Bathgate Memories of someone born in 1940.
My granny would dandle me on her knee and recite rhymes such as:
Paddy on the railway picking up stones,
Along came an engine and broke Paddy’s bones.
‘Oh!’ said Paddy, ‘ That’s not fair!’
‘Well,’ said the engine man you shouldnae have been there.’
Another was:
Tam, Tam, the Gundyman
Washed his face in the frying pan,
Combed his hair wi’ the leg o’ the chair’
Tam, Tam, the Gundyman.
Gundy is toffee often made with treacle. A gundyman was someone who sold toffee and sweets. .
A rhyme peculiar to Bathgate was:
Kenny McKirdy lost his birdie in amongst the snaw,
And when he went to look for it he lost himsel’ an’ aw.
This event reputedly took place in Waverley Street close to the gasworks.
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Bathgate had three picture houses – the Regal, the Pavilion and the Cinema. The Regal and Cinema had lower doors for the cheap seats. I remember seeing a boy paying his way into the Cinema with a 2lb jam jar. In 1948, I saw a film of the London Olympics. I remember seeing Barney Ewell (USA) dancing down the track because he thought he had won the 100 metres. Unfortunately, he had come second to Harrison Dillard (USA). Barney Ewell also won a silver in the 200 metres and a gold in the 4 by 100 relay. After the Olympics, Barney Ewell came to Bathgate. I saw him training with our local athletes (Michael Glen being one) on the grass strip next to the ash football pitches in Meadow Park. He would give our sprinters 10 yards of a start over 100 yards and beat them without too much trouble. Barney Ewell was a very nice man.
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In those days, newspaper vendors would call ‘Spatch ‘n’ Noos! Spatch ‘n’ Noos!’ This meant that they were selling the Evening Despatch and the Evening News. They might also call out headlines. In George Street one Saturday evening I heard a news vendor calling, ‘Tragedy at Parkhead!! Tragedy at Parkhead!!’ I thought, ‘Have people been killed? Has the stand collapsed? Has there been a fire?’ But no – the tragedy was that Celtic had lost.
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Before houses had electricity and before the arrival of transistor radios, wireless sets were wired to lead-sulphuric acid accumulators.
My first job was charging accumulators and car batteries for T.K. ‘Pye’ Graham in North Bridge Street. The accumulators were charged on a bench array for three days while a car battery took about a week to charge up. The acid for topping up the accumulators came in carboys (from the Chemical Works at Whiteside?) which were kept in a shed behind the Beehive. I had to pour the acid from a carboy into a smaller bottle to take up to the shop. The safety equipment provided was a tattered grey labcoat.
There is a Bathgate story of a boy who was swinging an accumulator around by its handle. His father said to him, ‘Stop that! – you’ll be mixing up all the stations!’
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Willie Smith, was the Partick Thistle goalkeeper. Willie had gone to the Lindsay High School and his close friend was George Strachan who went on to play cricket for Scotland. Before going to play for West Lothian County, George Strachan had played for The Atlas Steelworks Cricket Club in Armadale. I also played for the Atlas and it would sometimes happen that George would come back to play for us. I remember one game, I think it was against Pumpherston, when George brought Willie along. Willie was an amazingly good sportsman – he had probably never handled a bat for many a long day yet he scored over forty runs.
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I was a member of Bathgate Amateur Swimming Club (BASC). We had many Scottish champions and internationalists including Mary Scott, Evelyn Wilson, Jean White, Norton ‘Skider’ McBride and Terry Gilhooley. We also had an excellent long distance swimmer in John Smith. In 1955, when he was eighteen years old he swam from Granton to Burntisland with the illustrious Ned Barnie. Had it not been for his National Service, John would have swum the Channel. As a potential Olympic competitor, John went to Rosyth to train for long-distance events.
John Smith, Joe Pearson and Skider McBride formed a very successful swimming gala comedy team called Flip, Flap and Flop. Over the winter of 1955-56, Euan Dunsmore, Tom Belcher, Billy Russell and Andrew McLeish won the Eastern District Junior League.
We had a wonderful coach in the bathsmaster Neil Samuel. He was so highly rated that swimmers came through from Edinburgh for Sunday-morning training sessions. The West Lothian Courier of 26th March 2015 in commemorating the 80th birthday of the club says that it now has fourteen coaches. How times have changed!
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Bathgate Old Times 