We Were The Moodie Family

By Thomas Sutton Moodie

November 2007

We were the Moodie family. My father, a postman, my mother

who took in occasional bed and breakfast guests, four boys and
nine years later a baby girl. We lived in the South Lodge of
Lord Inverclyde’s estate.

As I have just finished writing a book called "Memories As A

Jeweller", a bit similar to the James Herriot’s "All Creatures Great
and Small" stories. I thought that I would take my mind back as
far as I could remember which would be roughly about seventy-
seven years. I am the youngest boy of the family and apparently
when I was born on the sixteenth of December 1927 my father
was presented with his Masonic Jewel when they told him that he
had another jewel presented that night – It was me.

Recently I have been up to Scotland with my touring caravan and

my wife and I stayed in a very nice little caravan site in Brisbane
Glen which is just on the outskirts of Largs on the Brisbane Glen
road to Greenock. This site was very handy for me as it was only
about seven miles from Wemyss Bay where I was born. This gave
me a great opportunity to go and look up my old haunts.

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To my surprise South Lodge (or Bank House as it was also
once known) was being demolished. I felt very sad to see it in
this state as I looked into the room where I was born and I grew
up in and remembering the recess in the wall where my bed
used to be I can vaguely remember when we got a heavy
thunder storm I would jump into the bed in the wall and my
mother would pull the curtain across, this made me feel safe.
Looking into the derelict house made me think of my brothers
and little sister, to think that was where we were all born, again
thinking back, my memories of me and my brothers having to sit
on the table one after the other as my mother got us all washed
and ready to go up to Greenock for the day, and we had to sit
while she got ready. Yes the memories came flooding back.

It makes me feel very privileged to have lived in the pre-war

years as I think of the Clyde in it’s hey day. I am going to try to
give you an idea of the river Clyde with the paddle steamers
plying to and fro to various ports of call. When I think of Wemyss
Bay in those days and the house that we lived in, it was also
called Bank House as at one time it had been a bank.

It had a tower and we lived in the bottom of the house until

about 1938 and then we moved to the upstairs as it had three
bedrooms, living room and a small kitchen.

Living in this top of the house covered the entire bottom two
houses, incidentally the one facing the Wemyss Bay Hotel at the
bottom used to be a post office as I remember. The views from
the rooms were marvellous you could look out of the dining room
window and see Arran and the Cumbrae Island which lies off
Largs.The front bedroom window overlooked the upper Clyde
across to Innellan and Dunoon with all the mountains in the back
ground it was an artists dream.

Our house was the South Lodge to Lord Inverclyde’s estate and
when you entered the estate past our house the shore road went
round the bay next to the sea, this continued for about a mile or
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so and then it went up a hill and it came to the North Lodge
which met the main road to Inverkip and Glasgow.

When I think back to all those years ago, It conjures up in my

memory a picture of my mother polishing the funnel of a paraffin
lamp which was in those days the perfect lighting conditions
when it became dark. I can just see her now lighting a taper so
that she could light the wick of the lamp. It was a very sort of
"eerie" feeling as far as I can remember as the lights were
flickering. When they were flickering I can remember I used to
feel frightened, but of course I was only about three years old
and as I look back.

I can remember the excitement when we were getting electricity

put into the house, it must have made a big difference for my
mother and father after all the struggling with tapers and
candles and no more polishing funnels for the paraffin lamps.

My father was the postman for Skelmorlie which covered a fairly

big area, he used to go a long way up to the Pearman's
cottage which was situated up on the moors and Mr Pearman
was the shepherd for the area above M'Intyre's farm, this
incidentally, is where the Kelly Caravan Park is now situated.
My father had lost his right hand in the First World War at the age
of nineteen and I suppose that with his disability, it must have
been the most suitable job for him at that time.

He was very interested in the radio and I can remember him

making a wireless set with a wet battery. It looked quite a
complicated affair with clear glass and you could see the black
cells and I suppose it was filled with water and acid, he had a
pair of ear phones and was very excited when he heard voices
coming through and would let us all listen in our turns to this
marvellous invention. I can see him now, sitting tuning in to
different wave lengths and now and again he would let us listen
to all the different noises that were coming over the wave

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lengths, it was quite an achievement for someone with one hand
to make.

When I was about four or five years old I was taken ill with
scarlet fever, which in those days was a very serious illness. I
was taken to an isolation hospital near Greenock I think it was
Larkfield, apparently I was very ill.

When my mother and father came to visit they had to stand in

an enclosed glass house about one hundred yards from where
we inmates were, it was like a conservatory. I can vaguely
remember looking at all these strange people waving to us all
and us waving back, but I don’t think that we knew who we were
waving to, you couldn’t tell from that distance who was who, I
remember feeling very homesick. I was in hospital for a long
time I think that it was about five months.

The week before I was taken ill I had caught some small fish
called stickle backs and the nick name was "baggy minows" so
when my mother came to take me home she thought that I
wasn’t her son as I had changed so much, but when I arrived at
the house the first thing I asked for was where is my "baggy
minows" and my mother apparently breathed a sigh of relief as it
proved who I was.

Not long after I had come home from the isolation hospital and
there was an outbreak of diphtheria and me and my brother Alex
caught it and were sent to the isolation hospital. It sticks in my
mind quite vividly, in the middle of the ward there was a floral
display that consisted of a huge pyramid of plant pots with a
lovely display of flowers of various types and my brother Alex
and I decided to have a go with the peddle car that was in the
ward for the use of the patients, so I was in the car and Alex was
pushing me and he must have decided to give me an extra big
push and I couldn’t control the steering and we went straight into
the towering pyramid of plant pots which came crashing down
and made a terrible mess all over the ward. I can remember the
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nurses cleaning it all up, but I can’t remember what they said to
us, perhaps it’s as well. It must have been a very big upset for
me to remember it so vividly.

As I have mentioned before, I would like to give you a mental

picture of what the Clyde was like before the last war in the
1930s. The Glasgow Fair Week was in the middle of July and
the holiday makers used to let their hair down and go "Doon the
Watter" as they called it, some of them got on the paddle
steamers in Glasgow at The Broomielaw and sailed to
Helensburgh, Gourock, Dunoon, Innellan and Wemyss Bay that
being the terminal where the people who came by train would
catch the various steamers to Rothsay, Largs and Millport. Some
would sail to Campbeltown on The Mull of Kintyre.

When the herring fishing smacks were fishing in the Clyde they
used to come into the Wemyss Bay pier to unload their catch
and send them up to Glasgow. When the men were loading them
into boxes they used to give us some to take home, I can
remember my mother making soused herrings and I used to love
eating them.

The steamers all had their names and as far as I can recall they
were the Jupiter, Columba, King George V, Jeanie Deans,
Duchess of Fife and Marchioness of Graham. Then you had
the turbines, these were the ships that didn’t have paddles, they
were called the Duchess of Argyll and the Duchess of
Montrose.

On all of the steamers they had a small band all they had was
three instruments, a piano accordion a violin and a big base, so
you can imagine on a beautiful sunny sultry summers day you
could hear all of this music drifting over the Clyde with all the
steamers plying to and fro as they travelled to their destinations
it brings back great memories, with the mountains all purple and
green with the mountains of Arran situated in the back ground it
is really a great memory.
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I have heard since that some of the steamers were lost in the
war, but they played a very big part in the wonderful days of the
pre-war years of the Clyde.

