Sir. As a native of the usually far-seeing and assertive “Larkie,” I am surprised that no effort is apparently being made to celebrate an event, not only of interest only, but of national importance. A Larkhall poet is a song depicting some of the characteristics of his townsmen says “Jist like a Larkie man, gey kin’ o’ thrawn. However obstinate dour, or determined the present day Larkie man may be, he is evidently not prepared to lay himself open to be accused and self-conceit or an exaggerated idea of his importance.
Had the building society movement originated in Glasgow, Birmingham, or London, I venture the opinion that considerable preparations would have been made to commemorate the centenary, even in war time, of such a social revolution. Letchworth, Port Sunlight, Bourneville and nearer home, Westerton, Cardonald and elsewhere, have been duly accredited the honour of initiating or developing sound housing reforms, while the modest and unassuming Larkie has even today, after ninety-nine years of building society activities, a larger proportion of house-holders who own their own dwellings than any of the above mentioned ambitious townships.
The memory of its pioneers who instituted the first building society in 1817 deserves to be commemorated, not only by their own descendents in Larkie but in every place where the benefits of building societies and town planning schemes are in operation. There is no doubt that the modest little effort in the Gorbals in 1917 was the forerunner of the present popular and much belauded improvements in the housing conditions of the people. It is to be hoped therefore, that something will be done to celebrate such a unique, and uncommon occurrences. Yours in anticipation. R. Bullock. 11 Grace Drive. South Govan.
Wilma Bolton. 2005
LARKHALL CARTERS.
In the late 1800’s the introduction of a huge lumbering traction engine hauling coal from the old Raploch Colliery near Braehead to Larkhall East Station caused a sensation in the town. Hands were lifted in horror and it was the topic of conversation for weeks. Villagers tut, tut tutted and spoke of the impending disaster as the engine raced through the streets at less than three miles an hour.
The coming of the traction engine resulted in a dozen horses being sent to the auctioneers and their drivers being put out of work.
In the 1870’s there were a number of carters working in Larkhall and among them were a few characters. One of them Jamie Nelson was employed by Boyd and Company quarries and builders known locally as “the company.” Now Jamie like the rest of the Larkhall carters was proud of his calling and he was intensely proud of his “pepper and salt” grey horse. This animal was undoubtedly the largest and most spirited horse in the village and a beautiful sight to see as it brought in a load of stone from Broomhill Quarry with Jamie at its head leading it in to the village. Jamie took great pride in his horse and the two of them together were a study in contrasts with Jamie a small made man leading this giant of a horse down the road.
Another of the carters was “Wullie” Millar. Wullie had lost his job when the traction engine appeared on the scene but his reputation as a carter meant he was not unemployed for long. His job was to cart the dross from the old Raploch Bing to the Bleachfield and like his friend Jamie Nelson he was a small made man but never the less he could handle a horse sixteen to seventeen hands high with no bother at all.
Wattie Broon another carter was an entirely different character from Jamie and Wullie. Wattie was much taller and heavier than his two contemporaries and whereas they were both quiet men Wattie was the opposite. Wattie a loud noisy man was employed by Tom Hepburn, Builder and Quarrier and the two of them with the purchase of a horse at Rutherglen fair provided the village with many a laugh for quite some time.
The men purchased a horse from a young man for eighteen pounds and for all intents and purposes the horse looked a strong fit animal. When they returned to Larkhall the horse was looked over at the Smiddy where Wattie boasted that it “could pu’ doon a hoose.” The farrier Willie Watson had his doubts and suggested that it should be tried in the yoke. This done he didn’t take long to prove that the horse was so weak in the back that it couldn’t back a cart over a straw. Tam and Wullie were mortified and the horse was soon sold to some gypsy’s for three pounds.
Gavin Fairservice was another carter but he was different from the previous three as he owned his own horse and cart. Now this set Guy a cut above the others as he was his own boss and what he gained in prestige in this respect was probably lost on account of the fact that he was ower fond of the drink and frequently in Peggy Cooper’s bar. When his Christian belief’s surfaced he would attend Church on a Sunday and on Monday he stayed away from the pub. By Tuesday he was having a wee drink and by Wednesday he was back to his old ways. Guy earned his living transporting stone from the quarries to the various building sites in the town. His wife owned several milking cows and had her own prosperous dairy business.
