Buckhaven In The Late Thirties And The 50's

A Memory of Buckhaven.

In the late thirties, my mother worked as a dispatcher in Stuarts Bakery in Church Street just down from the junction with Randolph Street. This building has been closed down now for many years.
In the fifties, I would travel with my parents from London to Buckhaven every year. This originally was by SMT coach, once by train and by 1952 by car. My father kept his car in a garage opposite the house in Randolph Street. We visited my mother's two aunts, Martha and Kate and her husband Willie who lived in Randolph Street next to Factory Road. The entrance to their house was from a yard behind the house and accessed from Factory Road. You went up an external flight of stairs at the back to get into their first floor property - we used to sleep in the loft! The house had an outside toilet in the yard in which my father 'installed' a battery and small light bulb for illumination! I used to be given a plastic token to take to the dairy in Factory Road to pay for the milk... happy days! Buckhaven was a busy place in the fifties with a cinema next to the railway bridge at the east end of College Street. The Co-op was the 'big' shop. To this day, I still remember my aunt's Co-op number! Another happy memory was the Alexander Bluebird buses taking the miners to and from the various collierys close to Buckhaven. Willie used to work at the Michael Colliery until the fire in 1967. When a shift was due to finish, there was a queue of buses waiting outside the colliery to take miners back to their home villages and towns. Sadly progress arrived in Randolph Street and their house along with others was knocked down and flats erected. To this day, I still visit Fife and Buckhaven four times a year to see my parents and continue ancestry hunting! Methil library has a very good collection of maps of old Buckhaven. I always stop at Stuarts in College Street to by a cake and drink.

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