Mine are heading up to the rookery and going into the old walled garden furtively in case we were chased by the local farmer or worse still the legendary 'galloping horse' ghost that my brothers used to terrorise me about.  I remember finding some old leather horse harness buried just outside the entrance so it must be true.  I also remember the old stables up off Lauchope Street which are long gone now but there were four loose boxes with some old bits and pieces too.

 

I lived on Sherdale so would venture down the park to the Maggie Lauder and play on rope swings, look for birds' nests, see if we could find the old coal seam that a chap who lived on School Street had opened up again.  When we did find it, he had a gate and a padlock across it but he used to go down every day and you'd see him come up the lane on Sherdale which used to be between no. 64 and 66 with a huge sack of coal on his back.

 

I loved playing on the old bing which used to smoke but it was lovely and warm.  I played 'dropped it, caught it' on the roundabout in the old playpark behind Sherdale (which had been gone for years).  I hated it when big boys came to punt the swings over the handle bars.

 

I remember when they were building the ash football pitch there it got very muddy.  I was in my bedroom one night and could hear screams for help.  I went down to tell my Dad and we both went to the bottom of the garden behind the garage and two wee girls had got stuck in the mud.  My Dad and I had to go and pull them out and the mud was so deep that he lost his wellies.

 

I remember the old sewage works down behind Castle Street and how you could stand on some very ricketty woodwork and lift up a trap door to look into what seemed like about 20 feet of raw sewage.  I still have shudders imagining falling into it.

 

I remember the various vans that came round.  Hepburns, Hoggs, my Dad's bakery van, the fish van, onion johnnies, the cream boys, the tattie boys, the rag n bone man with his horn.  I'd dive in to ask if we'd anything to give him just to get one of those balloons which smelled exactly the same as the cellophane of a Maxell audio cassette (something I discovered in later life and racked my brains trying to place the odour).  There were also Big John's Ice Cream with John and Bert Millar.  It would be a snowstorm outside and we'd have the fire blazing so hard inside we'd all be sitting in our t-shirts.  When we heard the chimes my Dad would go out and buy American Cream Soda and take a tupperware dish to get six scoops of ice cream so we could have ice cream float drinks to cool down.

 

I remember when one broken window at the primary school after eight weeks of summer holiday, would have all the children gathered round to gawp at it because it was such a major event and how naughty someone must have been to brake it.  Shame that latterly the school had protective wire over every downstairs window.

 

I remember fondly, Bobby Mitchell the janitor who seemed to have been there for years and whilst he did his rounds during playtime he'd always have a wee kid on each arm as he was so adored.  Being one of the kids was a great honour.  He always had a supply of sawdust in his wee room to mope up any sick that had been deposited.  I would go to the wee shop across the road at lunchtime to get a sweetie (I can't remember the name but it will come back to me).  Strawberry bon bons were a favourite.  Gillespies was the wee shop down in Centre Street.  I remember my Dad would stop outside school to sell off the van during the day and I'd go out for a cookie followed by several classmates.  One time when there were just a few too many my Dad then explained how it was difficult to break even if every pupil got a free cookie.  I think every kid in the school must have used my Dad's cigarette tins for their 'words' or dinner money.  Rest assured that as he approaches his 82nd birthday (2008), his poor old lungs will be glad to know that they served the school well.

 

I loved getting out of school, not by the gate but through the gaps in the railings.  There was one onto Sherdale just at the end of the netball pitch and also at the corner of the football pitch.  I'm sure there used to be some sort of sandpit near the football pitch which was eventually filled in because it kept flooding.  We'd have hours of fun playing round the other side of the school in the 'fort'.  We'd also play elastics, skipping, balls and many other traditional games with a lot of close harmony singing.  I wonder if there is a book somewhere of all the songs.

 

That's enough for one Saturday night

 

Cheers

 

Susan

I am writing this from San Jose, California where I have lived since 1982.  However, I was a Calderbank girl and attended St. Aloysius primary from 1954 to 1960.  While there my best friend was Anna Brennan, who emigrated to Canada in 1960.  Recently, through the wonders of internet, I have been back in touch with Anna.  We now correspond frequently through email.  Neither of us has been back in Lanarkshire for many years. 

 

One of our classmates at St. Aloysius was Michael Boyle.  Anna was asking me if I knew anything about him.  She had heard that he is now the village postman.  Can you let us know if he indeed still lives in the village?  Anna, in particular, would love to hear from him. 