One of my favourite memories, which stands out so vividly in my

mind was the wee
puffers that were carrying their wares to various destinations.
They carried all sorts of goods in fact they were jack of all trades.
I can just picture them now buffeting their way down The Clyde
against a south westerly gale. The waves used to hit the bows of
the ship and the spray would nearly cover the vessel.

They were coal fired and had a sort of two-stroke steam engine
that caused the sound from them and the smoke coming out of
the funnel in little puffs that gave them that name.

They were sturdy little vessels and had a shallow draught and
fairly flat bottomed, they would arrive at their destination where
their was no jetty to unload their cargo, so they would wait until
high water and then beach themselves and when the tide went
out they would unload their cargo and load up again with
something else, then wait for the tide to come in and refloat
them and they would fire their boilers and go puff puffing away
to their next destination. They were quite attractive little ships,
painted black with a red hull and a red funnel with a black band
round the top. I can just see them now as I think back to the
1930’s.

As the years passed it would be in 1936 that my little sister Edith

was born in Bank House. I used to take Edith out in her pram
taking long walks with our little dog Miffy walking proudly by my
side he thought that he was very important. Miffy was an
exceptional little dog, he was a little black and brown cross
terrier and he absolutely idolised Edith.

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The local stables were situated at the bridge which was just
along the road towards the station and the draymen used to ask
my father if they could borrow Miffy to take to the stables to
catch the rats. When they borrowed him they would take him to
the stable door and open the door and shout rats and Miffy
would run in and they would close the door very quickly. After
about five minutes they would go in and there would be a few
dead rats. He used to have a sore nose after his ratting
escapades and my father would put some ointment on. They
used to say that Miffy was the best ratter they had ever seen.

My mother used to put Edith out in her pram in the path by our
door for fresh air and Miffy was always sitting diligently guarding
Edith. There was a very wealthy family who lived along the shore
road at Cardell, which incidentally was demolished and now
there is a block of flats. However the owners were the
MacGeorge's and they had a big white bull terrier with blood
shot eyes and if it saw any of us when we were playing out on
the shore it would make a bee line for any of us, I was terrified of
it.

As I was saying Miffy was sitting guarding the pram in our garden
path when the bull terrier called Wrinkle came sniffing up to the
pram, Miffy wasn’t having this and their was a terrible fight and
poor Miffy was badly mauled, he was so badly injured gangrene
set in and we had to have the poor dog put down.

It was not long after this that when I was playing down at the
waters edge on the shore, when I saw the maid from Cardell
taking Wrinkle for a walk, it saw me and started to bark and
come after me, fortunately for me my father was in our garden
which was just above a breakwater, which was nearer to me and
he saw what was happening and he ran down the pebbly shore
and picked up some big stones and threw them at Wrinkle if any
had hit it the dog they would have killed it. The maid was
running around shouting “don’t hurt Wrinkle“.

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I am sure if my father had not lost his hand in the 1914-18 war
he would have strangled the dog, I suppose he would be thinking
of Miffy at the time as well as saving me, I can remember being
very frightened at the time.

As I have mentioned I used to push Edith in her pram all over the
bay. My favourite walk was along the shore and opposite the
creek there used to be a little lane; I walked up the lane and
turned right at the top up past Mr McPhail's house till I got to
the top and then I turned left opposite Thompson’s field and
walked up past The Cliff big house and further up the road to
where Mr Napier’s house where there was a road that turned
off down towards the main road for Inverkip and Gourock, if I had
carried on without going right it would take me on to the castle.

But as I was going right it took me down a hill and past

Thompson’s Farm this was the reason that I walked this way
because I used to lean right over the pram under the push
handle and use it like a bogey. When it was going down the hill I
used to guide it by my feet by putting one foot or the other down
and it would correct the direction of the pram when we got to the
bottom of the hill Edith used to be gurgling with laughter, I can
just see her now laughing away, my mother would have had a fit
if she had known.

As children we had a wonderful childhood, one day my father

came home and said that he had got a rowing boat, we were all
very excited. When he finally got the rowing boat and sailed it to
the beach below our house, as we lived so near the water, to put
you in the picture South Lodge had the garden that stretched
about fifty yards with a wall and iron rails around the garden and
their was a big breakwater to keep the sea from undermining the
house, during the war they came and removed all the iron rails
for the war effort, when I have been on a holiday I can’t
remember if the rails had been put back or not.

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Going back to the rowing boat we kept it pulled up the shore and
kept it at the bottom of the steps which went down to the sea
from our back yard. When it was threatening to blow up a storm
we pulled the boat up further along the beach. It was a very sea
worthy boat with a broad beam and was a little larger than the
average rowing boats. It was painted blue and we used to go out
fishing with a spinner and caught mackerel, by this method you
had to keep rowing the boat so that the fish thought that the
spinner was a small fish,. We used to anchor and fish for cod and
flounders.

This was the time that I used to be nervous when we saw the big
Cunard Liners sailing out of the Clyde as the wash, to me, looked
like mountains coming towards our boat, with me being so little I
used to duck down.

In the bow of the boat and hope the sea wouldn’t come over but
as I have said before it was a very safe boat. I was about five
years old when we had the rowing boat and I can remember
rowing it with the oars above my shoulders and I was able to
manage alright with the blades of the oars just dipping into the
sea it was great fun.. My favourite was the creek which will come
into the story later.

As I mentioned before with Wemyss Bay being the terminal for

the railways, I thought that I would tell you about the station
itself. The station itself was noted as being one of the most
picturesque in Scotland, or at least it was in those days.

As you walked down from the train and to the barrier where the
ticket collector was punching your ticket, you came to one of the
most spectacular sights. You came to a circular glass covered
large entrance which I would think was about two hundred yards
or more in circumference with a round ticket office in the centre.
Round the sides there were waiting rooms and they had a
bookstall and it sold papers and cigarettes and various other
little gifts.
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The whole area was glass covered with hanging baskets with a
magnificent array of
different flowering plants they were all spaced out very
professionally and it was a credit to the station master of those
days.

After you had walked through this magnificent part of the station
and when walking to go down to catch the steamer, you then
entered another very unusual sight.

As you started to walk from the solid part of the station which I
have just mentioned, you started to walk on big wooden planks
that had a little space between each one and you could see the
sea through them.

On each side of the long covered gangway which was about one
hundred and fifty yards long they had on each side about four
big glass covered cases about four yards long and ten feet high
with emblems that they had taken off paddle steamers of the
past.

To explain this all the paddle steamers had large embossed

coloured emblems on each side where the paddles were housed.
As you walked down to the steamers they looked very imposing
and decorative. I am sorry to say that the last time I was at the
station it had lost its beauty and its lovely attraction. The
displays had all gone and it looked very drab and bare.

Wemyss Bay itself is situated on the South West of Scotland on

the banks of the river Clyde. Behind the station there was the
Kelly Estate with the Kelly Burn running into the sea about
five hundred yards from the station, this was the border of
Renfrewshire and Ayrshire it was south of the station.

