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| Accident at the Bar Quarry, Creetown |
THREE CREETONIAN LADIES & “the days when there wasn’t much light”
The big boys used tae jump over the
mill-lade.
An’ we used tae race the burn up tae
the mill – trying tae outrun the water. Dae ye remember that?
(laughter).
Aye
– An’ a remember being tied tae
the flour bag hoist and no being able to get doon again
(laughter)
We play’d in the burn a lot. It’s
aw changed noo...
An’ the ‘bug hole’ was where we used tae swim... At the confluence of the burns.
An’ down at The Inks
The sea pinks – bright, bright pink flowers.
There’s a picture of me in the museum
– from years ago - down thare with the swans....
...an’ we used to bike to Ravenshall
rocks (The Judge’s Head Rock) six
miles up shore........
................................................
Harbour Street was called the ‘al’ street an’ one of the houses on it was
called ‘The Granite’.....................
Creetown granite is hard tae work...
A remember a neighbour lost his leg
in a dynamite accident up at the quarry.......thair were a fair few
accidents.......
...an often the men would head off to
the quarry in the morning and be sent home again if it was raining – they didnae get paid if they
didnae work.
Do y know about Adamson’s Square?
An’ the sphere... Hideo lived at the quarry–
we took him furniture... an’ invited him for Christmas dinner.
................................
I was away from Creetown fur a while,
but now I live in the same house I was born in......
Beside my house is a garage, which
used to be own’d by the Carson family - who were in the building trade.....they
were a well-off family in Creetown...
I remember the night Jean Carson’s
house went on fire - on what’s now Silver
Street.....
..It makes me laugh tae hear it called
Silver Street.....because it wasnae always call’d that, it was the ‘Back Green Road’ and it was just three
houses.
... I was paperin’ my
house at the time – and there was a problem with the fire hose outside an’ all you could hear was
a voice shouting in the darkness ‘Pump it
up Bill!!!’ over an over again - as they tried to put the flames out (laughter).
I made ham n’ eggs for the boys once
the fire was oot.........
.................................................
I remember... in the days when thare wasnae much light - Bill was
walkin’ past the doctors one night an heard a voice coming from the big hedge.....
Jonny had fallen in tae it an
couldnae get oot again an’ had tae be rescued. (laughter).......
.............................
...Len Harvie had a turf business,
he took over some fields (near the
factory) and tended the grass for a while – he cut it ...... kill’d off the
weeds – an’ the turf was used for bowling greens in Edinburgh (Holyrood) an Glasgow. Some Creetown turf
was laid for the queen when she open’d one o’ the bridges in Edinburgh.........
.........................................
The Silver Band – Barr?
My Great, Great...(I think that’s it...) Grandfather on my mother’s side (James Barr). Well, his mother (a ‘Carson’) - and father ran away to
Liverpool to get married. Jane Carson said she wouldnae raise a family in
Liverpool......so they returned to Creetown where they went on to have 12 children.
.... She was only a small woman tae......
There’s always been a ‘Barr’ in the Silver Band - Jill Barr plays
in it now.
.................................
We used tae play oot all day an
never locked the doors.
My neighbour used to take my
washin in....she even ironed it, including Mickey’s socks! ..........a remember
that day he put on a pair o’ trousers and felt a draught at the back, (name) had managed to iron a hole in tae
the back o’ them (laughter).
What are
your hopes for the future of Creetown?
That we keep fit........
We can’t hope for any more than we have.....
Our children won’t come back
“Mare visitors”............
An’ things for them to do........
Thare used to be a pool on the back
green...........
.......................................
We
used to have a train station here tae....an lots o’ tourists would arrive that
way - the public transport isnae very good now.
The bottom shop is good,
.....
an’ we drive to Dumfries, Glasgow and
Carlisle to buy clothes
....(Discussion about outfit choices
for a forthcoming wedding)....
“Ye cannae buy a pair o pants here” (laughter).
We’ve lost the police station,
the doctors, the nurse......
There was a house for the school
headmaster.
There was a post office,
Dozens of shops.
Annie Erskines – sweetie shop....
and Bessie McMaster would give us a ‘poke’ of sweeties in paper cones she
made from white greaseproof paper.
She would stand for hours while
we a work’d oot what we wanted tae buy..................
I can still remember the smell o’
sweeties an’ parrafin oil.......me too
Bessie McMaster had an Orcadian
boyfriend who would come and visit every year “between the high an’ the harvest” – each year he would ask her tae marry
him an’ she would say no......
Her mother passed away when she was
60 – and it was only then that she married him an’ moved to Orkney....
She’d lived in Creetown all her life
an’ took the change hard..............
Thare are no tradesmen left
– there was Jim Owen (who was in the Silver Band).....his
brothers and sisters went to university and he stayed in Creetown tae carry on
the family trade. Rather than give you what you ask’d fur – he would give you
what he though was best (laughter).
He eventually agreed tae
dae the work a’ needed done on the extension.
Alan Blane (his family owned the mill) was a joiner, painter and decorator.
Whit aboot themes, are ye going
tae come up with themes for the flags? Ye could think aboot the shore, granite,
flora an fauna, smuggling.....what else?....
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| The Inks |
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| Creetown Railway Station |
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