 

Best regards

 

Maureen Berti (formerly Mulholland)

Anna and I have been discussing our old class and classmates.  One of the boys in the class in 1959 - 1960 was James Hughes.  We had heard that he may have been killed in a motorcycle accident a number of years ago.  Can anyone let us know about James?  Also, a boy called Robert (Pat) Reilly died in a tragic drowning accident in Dick's Pond about 1958/1959.  Does anyone remember that?

 

Maureen Berti (Mulholland)

Anne Ma'har sent this message below to us.

The Eye has its own Memories of Chapelhall.

Lets see where should i begin. Well since it is Winter time and now the Campus school is being built up the park, i will bring back the memory of the slides that ran from the top of the park right down to the football dressing rooms. There used to be around 6,7, maybe 8 slides. I came to the park with my slip on shoes and a metal tray. It took me about 5 seconds to get to the bottom and 20 minutes to get back up. I stayed up the Tap scheme and the slides came in handy on a Saturday and Sunday morning when i had to go and get the papers. Down i went on the slide and then jumped in to Goldies the shop that use to sit where the Library is now. On a Thursday i got the Dandy comic out of there and the Twinkle for my sister.

When the summer came we used to camp out up the plantation, where the fancy houses are built now at the top of Honeywell Crescent. We used to explore in the fields and hide from the farmer as he use to try and catch us. Now those fields are all houses.

Once i think of more i will add it on.

Kelly says

Pete says

Jessie says...

I used to live in Salsburgh and attended Airdrie Academy (the old one).
When going to Airdrie by bus (Greenshields and Irvines) it used to
pass down through the Main Street of Chapelhall. Wish Salsburgh would get
itself a website. 

Hughie Morgan from one of the Eyes surfers

Can anyone remember Hughie Morgan's barbers? you could get your hair cut for sixpence (6d)! if you were too wee to sit on the big chair, Hughie put a plank of wood along the arms of the chair and you sat on that! so you came out with a shiny new haircut and a skelf in your bum. One of the great characters of Chapelhall-HUGHIE MORGAN

(George died not long after this message)

Name: George Reilly, 3rd child in family of 12 children ( 2 deceased).
Born: 44 Queens Crescent Chapelhall, moved to 35 School St.

Hello, Geordie Reilly here.
My wife and I went from Queensland, Australia to visit my Ma and family in 35 School St., Chapelhall in June 99. On arriving in the village via Airdrie and the Monkland Glen, I was immediately thrilled to see that not much had changed.

"Stangoe’s" garage or what used to be on the right hand side coming into the village, looked so familiar. The "Factories" on the left hand side brought back fond memories of my childhood days, climbing walls and pinching fiberglass rods which we used as spears…to spear the ground of course…. My Uncle Matt McMahon 44 Queens Crescent used to be the watch keeper around the factories and had an Alsatian dog "Rinty" once owned by my Ma. Rinty used to be sent home to No. 44 with my uncle’s pay packet in his mouth and as far as I am aware never once lost it.

Chapelhall Cross and the old Swan Hotel still standing, still looking on the outside as it used to 30 years before….Strange’s coalyard with the high wall, still with coal trucks inside the yard. I saw what was once the Police Station, a burned out shell of a pub! The Glen Hotel.

McAleers fruit shop that used to be in Lachope Street was no where to be seen, but the "Brigit" was still there, the short cut through from Lachope St to? . I smiled as I saw the old Co-op buildings on the left of the main street and bought a tandoora from the Curry Shop a few days later…yummy. And Hugh Gibsons barber shop like I had never even left it!! I spent some time in that old chair…Maggie Talloe’s ice cream shop now sells lovely fish and chips, chicken and chips with white onions are nice for dinner also. What used to be Goldies paper shop now has new owners and I am sure not the first new owners since I last bought the Dandy and the Beano from there. And look at this!! Tom… Post office is now part of the off sales shop and the Post Office building now sells bakery goods…. My cousin Linda was on the look out for us when we called in to surprise her.