Skelmorlie was the next village which was in Ayrshire and this
was where we went to school. Outside the station there is a row
10
of shops in fact I worked in one for Malcolm Ramsay the
grocer.

On the station side there is a row of houses with Pearson’s

Garage and a petrol station further along there were some
houses on the right and then you went under the railway bridge
and immediately on your left that was where the stables, then
you passed Mrs McNeil’s house on your left and opposite the
Wemyss Bay Hotel was South Lodge (or Bank House) as at
some time it had been a bank.

As far as I can remember when I was very little the part that was
facing the hotel was a post office. Our house had a tower and it
was shaped like a castle. I suppose it was designed to match the
castle and North Lodge. North and South Lodge made it very
impressive as you entered Lord Inverclyde’s estate. My mother
and father rented the house from Lord Inverclyde.

It was in three parts the post office then our house and on the
top floor of the house which was the largest there lived two old
ladies and as far as I can remember they had a brother who was
blind and I think they called him Bob. The house got infested
with rats and we could hear them in the walls, my father found
out that the old ladies were feeding them and it made him very
angry.

On one occasion my father set a trap and he caught this big rat,
which I can remember very clearly and he got a garden rake and
carried the trap with the rat down to the sea which was only at
the bottom of the break water by our back gate. One of the old
ladies saw my father taking the rat to drown it and she was very
upset, but my father had to shut a blind eye and to proceed to
drown the rat.

As you started to walk round the bay, opposite our house their
was the Kemp's house and as you walked on next door was
Woodburn, next came Cardell which the MacGeorge's used to
11
live, they have since demolished Cardell, which is now a block
of flats, next came Redholme, Mansfield and Dunloe ( where
my aunt was the cook ).

Then there was the big grey house that was called Ardvaar this
was the Dower House for Ninian Stewart’s mother to live in. I
can remember a family that was living there as evacuees from
Greenock.

After this there was a lane that ran up to the back road where
Mr Macphail used to live and at the top of the lane on the left
hand side was a little cottage where the Mackerras lived.

After the lane as you were going round the bend towards the
Castle there were two large houses called Tighnamara and
Clutha and behind them there was the back road towards the
top of the lane with another little cottage behind Clutha where
the Curry's lived, as I have mentioned you came to the the red
sandstone cottage where Mr Macphail lived.

He was a wonderful old man and one of his party tricks was to
come down to the shore in his old fashioned striped swimming
costume with a straw benger on and a newspaper he was a short
tubby man.. He would then wade out into the water stick his
straw hat forward on his head and gently lay back and float away
reading his newspaper, quite unconcerned.

Going back to describing the bay before the Second World War
as you walked along the road you came to Tommy Kidd's house
which was opposite the old pier and Millses pond where we
used to play.

We used to call Lord Inverclyde, as a nick name "Lordy". So as

we went further along we came to the little church that Lord
Inverclyde worshiped in, we used to call it the English Church
then next to that came Undercliff where one of my pals lived he
was called Ronnie Herbert.
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Next to that came the stables where Stuart the groom lived
and Lord Inverclyde kept his beautiful thoroughbred horses. I
can’t remember how many horses he had but I think there was
about six. They were magnificent animals for hunting. Looking
back I can remember the stables very well. They were very well
planned even by today’s standards and had a glass roof around
the stables to give shelter to the grooms.

As you walked along after the stables there was a wall about six
feet high stretching right along round the bend which was where
the Dower House for Lord Inverclyde’s mother's gardens were,
there was some corrugated Nissan Huts where some of the
army were billeted during the war. There was this big grey house
similar to Ardvaar which was for Lord Inverclyde’s mother to live
in.

Behind the house was a hall in which Lord Inverclyde used to

have a Christmas party for all the children on the estate, it was
also used for different functions, my brother Billy who is now
eighty-three informed me that our father was social secretary to
the committee, for the social club. At the bend of the road on the
left hand side there was a row of as far as I can remember four
houses and we used to call this part of Wemyss Bay 'The
Parsonage'.

During the war one of the houses was made into a listening post
to detect if any U-Boats tried to sneak up the Clyde under a ship
that would be bringing supplies which were badly needed. There
was some sort of device that stretched across the Clyde under
the sea to somewhere near Innellan. The sailors that manned the
station used to sit with head phones listening. They were billeted
in a house that was in the court yard opposite the
entrance into where the social club was situated. This
court yard was where the horse boxes were kept. My pal Hughie
Bar lived in one of the houses that was in the yard.

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Above the yard towards the castle there was a tennis court
with a large wooden building I presume for the dressing
rooms and refreshments. (This was where a lot of Canadian and
American soldjiers were sheltered) in the yard there was also a
pig sty and we used to pinch apples and give them a treat. They
got used to us and wait in anticipation for their tit bits.

When you walked out of the entrance to the yard and walked up
the hill you came to a little red sandstone lodge with big iron
ornamental gates which were closed every night at a certain
time.

The grounds to the Castle were very well kept with beautiful
clumps of different types of rhodendrons with very nicely cut
lawns. The road to the Castle was all covered with white pebbles
and then of course there was this beautiful Castle Building.

'Lordy' had four gardeners and they all lived in the bothy, this
was a row of I think four little cottages and there was a lady
called Thomasina Halliday that used to keep house for them,
cooking, cleaning etc.

The names of the gardeners as far as I can remember were Alex

McCluckie, Johnny McCulloch and Black Jock. We called him
that because he had a wee black scotch terrier. This little Scottie
didn’t seem to like me every time I was near it the growling
started. Each of the shrubs had been given to Lord Inverclyde by
some dignitary who had visited the Castle.

On one of my visits I called at the Castle just when it was

beginning to be a ruin and as I was admiring this beautiful shrub
I noticed a plaque which someone must have missed, so I picked
it up and I now have it in my garden. I also brought a part of the
castle and have it in my garden with part of my old house where
I was born. It brings back great memories when I am gardening.

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The plaque that I brought back which has a raised printing on it
and it says "THIS TREE WAS PLANTED BY MONSIEUR JEAN
CHAUVAL FRENCH AMBASSADOR TO THE COURT OF ST JAMES
DURING HIS VISIT TO CASTLE WEMYSS ON 29th APRIL 1955".
Looking back and seeing the Castle in my mind and when Lord
Inverclyde had his garden party’s and galas on special occasions,
I really can’t imagine how the powers that be allowed it to get
pulled down.

While I am walking down memory lane, I had been with my pals

and being boys had done something wrong. We had been caught
and our local policeman lived in Inverkip, the next village up
on the Renfrewshire side further up the coast towards Greenock.
We nick-named him “Gabby Allan” and he had us up in front of
His Lordship.

Lord Inverclyde was giving us a lecture and I couldn’t keep my

eyes of Gabby Allan bending up and down saying “Yes Your
Lordship “. I can remember the inside of the Castle, it had the
most beautiful mosaic floor and on the walls were swords and
shields and animal heads. Years later I was on another trip to
Wemyss Bay and the Castle was in complete ruins and as I
mentioned before there were large pieces of mosaic flooring
scattered about, it was very sad to see.

