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Old Cambuslang Snippits and Personal Contact messages

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Re: The Clyde Riviera at Cambuslang

Hi, Folks ... have been trying to find out about my Grandfather's side of the Family ... and I wonder if anyone can advise? ..He's the Frank McGinty you have mentioned. Thankyou 💚 💚

Your location east kilbride

Re: The Clyde Riviera at Cambuslang

hi francie,
i remember well the tossing school situated on the slag heap side of the clyde close to the skudgie,this was a large school and must have been the scourge of many a houshold, with the weekly wages often lost on the toss of 2 or sometimes 3 pennies.
the school proceedings were controled by the babber {or toller} and was a lucrative occupation,guarded with discipline and a strong arm,i remember one of main tollers a fellow from viewpark [fought as boxer jack kilrain} being seriously injured {allegedly in a controling dispute
at the school.
we, as boys were always hoping for a raid,as the bets lying on the ring would often be abandoned in the punters haste to clutches of the polis, best wishes are extende to you from the honourable john mckechnie of morriston street fame

Your location east kilbride

Re: The Clyde Riviera at Cambuslang

Hello Phil

Thanks for increasing my vocabularly surrounding that most important historical event.

There's still one technical matter left that you might be able to clear up for me: did some of the 'tossers' (the quotes distinguishes them from the more common type!) use a little rectangular slate or piece of wood to rest the pennies on before tossing them? I believed this was to demonstrate better that there was no cheating going on.

John (Jonie) McKechnie was a good friend from those earliest years, and later. The term 'honourable' you attach to him is fitting for one who lived up such a superior close, where teachers and other genteel folk resided, and the air smelled of Brasso and fresh pipe-clay.

I wonder if Jonie remembers the two of us going into Glasgow to attend a big meeting of Moral Re-Armament, an interesting sort of supra-relious movement of the time (just after the war) that seemed to make a lot of sense. Please give him my regards, Phil.

Again, so much more one could write.

Cheers for now.

Your location Orpington, Kent

Re: The Clyde Riviera at Cambuslang

hi Francei
The pactice of using oblong pieces of wood or slate to toss the pennies in the air, along with using 3 pennies in order to speed proceedings, although common in darkest lanarkshire.did not appear to have taken on at the scudgie school.
They appear to have maintained the tradition of being 2 finger tossers [not to be confused with politicians,many bankers, and public figures]to the end.
McKechnie [of the wally close and the Allt Dubh Beag][AKA the black burn]recounts a tale of Frank McGinty, falling off a wall into the dung midden at Wullie McGowans milking parlor,no doubt it was done with typical Gintz style and panache
Best wishes phil.

Your location east kibride

Re: The Clyde Riviera at Cambuslang

Hello Phil

Thanks for a good laugh! And thanks, of course, for the added technical information on the development in Lanarkshire of the double and treble disc-tossing devices that superseded the earlier digital (Index and Middle), Heads-a-Dollar, Cambuslang Skudgie System. It's all intriguing stuff.

I wasn't there when 'Gintz' fell into the dung midden, yet I can well imagine him coming out of it with dignity intact (just yesterday we got an Easter card from his son, Tom, in Cheltenham). One of my own vivid memories in the cowshed of McGowan's farm is of Wullie scattering a colony of rats while raking it out and then pronging them through with his pitch-fork. The vision of that frenzied pursuit of the critters still makes me squirm (I think I had a white mouse at the time). He used to keep a barrel of thinned treacle to mix with other things for the calves -- a big treat for us young humans, as well, when we could 'obtain access' to it. It's amazing to think that there was a farm jist roon the back.

I left Cambuslang in the late 50's, not long after doing two years National Service. As I seem to remember, Phil, you married Anne (McFadyean?), a couple of doors along from our house at the park gates. Then I thought you lived around the corner in the Crescent, but I feel that I'm wrong about that -- or about the sequence. My memories, 'unrefreshed' over the years, can be a bit defective in those earlier times. I was sorry to hear that Anne had died -- she was an outstandingly lovely girl. I believe that her sister (is it Betty?) still lives in the house there. I remember both of them regularly at the Holy Hour and Devotions when they used to sit just a few pews down from us.

Best regards also to Jonie. He was witty enough to be on the stage -- but he couldn't spell as well as Jimmy! Mr McKechnie was a man you remember with affection -- even to young people he was respectful and never spoke down to them. Jonie's mother was just like my own.

Cheers for now

Your location Orpington, Kent

Re: The Clyde Riviera at Cambuslang

I have just passed your message to Francie Reilly who knew your grandfather, and has posted previous messages in this forum

Re: The Clyde Riviera at Cambuslang

Ed....Thanks very much.....can't find anything on my Grandfather's side of the Family at all. 💚💚

Your location east kilbride

Re: The Clyde Riviera at Cambuslang

Hi! Elenor,
Just a brief reply at the moment,I remember your grandfather Frank, from,
having lived across the street from him, at the bottom end of Park Street in Cambuslang
in the 1940s,most of my personal memories are of his and my boyhood.
Other information is mostly anecdotal, and from other sources,whom i would have
to contact and reminisce with.
Another source (if he is still around)is Francie Reilly, location Orpington,
whom i last contacted in 2017 who i am sure will remember "Gintz" with boyhood and
youthfull nostalgia.
Please let me know what i can help you with.
Phil.

Your location east kilbride

Re: The Clyde Riviera at Cambuslang

I remember the bother i got into for going in the scudgie

Your location Hamilton