A lady named Karen asks, “Hi Paul, I am looking for help trying to find out details of my gran (Mary Hutchison, nee Barratt). I’ve been told she used to have or work in a small shop in High Blantyre that sold sweets, don’t know if it sold anything else though). It was before my mum was born and she said it would be around the late 1930’s, and before my grandad (John Hutchison) died in a pit accident (1942), sorry but don’t know the name of it, but would be curious to find out where it was in the main street, or if there are any pictures. thanks, Karen”
There were many sweet shops in Blantyre in the mid 20th Century. Tommy Morgan’s in the Village, Guy’s Sweet shop at Harts Land, Birrells and Regals on Glasgow Road and Robertson’s on Auchinraith Road to name a few. At High Blantyre, the sweet shop in question may have been Sweenie’s Shop at the top of Broompark Road at its junction with Main Street.
During the late 1930’s to 1960’s this little sweet shop was located in the stone building directly across the road from Blakely’s Pub on Broompark Road, near its junction with Main Street. Mr Jimmy Sweenie had a butchers shop on Stonefield Road but his wife ran this little sweet shop, which also sold fruit and veg. Some residents in Blantyre remember the immediate post WW2 years being able to buy bananas there for the first time. The Sweenies lived at 53 Broompark Road near Smith’s Garage. Perhaps this was the sweet shop that Mary Hutchison used to work in?
John Hutchison and Mary Barrett were married on 26th February 1926. John was 22 when he married at Stonefield Parish Church and had been living with family at 47 Small Crescent, then brand new houses. Mary was 18 years old and living with her family at 18 Forrest Place, a former building once behind where Jinxy’s Bakery is in High Blantyre. Her father had died by the time she married.
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