Continuing a look at former Auchentibber resident Flora Dickson Potter’s Memoirs and research of the area. Kindly shared here by Janet Cochrane. In Flora’s words and continued from previous parts 1 to 3:
“Auchentibber – The People: A community is comprised of people and when the people drift away, the community cannot survive. Alas that was the fate of the village of Auchentibber which in the days before 1914 consisted of some 500 souls. As has already been said the men of the village were mainly employed as miners while the women folk helped out the farmers with their summer harvest and found employment at Calderwood Castle, which the Scottish Co-operative Wholesale Society had acquired for agricultural purposes.
Some families lives in the village for many years without giving the location of these families, names which spring up are Baird, Borland, Brown, Burnet, Dalgarno, Dickson, Gallacher, Gillespie, Henderson, Leggat, McLean, McLeod, Murchie, Nodwell, Potter, Powell, Reddiex, Richmond, Sergison, Shanks and Strang. Undoubtably, however the leader of the community in the 1920’s was James B H Struthers of the Auchentibber Inn who through his philantrophy provided the village with its famous memorial gardens. His predecessor as proprietor at the Inn was either David H Taylor or Smart Hunter.
1914 Auchentibber Store
Besides these spirit merchants there had been two grocers in 1878 – Charles Laird and Hugh McKerrow. By the 1920’s the prinicpal grocer was McKendricks and their Auchentibber Store supplied many of the necessities. Vans also come to the village from Blantyre and Hamilton and there were also the wee sweetie shops for the sweet toothed children. “
How good it is to see a former resident in Auchentibber name those good, strong Auchentibber surnames that are so associated with the area.
Pictured in 1914 are the Potters outside Auchentibber Store.
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