RickMcD

Up early. Got a ferry to catch this morning. Tossed and turned all night. I was in Great Victoria Travel Centre in Belfast yesterday picking up my tickets. Spoke to the same Celtic supporter I saw last week. We had a right old chinwag. A real nice fella. For a Celtic supporter. When I was leaving he said to me to pass on a message to any Hearts fans I come across. 'F**k youse an' yer 1986! Youse f**king blew it!' Will be happy to oblige.

I'm maybe biased but I feel that the demolishing of Blackland House (your wee mistake) was an act of council vandalism. In the 50's it doubled as Glenburn Library and the primary school i attended for a year. it was a lovely old building but I don't actually know much about its history. Somebody pretty rich must have built it and lived in it I'm sure. The lodge house is still there, the old white cottage on Donaldswood Road between the bottom of Braehead Road and Fairway Avenue. A beautiful gravelled driveway led up to the house past a fair sized pond which had some fair sized trout in it. There were a couple of disused garages at the side of the house and these were used as changing rooms when the two football pitches were made on Donaldswood Road more or less on the site that became St.Aelred's School which of course has also gone now. Needless to say the changing rooms were freezing and didn't even have a running tap never mind showers. Kids today don't know how lucky they are!

You're right, I bloody missed it! Had to put my specs on because I thought it was just an empty site. What was all round it back then? Damned if I remember.

We must have been in there at the same time on stacks of occasions. If i remember rightly there were two different prices for big or smaller portions. I loved their shepherds pie and steamed pudding and custard. The staff were always great but took no nonsense from anybody.

That photo damned nearly pulled the old heartstrings. It seemed oh so familiar. Lews clothing store was a fixture there for years and I remember Johnstone's family butchers well too. And a good old SMT Red bus sneaking out of the garage. For a few years while I was at Camphill a crowd of us went to the BR for lunch every day so went up and down Gordon Street at least twice a day.It was the initials for British Restaurant and from memory it was heavily subsidised as a kind of restaurant for the poorer off. It was just beside what is now the Watermill. Are there any pictures of it to view?

I was in my black 1956 Ford Prefect 100E. Honest, I was at times. Roomy enough.

Wee bit coincidental that I've just posted about nocturnal activity not a million miles away.

Think you're spot on , Buddiecat. That's how I remember it too.I recall that the entrance was a sharp left off Causeyside Street immediately you crossed the bridge heading up the way. Youngs in the 50's and 60's stayed open 24 hours and I remember my Dad driving in there very late one night for petrol when I was with him. I wondered where the hell we were going. You would never have known it was there from the outside. I couldn't believe it when I saw the buses lined up down there. Thought it was a magical place.

Buses could cause traffic chaos as they tried to exit. There was an 'us and them' attitude between some car drivers and bus drivers which the bus drivers usually won. Occasionally three or more buses could be lined up waiting trying to get out and if traffic was slow anyway, tempers could get a bit frayed. I never actually saw a punch up but it came close once or twice.

When I was young my Granny lived in Kilbarchan and sometimes my big sister and I got put on a bus from just beside the Kibble School at the terminus right at the top of Springbank Road. Back then there was a terminus at Miliken Park and the Kilbarchan bus at times took a break even though Kilbarchan was only 5 minutes away. There were quite often a dozen or more double deckers lined up and I used to get out and board them and climb up and down the stairs. The driver would give me a shout when he was about to leave. But I'm damned if I knew what kind of buses they were. Wish I could remember. Oh, the innocence of childhood.

Many's the time I was up yonder and the place was alive with guys and their CB equipment. They could be real noisy buggers. I remember the bad language sounded pretty bad. In those days four letter words were OK at Love Street or among guys in the pub or whatever but definitely not for general usage. How things have changed.
I did do a fair bit of mounting up there in my day. Not sure about dogging. If it was jogging you meant, I'll own up to that.

I remember the views from the car parks up the braes and they were always spectacular just like on your photos. Just wish to hell I could remember what I was doing up there.

It was the HQ of Renfrewshire Education Authority in the 50's and 60's . Don't know anything about it before and after that.

There were apparently thirty nine steps in Hannay Street.

You talking about me? I was safely tucked up in bed at the time of your post.
A couple of years back I noticed the name Gallow Green Road and it certainly rang a bell from way back. Racked my brain but just can't remember. Nice name for a road.

If the question was 'Wid ye huv?' then I wid've. If she was playing hard to get, you'd never catch her. Back then. Don't know about now. Bluto is too much of a gent to spill the beans. If there's any to be spilt.

