The Lights of Home

I was brought up in Glenboig. I went to the school that sank, what great memories I have of the old teachers, Mr Mcafee, Mr Gallacher, Mr O'Neill, Mrs Hughes, Mrs Deerie, Mrs Egan and Mrs Clinton in Room 1. I had moved away by the time the school was demolished and I never got to see it beforehand. I remember lovely warm summer days playing in Inchnie and down by the loch, the swans, and taking frogs home and getting chased out to put them back, my granny sitting on the seats at the crossroads, talking to all her old pals and reminiscing about her old days, and picking her horses out the paper and waiting for Paddy Byrne the bookie to open to collect her thruppeny doubles. Everything seemed so much better in they days, the Christmasses with the snow, the prefabs, the sound of the ice-cream man, the boys running round the village when Celtic won a cup (I think that was 1966), the gala days and gymkhanas, the school trips, mass Sundays concerts in the chapel hall and the dances that Jim Brannigan ran there to keep us out of trouble, walking over to Gartcosh loch in the summertime with a picnic, going for a walk up the ducks walk with my friends, playing in the old works - these are just but a few of my memories as I could go on all day about the wonderful magical memories of my childhood. Iglenboig, the lights of home, by Maria Graham, nee Law.