Kennoway

A Memory of Kennoway.

Kennoway is the place that I have fond memories off and l value, guard and defend our secret village. Memories of the primary school, playing football in the playground, going to the school via the dump and coming home via the dump with my friend Alfi. I have to say, I was a happy wee boy building boogies and bikes from what we found along with our weekly outing to the local dump at Cotlands Park with the Kelly’s and Jimmy Methvan (now gone). I think of my friend Jimmy wondering what life will have been like with him still here. Life in Kennoway was always an adventure the den with its caves and cliff’s the dam, the old railway line and water tower, the fields and Myerside pond catching sticklebacks tadpoles and frogs. The walk to the pond was an adventure walking up to our waist in corn on a summer's day, never tired full of energy and wonder and plenty to say. I miss my friends, growing up and adulthood has alot to answer for but thankfully we still remember the happy time growing up in Kennoway. Growing up, was climbing the ivy at the end of the road at Castle Crescent on the edge of the field reaching the V’s was your test and goal, Drew Cassidy was the best that I can remember. Mrs Thrift who lived in the street made all kinds of tablets and was always giving us bags of crumbs to eat. With my friends David Morris, Alfi Cassidy, Jimmy Methvan, the Kelly’s, Terry Wirniskie and the Johnston’s, Karate, and Donald John. I can go on and on about my life in Kennoway and the happy times growing up from exploring the causeway and the den, where I now live, to the Miggie den camping, getting chased by the farmer when building camps with bails of straw, to building bikes without brakes or tyres flying down Castle Crescent to lying on the road looking up at the stars wondering what was up there. I also remember being hungry and cold and having coats for blankets and wearing hand-me-downs. My mother struggled to make ends meet bringing up a family of two boys and three girls on her own, but that’s another story. I would not change a thing, I class myself as being lucky and happy living in Kennoway with my friends growing up in the secret village that you can only understand by living there. By, Bill Mitchell