How did you get in that team then? Were the rest of us injured?
First time I saw hurdles was at a BB event and I thought I'd try a sneaky warm up. But I jumped over the hurdle the wrong way ie the supporting feet thingies were pointing towards me. I hit the bloody thing and went down like a ton of bricks. The hurdle didn't move an inch. I've always been a stupid bugger.
Ellen McCubbin was a dynamo. Just a wee lassie but greased lightening and she was lovely. Wonder what became of her?

As has been identified PICTURE 122 was originally the Abercorn School on Renfrew Rd. Built 1902 and C Listed. As Eddy stated the Architect was John Hutchinson who was the architect for the Renfrewshire School Board and designed several Schools in Paisley. The roof is the original roof - buildings were built to last in these days!
Now it is jointly used by Milne Craig, Chartered Accountants and Reid Kerr College. The lower floor of Reid Kerr (Boys Entrance ) is the Abercorn Conference Centre and the upper floor are the photography studios with photography lectures theatres downstairs. I believe the inner part of the building was open - plan but there is now a huge false floor suspended on the upper level. It has a beautiful original wooden bannister leading up to the top floor.
PICTURE 122 ....
PS The wrought iron railings and steps leading down to this building and to what was the Special Needs School are also all C Listed.
Did the Special Needs School have any other name? When I was a boy there was a special needs school in Paisley called Sandyford and from memory it was in down the Renfrew Road somewhere. It was a more cruel world back then and the name Sandyford was a kind of bogey man term. 'You're stupit! You'll get sent to Sandyford!' I remember kids in tears when something like that was yelled at them. When I lived in Glenburn there was a girl lived across the road from me who had hydrocephalus. This resulted in her having a huge head which caused massive problems. She was very intelligent but she was shunted off to Sandyford for the sad truth was that her life would have been hell on earth in an ordinary school.

This will prove to be a red heron but when I was in my early teens I had a paper round that included the Moredun area. There was a house known locally as the Pineapple house. They did actually grow pineapples successfully in a bloody great greenhouse. Can't remember now exactly where it was and with this current picture it's not even clear if it is a house anyway.

Well Eddy, as you know I always had a fondness for Grammarian birds as well. I have to say though, that in my day it was frequently alleged that a fair number of Grammar boys were not really all that interested in birds. Of any sort. Allegedly. Of course I did have quite a few of my mates who were Grammar boys and they did like birds. The exception that proved the rule?

Is that the old BR canteen as it was known? A stack of Camphill pupils, including me, used to go there at lunchtimes.

It's Kelburne without a doubt. The Earls of Glasgow owned huge chunks of Paisley and the Kelburne name was kind of trasplanted into Paisley from the estate in Largs. One of the Earls of Glasgow in the 19th.century gambled away the equivalent of hundreds of millions in todays terms and the Boyle family had to sell all the lands in Paisley. The eldest son is called Lord Kelburne until the old boy dies.
Bluto, did you never come across Patrick Boyle when he was a producer with STV? You did some kind of TV work at one time, did you not?

I would have cried off saying I was sick or if I really had to play I'd have let my opponent win. Mind, the way I play pool I would get stuffed anyway.

Unbelievably, Sonny, I had a very similar experience in the same establishment. I had been playing snooker in the Liberal Club with two guys I worked with. When we came out one of my mates wanted to go up towards the west end to see if he could find an old pub he once visited. He was a Glaswegian and didn't know Paisley well. Couldn't find the pub and the rain started peeing down so we dived in the nearest pub. The Rosebud. I didn't realise what a dive it was. Your description of the locals reaction being like something from a western movie was spot on. The only thing you missed out was the guy playing the piano while wearing a top hat stopping playing and turning round to look. We had gone straight from the office and were wearing suits, collars and ties so you can imagine how much we stood out. We got more or less surrounded by a bunch of gorillas that would frighten the shit out of you. We got the 'Whit's a crowd of f***ing poofs like youse wantin' in here?' I really thought we were in big diffs. For once I had a bit of inspiration. Out of nowhere I remembered that distant cousins of mine drank in there. The Docherty boys from Feegie. I wouldn't be surprised if some of you may have heard of them. Big Rab was one of the hardest men in Paisley and it's fair to say he was no stranger to the polis. I took a chance and said I was hoping to meet my cousin. 'And who the f**k's your cousin?', asked the biggest nastiest gorilla. I crossed my fingers and everything else I could and told them 'Rab Docherty'. There was a stunned silence and suddenly a big change in attitude. Suddenly they were delighted to meet me and actually offered to buy us a drink! I don't like to think what could have happened if I had got that wrong.
I last saw Rab, Robert to me, at my mother's funeral and not long afterwards he died suddenly at a car showroom at the Phoenix. His older brother Philip died in July this year and it was mentioned in the PDE.

I'd forgotten the Ogilvy club was up there. Do you know anything about this Glenfield club? Seems the wrong end of town to have a name like that. Did it have anything to do with the Glen works, I wonder?