It would be in the early thirties that I can remember my father

getting us all up early one morning. He was very excited and told
us to look out of our scullery window which faced the pier and as
we looked we saw the Graff Zeppelin airship flying over and
going across towards Rothesay, I can remember it very well.
Looking back I think that my father must have been informed
about it coming to have us all up so early.

Earlier I mentioned the creek which was situated about a quarter

of a mile from our house and I should say that it was one of our
favourite places to play. It was very convenient for my mother,
as she had a special signal for us to go back to the house when it
15
was meal times. She always told us to be very careful and to
keep looking towards the house when it was time for our meals
and we would see my mother waving a tea towel out of the
window, as I am writing this I can see it very clearly in my mind,
in fact when you look at the Wemyss Bay.net the picture in the
centre of the 'Welcome To Wemyss Bay' shows you a view
looking towards where I used to live from 'The Creek'.

To any one that is not familiar with the situation of our house
(South Lodge) we had windows facing down the Clyde towards
Largs and windows that faced up the Clyde towards Innellan
across to the other side of the Clyde and 'the creek' was along
the shore about quarter of a mile away and was a solid rock
headland that stood out, but it was too far away for my mother
to shout and be heard, so that was why my mother told us to
keep our eyes peeled when it was near meal times. She would
wave a tea towel to let us know.

My mother and father must have had a worrying time when we

were playing at 'the creek'. The water was deep when the tide
was in. To explain what the creek was like.

It was an inlet in the rocky headland with an entrance of about

30 to 40 feet wide and it was about 80 yards long with a little
sandy shore at the end when the tide was out. But when the tide
was in it was about waist high at the shore end and it gradually
got deeper as you went out towards the open sea. The sides of
the creek were from sea level at the entrance rising towards the
little shore till it was about twenty feet high. The entrance to the
creek was where I learned to swim.

One day as I was swimming across the entrance and as I got to

the other side I grabbed a clump of sea weed to clamber out and
it broke away and I panicked and my brother Alex saved me from
drowning. This is the reason that I mentioned it must have been
a worry at times, especially if the sea was rough, they were
forever warning us of the dangers.
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Going back to the creek it was a very popular place for the
people from Greenock and the upper regions of the Clyde to
come for a days outing. On one occasion on a very nice warm
sunny day quite a lot of people were picnicking at the creek. I
was playing with my pals and watching people diving into the
creek because the tide was in.

Then a big man and I can remember he was ginger headed

came to the edge of the rocks and started to strip off, he had his
trunks on and as he folded his clothes very neatly and then he
preened himself and look around as if to say to all the onlookers,
are you watching, we thought this was great fun, especially when
he went to the highest point of the rocks and stood in a
magnificent diving stance and looked around to make sure that
everyone was watching and then he did this magnificent dive
right into the middle of the creek and swam across to the other
side and smartly pulled himself out of the water and faced all the
people as if to say what about that then.

Me and my pals started to laugh and shouted we can see your

”Willy” He jumped
back into the water and I can remember him struggling to put his
trunks back on, all the people were laughing. He got out
eventually and I can’t remember but he must have “truly” slunk
off with his tail between his legs.

One of my so called pals was a boy who lived at the house that
belonged to the Cliff where they garaged the car, his father was
the chauffeur for the Cliff. He was a fat boy and I was with him
down at the back of Dunloe near where Mr MacGregor lived.

There was a high wall and the apple trees were growing up the
back of the wall which was about six feet high and he asked me
to get some apples. As he was so fat he asked me to climb up
and he would help, by me climbing onto his shoulders. So this I
did and as I was picking a nice big apple I felt this hand pulling
17
my foot as I turned round it was Mr Macphail with my partner in
crime grinning at me. He had gone and told on me and to this
day I don’t know why he did it.

Mr Macphail gave me a good ticking off, but when I look back

he must have thought, little fatty did a very sneaky trick on me.
My Aunt Ada was cook at Dunloe and I think if Mr Macphail
had told her, my parents would have got to know. That is why I
have called him a "so-called" pal.

Above the Dower House that Lord Inverclyde’s mother lived

they had a lot of well kept paths with a lot of different coloured
bushes with little clearances. In one of the clearances there was
a little summer house which had a lot of thick weeds on top.

Me and my pals noticed that there was a young man from

Skelmorlie visiting this summer house fairly often with his young
lady, so being the curious type that we were we knew when he
would be frequenting his love nest we decided to hide on the top
of the roof which was flat and with the high weeds.

Sure enough they turned up and we were well hidden in the thick
assortment of weeds. This was the first time that I learned about
the Birds and the Bees. We kept very quiet and when they had
gone decided that we would do it again. So, next time when we
knew when they were coming again, we hid as before and sure
enough they turned up. After a little time we gave a loud
grunting noise like a pig, jumped off the roof and ran as fast as
we could with our Skelmorlie young man shouting and raving at
us. He never came back again to the summer house.
My mother had her sister and my two cousins coming to stay
with us on a holiday from Yorkshire. My Aunt Hilda was a very
broad Yorkshire lady. I thought this was great fun as we would be
going on trips.

On one occasion my Aunt Hilda, who was very out spoken was
sailing with us all to Millport, we were all on the upper deck and
18
it was a beautiful day when a sea gull decided to part with its
“after dinner” and it landed on my Aunt's head.

I can see it now as clear as day with all the commotion, my Aunt
shouting at the sea gull if I could fly you little B****R I would pull
you inside out. We landed at Millport and had a look around and
then went to a restaurant for our lunch, we sat down and I can
remember when the soup came my mother found that there was
a cigarette end in her soup, What a commotion started, my
Aunt Hilda nearly blew a gasket and called for the dirty B****R
that was the cook.

My mother, who, unlike her sister was a very peace loving

person, was nearly crawling under the table. The waiter came
and said that the cook could not leave the kitchen and I
remember my aunt storming into where the kitchen was to see
the cook. We did get a meal and I suspect that my aunt didn’t
have to pay. I should imagine that the cook gave up smoking
after this episode.

Looking back and thinking of the times that I and my pals went
on fruit raids, it makes me think what a little tearaway that I
must have been when I was a young boy. Lord Inverclyde had a
wonderful big garden and it had a very tall wall when I think
about the height it must have been about twelve feet high. We
wondered how we could get into the garden, then we found a
tree that was near the wall and if we climbed this tree and
clambered along a branch which was quite close to the wall.

We found that when we were on top of the wall the fruit was
supported by metal pegs hammered into the wall with wires that
stretched along to support the weight of the fruit. It made it easy
for us to climb down and was able to get apples and plums. I can
remember at this time i was wearing a corduroy jerkin and with
this new type of fastening” a” zip fastener which made it easy
for me to carry my fruit.

19
We would then go off with our fruit and go down to the coach
and horse box yard and give the pigs a treat. Looking back now I
think that the gardeners must have been missing the fruit,
especially the ripe ones and perhaps they were getting into
trouble because the fruit wasn’t getting ripe enough. On one
occasion we were picking out the ripe fruit, suddenly the
gardeners appeared and I crawled into the rhubarb and lay very
still. They didn’t catch me but caught my two pals who were with
me.

I waited until they had gone and I ran to the part of the garden
where we climbed the wall and shot off home. I must have
dropped the fruit back into the garden when I was escaping and I
kept wondering if one of the gardeners would come and tell my
father. It shows how loyal we were to each other as no one came
to our house.

