The Town That I Love So Well

A Memory of Coatbridge.

1953 onwards from that year I was born. Mum dad and wee brother. Laurelbank until I was two then to the Slap Up when said wee brother was born in '55. 1st school St Augustine's then St Bernard's Shawhead in 1958.
A picture of me at the Fountain, original site, in the 'tiser handling a machine gun with soldiers, must have been some parade or something.
The lochs, West End Park, sneaking into the Rovers for free, Baxters buses, Highland buses to Glenboig to visit my cousins, the Condrons, The Whifflet, St Mary's church where I was an Altar Boy, St Mary's HS then to St Pat's (Comprehensive education came in 1969). Old Teachers (eventually became one myself) especially Mr Brady at St Bernard's, Mrs Tulips, Mr Christie the HT, Pat McCarron the Jannie, school dinners coming in from the kitchens near the Whifflet, The Garden (later Lees) club on Saturday morning then when that closed to the ABC minors in the Regal, The Cinema, Odeon, BB's, Theatre Royal with mates to whatever picture appealed. Jubilees (coke or orange), lucky bags, MB bars, penny whites. the Glen and the table top 'mountain', the daisy hill, old trains and wagons nearby, the swing over the Calder burn. Hundreds of memories and images of the mind, friends whose names are lost.....my old life.