The Railway Inn, is still standing, Tom O Rourke's pub! I took my wife into the lounge where I had been given a farewell party so many years before; yes it has changed a lot, much for the good in my opinion. I wonder who can remember Charlie Barton's cobbler shop? On the left before what we called the New Line Brae, the road we trudged through rain or sleet to get to Saint Aloysius school on weekdays and chapel on Sundays, not to mention Stations Of The Cross, confessions etc. Where would I be now without all that? Where indeed?
The old Railway Bridge had gone long before I left Chapelhall but the sides still stood, not now! I think I found a small piece of the sandstone wall that used to be a part of the bridge and also bordered the grass area across from the library building. The stone outside Dan Murphy’s door, His Grocery shop and later a betting shop used to be on the sight where the library is. The second in the village the first being between Goldies and what was Mary Tallos ice cream shop, now the Fish n chip shop, memories come flooding back. The railway line is all but gone in the village area; we did find the old bridge up the line a bit when we went in search of the Rookery at "Woodnuke".
I filmed the entire area as far as I could see from a mound of dirt that had been pushed up to unload machines from trucks. My wife and I went shopping in what I knew as the "WEE" school still in Lauchope Street at the bottom of Gibb Street, it has had some changes I am told. My wife loved the wild flowers growing in the spare ground where the "WEE Ireland" used to stand, behind the bus shelter if going to Holytown, on the library side of the "WEE school…now a supermarket.

Maggie Shaw’s shop is still standing but closed as were the house she used to live in, I scrambled around the bushes in front searching for long lost memories and found to my delight found some amid the ruins. Gibb street! Ashbins, confirmation white suit… what do they have In common? Nothing to most people, but my Ma still remembers when I left her at St Aloysius after making my confirmation, and I went home alone. All the ashbins were put out in Gibb Street and I decided to play leapfrog! Needless to say by the time I had leaped a dozen or so bins, my backside was dragging slightly on the remaining bins. I didn’t notice any thing wrong when I got home and changed, but my ma did when she picked up the rented white suit to take it back. Ouch! It wisna me ma, a big boy done it and ran away! The schemes of my childhood still look the same. Nothing much has changed in the general outlook of the "old schemes.

A friend of mine went to visit my Ma a year or so before us, and took a video of the road in from Airdrie to School Street On the video I saw the school in School Street which was built in our play area and cricket field that wee as children thought was "our bit" and resented the council building a school there. The one major thing that surprised me on that video, was the veiw from the corner of School Street and what was Sherdale Avenue, now Coracle Crescent I was truly amazed at how far can be seen and swear that view was never there as a child, or maybe I wasn’t interested in so far away! We stayed in School Street with my niece Sharon and her husband Stewart and their lovely wee daughter, my great niece Natalie, and a host of animals too many to name, we were made so welcome. No one minded us rising at daybreak and making breakfast then going for a wander around the village filming flowers and plants in people’s gardens.

I was warned the Police were after us for being so active so early in the morning, but nothing came of that. My Ma and family made my wife and myself feel so loved and wanted, the month there was just not enough time. We did on our first morning jaunt, go down to the Viaduct and the Monkland canal, oh boy! What a change, all those lovely trees and pathways, we both love the yellow flowering Gorse bushes, which is a scourge in most places, in New Zealand we saw hills covered with lovely yellow Gorse bushes and as I filmed the Kiwi (new Zealander) traveling companion was verbally blasting the Scot who brought the curse to his country where it grows rampant. I still love it. After going down to the Canal Bridge which is still as noisy, we headed for the "Woods" where I spent a lot of my ill gotten youth. The "Big Swing" which consisted of a one inch or more thick rope borrowed from the railway station and tied to a high branch, then when jumped on swung out over the sewer that the canal was then.was gone! There is a swing there today but I could not believe it was the "Big Swing" maybe I have just grown up and the swing was never that "Big" at all, In my memory it will always be "Big". As a matter of fact, the whole "Wood’ was gone!

Before I knew it we were looking down on the "Swamp" and into the bottom of the Monkland Estate Which used to be the Monkland Hotel. In my youth a person named Victor Susoon owned the Hotel? And he employed a game keeper/watchman who took great delight in firing a shotgun over our heads if we went anywhere near the area. Swallowing my disappointment that the trees that live so well in my memory were no where to be seen, we carried on up to the "Maggie Lauder" the mound of dirt was still sitting there where I left it. The number of times we defended that hill will never be known, and of course the times we attacked it are as many. Easter Sunday we used to walk down there, under the railway bridge which is nowhere to be seen now days, and roll our hard boiled, colored eggs down the side of that mound of dirt hopping they would hit a well placed rock at the bottom so we could then peel and eat them… Child hood pleasures indeed, no chocolate for us

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