In the late thirty’s I was playing at the creek when about twenty
Boy’s Brigade came down from Glasgow for the day. It was one
of those very calm days and it must have been in the middle of
summer. The sea was like glass and me and my pals were sitting
on the rocks further round from the creek where the sea is much
deeper. But with the sea being very calm the depth didn’t look
above about four or five feet.

The Boys Brigade captain came down to us and asked if it was

suitable for them to swim, we said yes it would be fine. He said
that it didn’t look very deep we said it is not very deep and sat
back to see what would happen, when I look back I feel
ashamed; it only looked about waist high. They stripped off and
put on their trunks, then walked to the edge of the rocks and we
sat in anticipation to see what would happen. They then walked
back e few yards and took a run and a big jump and then all
bedlam let loose as some of them couldn’t swim and the senior
ones that were fully clothed and could swim had to jump in fully
clothed to get them out. We got up very quickly and disappeared
as quickly as we could.
20
In the bay there were two permanent moorings, one for the Rose
Mary which belonged to Ninian Stewart of Dunloe, the other
belonged to the Clarinda which belonged to Sloane of
Redholme they were two beautiful motor launches and they
looked a picture anchored out in the bay. They would be about
45feet long and had very nice cabins. They were both manned
by two crew members and they kept their boats very spick and
span the brasses on them shone.

My Aunt Ada as I have said before was cook at Dunloe and

Ninian Stewart invited us to go on a sail up to The Holy Loch
on the Rose Mary to visit a destroyer that one of his relative’s
was captain of. It was anchored in The Holy Loch and we were
shown around it looking back I must only have been about four
or five but I can remember what a wonderful day we had. The
Rose Mary was very highly polished and it was a memory that I
will always remember.

When both boats were moored out they were not too far out as
the steamers used to sweep into the bay and then tie up, but of
course the pier was much longer in those days. The Clarinda
and the Rose Mary used to slip their moorings and go up to
Gourock if their was a gale warning and shelter till the storm
passed over, in fact when we saw them go away we knew that
their was a gale going to blow up, sure enough it always did.

On one occasion the two sailors from the Rose Mary were
coming ashore in their small punt, which the Rose Mary carried
on her top deck. They were coming into the creek and the sea
was rough and we were watching when a large wave caught the
punt and capsized it. Both men managed to get ashore and I can
see them now squelching up to Dunloe.

I must at this point take you towards Inverkip. Just after you
turned left from north lodge and went towards Gourock and
Greenock in those days there was no monstrosity and I just can
21
not understand why the powers that be don’t realise that the
beauty of Scotland and its future is going to be with tourism, I
am sure when they see that big sore thumb sticking up from
miles away they will wonder what the politicians were thinking
about. It’s truly planning gone mad.

When I was living at the bay, as you went along the shoreline
there was a small pine copse at the bottom of M'Intyre's field
near the sea. I once camped there with some of the scouts that
would be where the big monstrosity is now situated.

Talking about M'Intyre's field that was where the new estate is
now, left of the road going towards North Lodge. Before the war
an Avro Anson Plane once made a forced landing in M'Intyre's
field and I wondered how they managed to fly it off.

We used to sledge there and had lots of fun. When I looked at

the Inverkip Marina, my mind went back to the days that it was
all sand and very shallow waters with the Kip running through to
the sea. It must have been a tremendous undertaking to build
such a marvellous marina it would certainly have taken a lot of
dredging. I remember when you stood at the War Memorial
where the road turned sharply to Inverkip they have made a
new road that has cut the village off.

As I am writing this I believe that Bank House (South Lodge)

has now been built on, I believe they are flats. Let's hope the
people living in them are very happy, I wonder if the building will
shake when their is a big south westerly gale blowing. Our house
used to shake and with the force of the big south westerly gales
and we used to close the shutters which we had inside the
windows.

The church that I went to was the grey church on the short
hill going up to Skelmorlie it is demolished now and I believe
it was a Mr Richardson that was in charge of the Sunday
school. He organised a Sunday School trip to Ettrick Bay on
22
the Isle of Bute and when we were on the paddle steamer I was
mesmerised watching the paddles and the pistons going round.

We were allowed to walk around the ship and I remember going

down this broad stairway to see where all the passengers used to
go if it was raining and seeing the polished rails for people to
hold onto. We used to watch the paddle steamers come
sweeping into the bay to tie up at the pier to let the passengers
catch their trains.

They carried cargoes and sometimes live stock, on one occasion

it was quite a stormy day and one of the heifers must have got
frightened and it jumped over the rails and it swam into the
shore by our back gate which went down to the beach. The poor
animal tried to climb up the steps but we managed to shoo it
away and it finished up in Woodburn’s garden. We had great
fun watching people from the station trying to catch it,
eventually they managed to catch it and take it away.

As I have called this my memories, another has come to mind. It

must have been about 1932 and I can remember Kelly House in
ruins and the magnificent grass banks that swept down from the
house. The roads were very well kept and their used to be huge
Monkey Puzzle trees it was a beautiful place for taking a walk.

My mother and father used to take us a walk up the Kelly Glen

and I remember we used to come to the Roman Bridge, there
was a large stone in the middle of the bridge and it was named
the wishing stone, so we all made a wish, This was a lovely walk
as we walked passed M'Intyre's Farm and down to the entrance
to the estate where Mr McGregor, the black smith, lived in a
little red sand stone cottage. This was at the top of the hill
and we walked down towards the Wemyss Bay Hotel and our
house, this is a memory that I often think about. Now it is a large
caravan park. “How things have changed”

23
Kelly Estate is a very large caravan park as I have just
remarked and I suppose that it will be very popular with people
from the upper Clyde regions. The pier is much shorter than it
used to be.

At one time you could see about five steamers tied up, they
must have shortened it by a quarter of its original length or so it
seems to me. My personal opinion is with the pier being
shortened it stopped the full force of the sea from being a
breakwater for the bay. That of course is only my opinion. When I
was last on the beach next to our old house it was all
undermined where the sea had washed away part of the
foundations it made me feel very sad.

Another wonderful memory, when it was a stormy day and

looking across towards Anellan you could see the little puffers
buffeting their way down the Clyde with the spray flying out from
the bows, as they plied their way to their destinations.

To give you a description of what a puffer was like. It was a squat

tubby little boat and it had a red hull with black above the water
line. It was a fairly broad beamed boat with a little glass cabin
with a high bow with a mast forward and had a boom crane to lift
heavy goods, it had a steam winch so that there wasn’t any type
of cargo that it couldn’t handle. They used to arrive at their
destination at high water and beach the boat and wait for the
tide to go out and then unload their cargo. They were the answer
for shifting goods around the various small destinations. When
the tide came in they would float off and continue on their way,
the steam engine used to make this puffing sound. This is why
they were called the wee puffers.