The Bleachfield had a horse traction cart which left Larkhall before five in the morning with a load of finished material. It was nine o’clock at night before it returned.
There were several carters who transported coal which in those days was sold either by the ton or if you could not afford this, five to seven hundredweight would be couped at the door for you. Sanny Buwhannan (Buchanan) and his cuddy “Wattie” could deliver up to seven hundredweight from the Old Raploch or the “Patchy” pits. Sanny had the reputation of having an aversion to soap and water and it was reputed that when he did take a bath he used a saucer.
Among his business rivals were Phil McLaughlin and young “Glessie” Glassford. These two men were by far and away more powerfully built and took orders for up to ten or twelve hundredweights. Larkhall in the 1870’s was a rare wee toon with employment for all. Tradesmen prospered and there were jobs for man servants and maid servants at the “big hoose” Broomhill House and Larkhall Building Societies prospered. . Ref. Hamilton Advertiser.15/7/1933.
Wilma Bolton. 2005.
THE END OF THE WORLD.
(LARKHALL STYLE.)
1871.
In 1939 an unnamed “auld” Glengowan laddie wrote about a day long gone but well remembered in Larkhall. He recalled that it was midsummer and he was playing with friends around the old Raploch Pit. As they looked over Glengowan towards Claybanks and Cadzow they saw a thick wall of darkness travelling towards at speed towards them. Within a short space of time it was upon them and all around was almost in total darkness even though it was mid-day.
The boys and everyman about the pithead made immediately for the smith’s shop. The smith, Wullie Watson (not the master smith of that ilk), was sitting on the hearth looking very serious and crowded around was a bunch of carters—Jimmy Greig, Jock Jaap, Archie McMillan; the two enginemen Wullie Broon and J. Moffat; auld Tammas Wilson, horsekeeper; the young Provost o’ Millheugh, J. Wilson, pitheadman; and Sandy Findlayson, checkweighman who made that day a very silent and sombre gathering.
Ultimately the smith, as became his position, spoke up saying, “Well, men I’m a wee feered oor day’s wark is dune; yin o’ you men that gangs tae the Kirk micht pit up a wee bit word or twa o’ a prayer!” Well, I thought if things were so serious, I might be better at hame; so I scooted over the bing to Glengowan, bit it was oot’ o’ the frying-pan intae the fire. At Numbers 18 and 20 the weavin’ shop was empty and the looms were silent. Everybody was upstairs, and as both families on the stair were good, honest Kirk-going folk they were doing all their own praying. We are told that when things are at their worst they begin to mend, but be that as it may, it soon began to clear, and the praying ended also for that time at least, because as you know,
When the devil was sick,
The devil a saint would be;
But when the devil was well,
The devil a saint was he.
It was not only in Larkhall but over Lanarkshire that dark day struck terror to the common people, and it was long before it ceased to be a subject of conversation, but the cause of the phenomenon the storyteller never heard.
Ref. Hamilton Advertiser. 10/12/1938. Here awa’ There awa’ . by “Lavrockha’”
Wilma Bolton. 200
5.12.1876
Dalserf Man Fined
Before the justices at Hamilton yesterday, John Burns, Larkhall, for selling liquor at Bent Farm Dalserf, without a licence, was fined £7.00 with 10s 6d of expenses.
COOK WANTED 31.12.1903
Cook (exper); kitchenmaid kept; 9 indoor- servant; comfortable situation; refs must be good; state age, wage, and refs. Mrs McNeil Hamilton, Broomhill, Larkhall, Lanark
12.07.1926
Larkhall Parish Relief. One third of the population
In Larkhall the Parish Council have expended up to Saturday £10,735,13s,6d in relief to miners dependants, the last weekly payment in Cash and goods amounting to £1599,5s for this class of poor only. With over one third of the population receiving parish relief, and the estimated current expenditure over £8000 more than the rateable rental of the parish, the ratepayers are faced with a poor rate alone of 19s 7d per £1, while 26s 9 ½d per £1 is required for all the parish rates. The present crisis appears to have made Larkhall one of the worst hit parishes in Scotland, because of the comparatively low valuation, and the fact that the majority of the residents own the houses in which they occupy and are thus liable to pay the double rate. During the last 2 weeks in May the staff of the council received over 1600 applications for relief, and now more than six and a half thousand persons are in receipt of relief weekly.
