The Burning Bing

A Memory of Queenzieburn.

I was born in Drongan in Ayrshire, but every holiday we had we came to stay with my Gran and Papa, Ruby and Hugh Meudell. We were always so excited to be going"home." When we got out of Kirky on the bus we were glued to the windows looking for the burning bing, just outside the village. We knew as soon as we seen it we would be putting on our jackets to get off the bus, and our great holiday adventures would be starting. We would all run up the steps from the bus stop to our Gran's house in Meadowside Road and fight to see who could get in the door first and pet the cat, Trixie, who was a beautiful wee tortoiseshell cat. It was then a quick hello to our beloved, long suffering Gran and Papa and then further on up the road we would run to see our Uncle Angus and Aunt Nan and our cousins "The Meudells." We would always go first to the swing park where we spent hours playing in the beautiful park surrounded by trees and leafy lanes which were explored inch by inch. Another favourite venture was to all the piggeries which were dotted round the village. We were forgiving of the smell because of the entertainment the pigs provided whilst snuffling up to us, rooting for anything with which we had to feed them. We wouldn't return to the house until we were starving. We were allowed to stay up until our darling Aunt Jessie arrived home from the backshift at Liillieburn pulp factory. Her poor ears must have been burning by the time we had all regaled her with stories of how good we had been since we had last seen her and how bad everyone else had been as we all struggled to impress her the most. We would all go to bed happily with promises of a walk up the braes to find the fairy glen where the fairies lived and played. Aunt Jessie would make daisy chains and would secretly hang them over the branches of trees and tell us they were fairy swings and we had to be very quiet to see the fairies play or they wouldn't make themselves visible. A ploy which in adulthood we recognize was used to keep us relatively well behaved, there were seven of us you see. Uncle Angus would take us up the braes to Angus dam and we would swim and play on the tubes from lorry tyres. Oh the joy of it all. Another source of great joy was being taken through Kilsyth, with Uncle Angus in the sidecar of his motorbike, and up the Tak Me Doon Road and up into the Campsie hills to Carron Bridge. He had a hut there which was kitted out with bunk beds and cooking equipment, we would stay for days and play in the river Carron and roam the Campsie hills. Then you would be taken back to Queenzieburn and off you would roam again through the field behind the community centre which had Highland cows in it and then into the quarry, which was so eerie, I don't know which scared us the most, the quarry or the cows with the big horns. Sundays were great, off to Sunday school without fail and I remember Mr. Soutar so well, he entertained us all and made religion fun, we would not have dreamed of not attending. Every year the Sunday school trip came to Ayr and we would scour the shorefront for our friends from Drongan and show off our cousins. Gracie's shop was another favourite and we would spend ages choosing our sweets which would last us longest on our adventures. The Gala day was another great event, we loved the floats and the races where you could win prizes and show off your rosettes if you got any. Then the berry picking season came, and the place was scoured for raspberries which would be made into jam, it was agony to wait until it set before you got some on bread, pure bliss! Uncle Angus had a gooseberry bush in the back garden and if we raided it, which we always denied, he would tell us that it had been sprayed with laxatives and we would pay the penalty for mooching the gooseberries. My happiest memories live in my heart and this wee village. I could write for hours about it. I am so blessed to have roots in this wee village and to be part of this loyal and loving family, I love each one of them dearly. Then tears and tantrums, it was time for home. Onto the Glasgow bus and past that smouldering pile we called the burning bing, when we boarded the train we sat with tear stained faces looking toward the Campsie hills until they faded from view, and back into our "real" lives which involved school and other disciplines. I would love to know what the burning bing was, perhaps someone will enlighten me.