Mr McGregor was the blacksmith to the village and he used

to shoe all the railway horses and Lord Inverclyde’s. He was a
very kind man and didn’t mind when I would stand and watch
him at his work, they used to bring up to the smithy the great big
shire horses and he used to handle them as if they were lambs
24
but when Lord Inverclyde’s thoroughbreds came to the smithy
he would tell me to stand at a certain part of the smithy as they
were highly strung and they used to jump about and kick, but he
didn’t seem to mind and carried on with his work. As I have
mentioned before he lived in a little cottage across the road at
the entrance to the Kelly Estate just at the top of the hill.

The third of September 1939 is a very vivid memory to me as

I was along at the station and can remember it very well. The
Second World War had been declared. It would be early in 1940
that Alex, Billy and I were up in Thompson’s field which was
opposite the back of Dunloe and Redholme.

We had been to see our Aunt who was cook at Dunloe and as we
were walking along the road between the field and the houses
we could hear this funny sort of noise. It was a German
reconnaissance plane. We didn’t know at the time but this was
going to be a common occurrence. We looked up and we couldn’t
see it and then Billy said look I can see it, Alex and I looked but
we couldn’t see it then suddenly we saw a tiny glitter it must
have been the sun shining on his windscreen or something. But
we soon learned after this, that there was going to be an air raid
on Greenock or Clydeside. It always followed that there was
going to be raid after a plane had been over.

At this time Britain hadn’t enough fighters to intercept the

reconnaissance planes, but I think they were flying too high for
them at that time and they could get away with it. This was a
very exciting time for us as young boys we didn’t realise just how
bad things were. I was playing with some of my pals and we
found an incendiary bomb which hadn’t gone off. It was
embedded into a ploughed field; we dug it out and found that it
wasn’t too heavy.

We decided to set it off, so as we were at the bottom of

Thompson’s field and there was a row of trees we found one
that we could climb and we managed to get it up about fifteen
25
feet and dropped it and it still would not go off, there was a
gentleman coming along the road and saw what we were trying
to do he nearly had a fit and reported the bomb to one of the
military that were on the searchlight station which was in the
field behind the smithy, what a palaver started as they came to
take it away . They told us it was very dangerous.

My brother Billy comes down to my house on a Tuesday evening,

he doesn’t live far from me in Halifax, West Yorkshire and as he is
three years older than me we often reminisce about our
childhood, he can remember such a lot more than me and
reminded me about the listening post at the parsonage that I
mentioned earlier, we were talking about the listening post that
was at the parsonage and he mentioned the sailors that were
manning the listening post making ships in bottles to while away
their time.

We were talking about all the shipping that plied to and fro from
the Clyde. And how the boom which stretched across the Clyde
to keep U-Boats from sneaking in somewhere about the Gourock
area must have been kept very busy opening and shutting with
so much shipping coming in and out.

There was a Dutch destroyer that was getting provisioned with

ammunition and some how there was a very unfortunate
accident and it blew up, as far as I know there were no
survivors. When you looked across the water towards Dunoon
from Greenock you could see the bow and the mast sticking out
of the sea, it was like that when we left Scotland for Yorkshire.
They must have salvaged the wreckage to make it safe for other
shipping.

When the blitzes were on we could hear all the commotion

going on up by Greenock and could smell all the burning in the
aftermath of the bombings. The German bombers would unload
their bombs as they fled and some would land around our area.

26
One night there was a tremendous bang and it shook the house,
we heard that it was an explosion which came from the sea. We
never found out what it was but there was no damage ashore.
Sometimes we could see the German bombers flying up
following the Clyde when they were going to bomb Clydeside.
When it was a nice moonlight night we always expected a raid.
On one occasion one flew very low over the bay just after
an air raid. I think that was when they released any surplus
explosives to lighten their aircraft.

In Skelmorlie just below the Hydro Hotel steps and just a bit
further along towards Largs there is a white pole and a mile
further towards Largs another, this is the measured mile for
ships that have just been built to go on a speed trial, this was
called 'The Measured Mile' which was only about two miles from
the bay.

One day there were people sunbathing on the shore near the
creek and when all of a sudden a Royal Navy destroyer came
very close to the bay and it was going at full speed ahead, I
suppose to register its top speed for the measured mile. Looking
back I think it was a very dangerous thing to do. I think it should
have sounded a warning of some sort, because the wash was
enormous. I can remember that the wash was so big and with
such force that stones were flying up the beach as the waves hit
the shore. Fortunately there was no one swimming at the time.

People ran up the shore in a panic and where they had been
sunbathing on the shore all their clothes and towels were
washed away, we all set to after the waves had calmed down
and collected the garments and towels that had been washed
away. The destroyer must have been a new one that had been
built in the shipyards which were above Greenock and it was on
its trials.

One very sad memory was watching the battleship HMS Hood
sailing out of the Clyde. Later it was reported that she had been
27
blown up by a lucky hit from the Bismarck. Apparently a lucky
shell had hit the magazine, there were only Two Survivors. That
evening that we saw the Hood going out of the Clyde she looked
invincible, she was a long sleek ship with a stream lined bow, she
was supported with some escorts, it makes me feel very sad to
think of all the ships company that were lost.

I can remember lots of scar torn merchantmen getting towed up

the Clyde and think of all those brave men that ran the gauntlet
with the U-Boats and often got lost at sea. One memory that
really sticks out in my mind, I think the ship was called the San
Demetrio of London and it was getting towed up with a big tug.
All sorts of memory’s come to mind about the shipping that
came up the Clyde after running the gauntlet.

Going back to the entrance to Lord Inverclyde’s castle it was

a picture to see with the big iron gates and this very neat lodge
and the driveway all white pebbles and the lovely coloured
bushes. I believe that it must have been 1936 that the then
Emperor of Abyssinia, Haille Se Lassie came to visit Lord
Inverclyde.

The memory stands out in my mind very much. I was walking

towards my house I saw Lord Inverclyde’s car coming with other
cars following; I made a bee line to Redholme and jumped over
the fence because we were supposed to stand to attention as he
passed. When the cars passed me I could see this foreign looking
man with a goatee beard he looked small, this must have been
Haille Se Lassie.

When I was last up in Scotland and I called around the bay and
was pleasantly surprised to see what a very nice estate that had
been built where the castle had been.

I was trying to get my bearings as to the exact spot where the

castle had stood, I was turning my car around and then got out
and I realised that a gentleman that lived there was watching me
28
and realised that I must have looked suspicious so I made myself
known to him and told him that I was looking up my old haunts
and that I was sorry that I had been looking suspicious.
He was a very nice gentleman and as we talked he didn’t seem
to know much about the history of the bay. I did tell him a little
bit, but I realised that I was probably boring the pants of him. So
I left him and made my way back to Brisbane Glen Caravan site.
Later I thought about this young gentleman and how important
the bay had been during the war. So it was a good job that I set
of back to Largs or we would be there yet blathering on.

So as I will carry on with the memories of the estate, I think Lord

Inverclyde’s old pier is still there. Rolling back the years to
the 1930’s I can remember his private yacht. Or I should say a
small steamer. Of course with him being connected to the
Cunard Shipping Line it certainly did him justice. They did say
that he was the richest man in Scotland but I couldn’t vouch for
that, it was he was the son of George Burns.

After I had talked to the young gentleman I thought about the

things that he had told me about the woodland walks so I went
back to the bay the next evening, my wife watched all of the
soaps so it gave me time to investigate.

