Wallace Street Dumabrton

A Memory of Dumbarton.

I was born in Wallace Street, Dumbarton, August 13th 1959 in my grandparent's (Andrew and Mabel Aitken) house named "Bourtree". My other grandparents (Jim and Margaret Brash) lived directly across the road in their house named "Cloughfin". My dad, Mitchell Aitken, a local footballer of some repute having played for Vale of Leven and Shettleston, having married my mum, Irene Aitken (nee Brash) moved in with his parents. I was born at home as apparently that was the way things were commonly done then. In fact I am the eldest of 4 boys and we were all born at home.

The Aitkens at "Bourtree" were a talented family. There was a bourtree or rowan tree in the back garden and hence the name. My grandfather, Andrew, I remember being small, bald and lots of fun, who enjoyed having his grandchildren on his knee and playing magic tricks. He was an electrician at Denny's shipyard and was commonly known as "the dadler". His father had been in the shipyard before him and had also held some post on the board at Dumbarton Football Club. Mabel, my grandmother (nee Smith) was warm and loving and held the family together. The Smiths had been sea captains and worked in the shipyard. John, the eldest son, was a talented local artist and musician. He studied at the Glasgow School of Art and became an art teacher at St. Patrick's School and further a member of the Royal Scottish Academy of Watercolourists. Molly, his sister, married Charlie Sear and moved to Nottingham. Andrew, the second son, became an accountant and moved to Bearsden having married Moira. Nancy, the second daughter married Martin Craig and moved to Helensburgh. Bill, the third son, married Christine and emigrated to South Africa. My dad, Mitchell, was the baby.

On the other side of the road "Cloughfin" had been my grandmother's family home and in fact she was born in that house in 1910. The name had been taken from a farm the family had owned in Ireland in generations past. Her maiden name was Wilson and she had been a school teacher. Her brother John later became the Chief Veterinary Surgeon of Surrey. When I came along my "Big Grandma" worked at John Langs shop at the end of Wallace Street on the High Street. My "Grampa" Jim had been a policemen all his life and had taken his family down to live in London when he joined Scotland Yard. My mother was born in London in 1940 during the blitz. Her younger sister Betty was also born down there a couple of years later. The family moved back to Dumbarton when my mother was 13 years of age and back into "Cloughfin". When my mother married my dad, 6 years later, she still had a cockney accent, which listening to her now is quite difficult to believe. Iain, the eldest and only son went to Oxford and then emigrated to Australia in 1960 where he still resides with his extended family now. Betty married John McIntyre and moved to Bellsmyre.

My dad, like all young men at that time in Dumbarton went into Denny's and served his time. Before I reached the age of one year, mum, dad and me moved to Dillichip Terrace in Bonhill. This was a solitary red stone Victorian terrace in the countryside. My dad at this time was working at Westclox which was a couple of hundred yards down the lane along the small loch (large pond). Looking back, Dillichip was idyllic. I only have warm memories of countryside, picnics and playing. Two of my brothers, Iain and Robin were born there. My Aitken grandparents subsequently moved to Dillichip Terrace from Bourtree. My first real memories are of times spent there. My mum would push her twin pram with myself and Iain, only 18 months younger, all the way back into Wallace Street, it must be at least 3 miles, to see her mother, and back again - and it wasn't flat. Sadly, I can remember 2 boys drowned in that loch, having fallen from a raft they had built.

When I was four we moved to Linwood where the Rootes car factory had opened. This coincided with Denny's shipyard finally closing. However, I returned to see my grandparents in Dumbarton regularly and spent whole summers with my "wee Grandma" Aitken. Following the death of my "wee Papa" she moved back to Williamson Avenue in Dumbarton, right above the "common". From there I would walk through the park to the "Newton" and Wallace Street to see the Brashes. I can remember: the smells of the malt from Ballantynes in the morning, the sweet shop on Church Street, the musical instrumnent shop on Church Street, the beautiful redstone Victorian buildings around Church Street that were all sadly demolished, the Italian cafe on the High Street (owned by an ex prisoner of war- cardosis? ), the huge wall around Denny's Shipyard, untarmaced roads to the rear of Wallace Street where we played (David Henderson was my mate), the big stone at the bottom of Dumbarton Rock which by legend had fallen on a milk maid and her cow, the bowling club at the base of the Rock, shows at the Common, Brock baths, hogmanay parties, the geese at the whisky warehouses, walking up to Dumbarton Cemetery with my grandma, Jackie Stewart's garage, and the ship horns on the Clyde......

Unfortuntely, retuning now, most of the heart seems to have been knocked out of the town with the ring roads and by passes that have been constructed. The town was set on a downward spiral in 1963 when Denny's closed and has never recovered but I still get a warm feeling everytime I see a picture of Dumbarton Castle.


Added 19 June 2013

#241731

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