The council I addition to their other expenditure, have expended to date, £13.528. 16s 8d, in relief of the able bodied poor, all of which has been met out of the current income.
It is understood that the council, in view of their grave financial position, have forwarded a strong resolution to the Scottish Board of Health, asking to be wholly relieved of the extraordinary expenditure incurred on the direct instructions of the board; otherwise they will be unable to continue to function. It is contended that this expenditure should be a national, rather than a parochial, charge, as it creates and confines severe hardship in particular communities.
ST. MACHAN’S CHURCH CLOCK.1938.
The clock in St Machan’s was not known to be the best of timekeepers, prompting the following article in the Hamilton Advertiser.:----
To quote my old and dear departed frien’ Willie Stewart, the clock on the steeple at St Machan’s has been a bit ravelt this wheen o’ days or mair. At the beginning of the week the various clock faces appeared to be as united in their indication of time’s fleeting hours as the members of St. Stephen’s discussing the Cabinet crisis, while to continue in Parliamentary phraseology, though north and south made a brave show of hands, the west dial with bare-faced affrontery stared at the world with a look that was both vacant and meaningless. That same evening, curiously enough, St. Machan’s cantrips enabled me to do a bit of fast travelling, a bus which left Charing Cross at six thirty-five landing me at Hamilton Cross at twenty-five minutes to seven. “Lilts and Larks” verses on St. Machan’s clock written nearly fifty years ago, should prove of particular interest to members of the younger generation.
The folk in auld Larkie are angry the noo
An’ a roon about there’s a hullabaloo;
They swear Daddy Time has got donnert or
fu’,
For the clock on their steeple is ravelt.
So auld Daddy Time o’ yer daeins’ think
shame,
An’ strive in the future your fame to reclaim.
Min’ steady gaun Larkie can ne’er be the
hame,
O’ onything squinty or ravelt.
Put a haun on the dial that airts where I
bide*
Put a haun on the face on the “Buffy’s” blin
side,
Gar the ither twa donnert anes sink a’ their
pride,
An’ let nane o’ the fow’r mair get ravelt.
*Greenloan. Ref. Hamilton Advertiser. 5/3/1938. Page 7.
Wilma Bolton. 2005.
LARKHALL STORIES.
1884.
FEVER AND SANITARY REFORM.
A very serious outbreak of typhoid fever has occurred in John Street, here, there being somewhere about fourteen or sixteen cases just now. In one instance it has proved fatal, while several are still in a very serious state. All the cases have occurred since the beginning of the year. Being resident with my family in its midst I feel naturally interested in this matter, and have good reason for asking what has the Local Authority been doing to stay its ravages? I am sorry to say I hear of nothing. No extra precautions being insisted upon; no disinfectants being used. The privies and ashpits during this rainy season, are filled to overflowing, and, coupled with the extra mildness of the season, filling the atmosphere with the germs of the disease. All the evacuations from the body are thrown into these receptacles. It was only yesterday I saw taken to the street several carts of manure taken from a pig’s sty, which much have been impregnating the atmosphere and the ground around it with deadly gases for several months, and that, too, within twelve or fifteen yards of a street well that is being used daily by many in the neighbourhood, in fact by all who have been infected. I make no apology for this letter. Such a state of things deserves the severest condemnation. I would suggest that all the ashpits and privies be properly cleaned and the excrements carted away and all such places properly disinfected by our sanitary inspector every day till the epidemic is stamped out. Trusting that they will apply the remedied thorough, and in no second way, to try and ameliorate the present state of things, is the earnest desire of yours, &c., HYGIENIST. Ref. Hamilton Advertiser. 19/1/1884. Page 6.