I went up the hill past where the castle had been and intended to
drive along to where Mr Napier had lived and towards The
Cliff, but the road had bollards put across.

During the war that road was crammed with tanks and Bren gun
carriers and the troops were Canadian and American, in fact they
were camouflaged and Kelly Estate was full of them as well. I
believe they went to the North African campaign, we saw the
great big Tank Landing Craft coming into the bay and load up.
Weeks later we heard about the African landings and I suppose
that the troops that we saw were in the thick of it. So any one
looking at the broken concrete on the Wemyss Bay shore can just

29
think what an important part that Wemyss Bay played in the last
war.

Talking about the concrete when they were laying it our lives
were a misery for a while if I remember correctly they carried on
right through the night as well. I can’t remember how long it took
them but it was a few weeks. After they had finished laying all
the concrete they started to bring the tanks on transporters,
when all of a sudden as we were having our lunch the house
shook, when we went to look we had a huge Churchill tank in
our garden.

What had happened was when one of the transporters that

carried the tanks had come down the hill and opposite the
Wemyss Bay Hotel it had turned into the bay and when it was
opposite our Garden it had toppled over, they had to get a big
crane to come and lift it out.

When the concrete slipway was completed it transformed the

bay, it looked a different place. When the big south-westerly
gales blew up the Clyde, the waves went right over the road and
sometimes into Woodburn and Cardell’s gardens. I think that
before the concrete was laid the waves were dissipated by the
pebbles and they sank into them and the bulk of the waves were
held back by the breakwater.

Now to continue our journey as we go down the road and past

the cliff, on the left hand side was all the fields belonging to the
Thompson’s.

As you carried on you walked along the back of all the big houses
that faced out into the Clyde until you came to the Middle
Lodge where the McIntyre’s lived which was next to the
smithy.

This lodge had a gate and every year for one day all three lodges
had to lock their gates to keep the bay private by law. As you
30
turned left and walked up the main road towards Inverkip you
came to a Mrs McPherson’s shop and then as you walked
further up the road you came to the road to Thompson’s farm
and Forbes Place, then to North Lodge that was Lord
Inverclyde’s estate.

That Sunday morning when war was declared as I have said

before my father was very upset. I expect that he was thinking
back twenty or so years to the last war that was supposed to
finish all wars. I believe that my father lost his right hand at
Festubert and he was only nineteen years old. He never talked
about it.

We noticed how the war changed our life. Immediately the home
guard was formed. Believe me it was very much like "Dad’s
Army" that we watch on television.

The 'Captain Mainwaring' of the Wemyss Bay Home Guard

was Mr Napier, I think he must have had a commission in the
army in the 1914 – 18 war as he seemed to act very importantly.
His house was situated at the top of the hill where you went
down past Thompson’s Farm, which was a bit further up from
The Cliff.

The hill that I mentioned pushing Edith in her pram was the road
that went on
towards the main road and it came out at Forbes Place.

When the Home Guard was formed I joined the army cadets
and I was kitted out with an army uniform with a forage cap and
puttees, I thought that I was the cat’s whiskers. Tommy Hey
was the Skelmorlie Army Cadet but I can’t remember who the
Inverkip one was, we were used as messengers between each
platoon. I don’t think that they had any field communications
with each other but of course everything was so short of
equipment at the beginning of the war.

31
I am sure that if the German army had decided to invade our
country at the beginning of the war Great Britain wouldn’t have
had a chance for we were so badly equipped.

When the church bells began to toll one evening , this was the
special warning that the country had to warn people if there was
an invasion, I can recall my oldest brother Calder getting his
sheath knife and his wooden rifle to go to his post. Luckily it was
a false alarm, although I did hear a rumour that they had tried.

Some of the home guards had Lee Enfield rifles and others had
wooden rifles to make it look as if we were well prepared. This
would be to let any spies report how ready we were.

In fact I remember that there was a rumour that a spy was

caught under the bridge which ran over the Kelly Burn, I have
often wondered if this was true, perhaps someone will know, if
any records were kept.

The Wemyss Bay Home Guard were allotted a Spigot Mortar

which Mr Napier had positioned just over at the side covering
the main road towards the station

I used to enjoy the manoeuvres that we had. On one of them, it

was between Inverkip and Wemyss Bay. Inverkip had a flag at
M'Intyre's Farm and we were supposed to attack this position.

Mr Napier had me in front of him to brief me about finding out

where they had positioned their sentries. I can remember when I
was crawling along the hedge rows I could smell cigarette smoke
and hear voices. I kept going towards M'Intyre's farm and saw
other home guards at another point I crawled round the place
where the flag was and returned to the Wemyss Bay Home
Guards and told Mr Napier where the enemy were positioned.
But I didn’t tell him that I could have brought the flag back.

32
On another manoeuvre, I can’t remember who it was that was
attacking us but I think that it was the army and the Wemyss Bay
and Skelmorlie and Inverkip Home Guards joined to keep them
from landing down at The Meigle, this is a point of land jutting
out from the shore and there were a few trees and some scrub
land with fearns and long grass on the Largs road.

We all hid amongst the cover that we had, some of the home
guards picked stones and put them in their pockets to use as
hand grenades then we saw a landing craft appearing. It came
into the shore and dropped its draw bridge and the poor soldiers
ran down and immediately they were up to nearly their waists in
water. Apparently it must have grounded on some hidden rocks.
But to add injury to their difficulties when they ran up the shore
they were met with stones and a lot of noise from the home
guards. Some of the home guards were hidden up in the trees
and amongst the bushes and scrub land.

On another occasion at the Wemyss Bay pier a Mr Graham

was shot by a shot gun blank cartridge and he died of his
injury, this made us all think more seriously when we went on
manoeuvres.

Somewhere between Gourock and Dunoon there was a boom

defence to stop U-boats from getting amongst the shipping at
the tail of the bank. One day a U-Boat managed to get into
the reasonably safe anchorage and all hell was let loose as
navy destroyers depth charged the area and I really don’t know
what happened but it was a few days later that when I was
playing along the shore I found a German Sailors hat.

When I went home with my trophy, to get it dried my mother was

very upset, I suppose looking back she would be thinking about
the poor soul that had been destroyed with the depth-charging
and she would be thinking about her own sons. She would be
thinking about some poor mother losing her son. Not long after

33
we found a crate of tinned soup that was obviously
German. Incidentally we didn’t eat it.

Going back to our manoeuvres, the Inverkip and Wemyss Bay

Home Guards were having one of their manoeuvres and the
Wemyss Bay were just attacking the Inverkip Home guards and
at the bend where the Cenotaph was one of the S.M.T buses
was coming back to Greenock from Largs and one of our lads
threw a flash bang. It went off under the bus and the driver,
jumped out and started to run as fast as he could away from the
scene. I really can’t remember just what happened. But with the
noise that the Flash Bangs made he must have thought that the
Gerries had landed.

There were a lot of silly sort of orders that the public was
supposed to adhere to.

One was not to smoke a lighted cigarette in the open as a

German bomber would be likely to see it, yet the few cars that
were on the road at this time had to black their head lights until
their was only a slit about 6 inches long and about half an inch,
to light the road looking back it was a very panicky great Britain,
I suppose the powers that be had to take every precaution. But
when the headlights in those days were on full beam they were
not much brighter than our side lights of today’s modern cars
with their halogen lights. Everyone was jittery and they even told
us that walls have ears.

