contribute
towards the close, and stair landing lights.
The first people that I knew to have wireless communication were, Sam Shaw
from No7 and Johnny Lapsley from No5 Armour St. Sam was the keen wireless
man, Johnny was a pattern maker, so he did the woodwork required to house
the set. Johnny’s son Andrew would invite me in to hear the Football
Internationals being broadcast from Wembley, or Hampden Park.
My Grandmother received a set from the Institute for the Blind, and I
listened to the cricket match when Len Hutton set his historic score in,
if my memory serves me right, 1938.
Each set had a very heavy accumulator, or wet cell battery, which I
carried many a time to Bryce’s Electrical Shop, between Walkinshaw St. and
Rankine St., to be re-charged, which took a day, and then had to be
carried home again. |