1962 Evening Citizen reports on Caldervale
I’ve previously written a few articles about Fin Me Oot, or its official title, Caldervale, the small community on the outskirts of the Parish, housing miners and their families of nearby Blantyreferme Colliery.
Most accounts about Caldervale end with “it was abandoned in the 1960s”, which is correct, but until now, been rather vague. This is true for articles on other sites and references in published books. This week, I was passed an image of the front page of a newspaper, Evening Citizen. To be more exact the 24th February 1962 edition.
The story features the last family still living in one of the 40 homes that were once there. Mr William Green and his family are pictured at the abandoned row of houses and the article confirms that they had been the sole occupants at that time for 8 months i.e since June 1961. It was also noted at Feb 1962 that the family were due to move out.
Maureen Law told me this family was her nephew. Williams son, Eddie was the last person born there.
The article is fantastic confirmation of the exact dates of the demise of Caldervale and importantly makes reference even in 1962 that the place was already at that time nicknamed “Fin Me Oot”, due to it’s troublesome nature to find.
Thank you to former Caldervale resident, Tom Eadie for pointing me towards this article. It’s most appreciated and I know of a few people who will be very much interested in these details.
I was born in the police houses in Westburn. In my early years I remember the police officers there talking about ‘Finmeoot’. This meant nothing to me at the time owing to my young age and we left Westburn in 1958. In 1962 the family moved to the police houses in Coatshill, Blantyre. Again I became aware of the officers talking about the place called ‘Finmeoot’. On enquiring about this place of which I had no idea of its location, I was informed that ‘Find Me Out’ was indeed a small mining village near Newton that strangers to the area could never find, hence its pseudonym. Apparently it was used as a point of fun by the seasoned Westburn officers with new recruits, knowing that an officer would never ask the locals for directions to somewhere in their own patrol area.
Gordon Gilchrist
my Aunty Katie and uncle archie Galbraithe and cousins Lochlin and Cathy and Jean lived there until the early sixties, I rember going to visit with my mother and brother and sister and walking across the clyde bridge cat walk and up through the mine head to get to the village,