At the station bookstall Mrs Dunbar used to be the

manageress and the Moodie family were responsible for the
delivery of papers to Skelmorlie and Wemyss Bay.

Calder my oldest brother was responsible for the Bay and Billy
the second oldest, round lower Skelmorlie and Alex was the next
oldest and I delivered upper Skelmorlie which was split into two
arieas, I had the lower part going along towards the Hydro Hotel
and Alex the top half by the Diggings and along by the police
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station. We delivered the papers after school and in the winter
months it was quite frightening with there being a black out.

I now live in Halifax, West Yorkshire and in the early 40’s they
had a Halifax Slasher, it gripped the whole of Britain, there
were reports from various parts of the country and sure enough
Skelmorlie joined the panic stricken nation.

As it turned out it was someone who had slashed himself with a

razor for some sort of self publicity but you can imagine my
brothers and me when it was a dark wintry night having to
deliver the papers.

I can remember delivering the papers to a house just above the

Hydro Hotel called
Stroove. It was a wet winter’s night and the wind was whistling
in the trees and as you entered Stroove’s drive there was a
small bridge with a burn flowing underneath and I got there
papers out of my bag and threw them into the burn.

To this day I have not heard why no one ever said anything about
my very poor behaviour; Mrs Dunbar must have been a very
understanding lady. As it turned out in Skelmorlie it was an
elderly man who we called wee Tim he used to help out at
Sleven's shop which was just down from the school, apparently
he had cut himself when he was shaving.

This gives you an idea just how jittery the whole of Britain was
like. I had to go after Stroove to the Hydro Hotel with their
papers and then I think I ran all the way home. My mother
always had a big pan of soup ready for us when we got home.

After the concrete had set on the Wemyss Bay shore it

became full of activity with Tank Landing Craft coming in and
out taking commandoes across to Loch Striven where they
carried out very advanced training, climbing mountains and I
believe using live ammunition. We saw ambulances coming down
35
to the bay to take away the commandoes that had been injured I
think to Greenock. This happened quite regularly and my father
and mother used to be very upset.

When it was a bit stormy and the landing craft used to come in
to the bay they used to drop their anchor from their stern so that
they could winch their way out if they were going to get washed
broadside to the beach (At the time little did I know that I would
be in the Royal Navy and on a T.L.C) so as I am narrating this, I
feel for the crew.

One day a Tank Landing Craft, just like the one that I was on
came into the bay and dropped his anchor, the sea blew up a bit
and with it being a sandy patch where the anchor was dropped
on, it dragged it and was washed broadside to the beach.
The waves bashed against the side and spray flew everywhere,
we thought that it was great fun. But as an ex-sailor from a T.L.C.
the poor crew must have had an awful rough time of it. When the
storm died down and the tide came in a large recovery boat
came and towed the T.L.C. off.

At the bay when the very large tank landing ships came in to
land their tanks, they often got stuck on the sand bank and
they thought that it was safe to unload their tanks, we used to
watch in anticipation and we knew that the water was quite deep
between the sand bank and the shore. They would drop their
ramps and then the tanks would start to drive off, after it had
travelled about twenty yards it suddenly would disappear and
the poor tank crew had to scramble out.

As time went on we noticed that they had a long pipe attached

to their exhausts so that the engines could keep going without
cutting out, I believe that Pearson’s Garage made some of
the attachments.

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When the tanks were fitted with their new exhausts it used to
look funny to see the tanks go under the water and then appear
and carry on to where the new concrete started.

I often wondered how the tank crews went on and how much
water got into the tank. This was quite a source of amusement
for us because we knew when we saw them coming, that there
was going to be some fun because we knew the state of the tide
and what would happen. Of course with them being such big
ships they grounded much further out than the smaller Tank
Landing Craft.

One late evening in the summer of 1941 as it was getting

dark, it must have been late my mother got us out of bed to see
and listen to the convoy of troop ships that were sailing out
of the Clyde. It is one of my most memorable moments of my
life.

I would like you to imagine looking out over a very open expanse
of the Clyde with the sea like glass and no wind and not a cloud
in the sky. The moonlight was shimmering across the sea and
you couldn’t imagine that there was a war on. I can remember it
so well you could see the silhouette’s of all the ships as they
sailed towards the open sea.

It was a very nostalgic moment as the bagpipes were playing

and they echoed across the Clyde, It was a very moving scene
especially with the back ground silhouette of Arran. With there
being a blackout it made it a very special memory. The tune that
the pipes were playing was 'Over The Sea to Skye'. Not long after
we heard that there had been various battles and it made you
think of all the troops that had sailed out of the Clyde that night.

On one occasion a large assault ship came into the bay and
anchored just opposite our house. Along each side of the ship
there were assault boats, about ten on each

37
side, they were all slung on davits. The ship must have been on
an exercise to test the speed that they could drop their crafts
into the sea and fill them with troops.

Then they sent them ashore as if they were attacking some

target and after they had carried out their attack they returned
to the mother ship.

Each craft held about thirty commandoes and as soon as they all
scrambled down the ships side on the nets that they had hung
down the side of the ship and got into their assault crafts they
set of at full speed and landed on the concrete shore and as they
were all ashore, they all got back into their boats and sped back
to the mother ship. They climbed aboard very quick and hoisted
their assault boats aboard and up anchored and went of up the
Clyde towards Greenock. Looking back they were very quick
considering the amount of commandoes that were involved.

Looking back it makes me realise how very important that

Wemyss Bay was during the last world war we saw many troops
and equipment leaving the bay.

Now looking back I think of all the sailors of all nations

irrespective of enemy or foe, and all those years ago the heart
breaks that the war must have caused. I think of the merchant
navy running the gauntlet with the U-Boats and all the other
armed forces. They all served their countries and it makes you
wonder to what purpose, because now in the year two thousand
and seven with suicide bombers and the 9/11 in New York –
WILL WE EVER LEARN.

My father died in June 1942 and he is buried in the Largs

Cemetery which is a great credit to Largs as it is kept in a very
nice condition. After my father had died my mother who was
from Yorkshire originally felt like going back to where her side of
the family lived. So at the end of 1943 we left Scotland to go and
live in England.
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The evening that we left Scotland there was the most beautiful
sun set I think that I have ever seen. I have never forgotten how
miserable I felt as the train pulled out of the Wemyss Bay station,
as it was going slowly along the track and passing over the
bridge by our house, my poor mother was in tears looking out of
the carriage window, we were looking at the hotel and South
Lodge and you could see Wemyss Bay in all its glory. This was
Scotland at its very best, with the mountains in the back ground
with this lovely pinkish tinge.

When I am in my car driving along, I often put my disc on with

Kenneth McKeller singing 'The Song of The Clyde', which says
"The River Clyde, The Beautiful Clyde, the name of it thrills me
and fills me with pride". How Fitting To End.

Note - Yachts - Ninian Stewart's Rose Mary (?) and Sloane's

Clarinda (?) (Top Left) and South Lodge (Bottom Right)

39