Blantyre Project reader, Rhona Johnsen recently sent in this photo. She told me, “My grandparents Elizabeth McClements (McClimens originally) and Andrew Mains are seen as an engaged couple here in February 1933 in the top right corner of the photo. They were married on 26th December 1933 in Blantyre.

In the photo they seem to be celebrating an event focused on the couple in the centre front.
We previously saw them in your photo of the cooperative choir from 1933 and I think that they must have met through the choir as both were musical, especially my grandfather who was a pianist. He trained at the Atheneum in Glasgow and won the silver medal for piano (not sure which year).”

The photo nicely shows the fashions of the early 1930’s on a fancy social night out. Wanting to find out a little more, I noticed Andrew Mains was living at 59 Hardie Street, Blantyre during 1935, the houses being fairly new at the time and still there in WW2 years.

I’m going to make a little correction to the information though. The couple married on 26th December 1934, rather than 1933. Andrew Sorbie Mains was an insurance agent living at 43 Morris Crescent when he married, aged 30. Elizabeth Stevens McClements of 25 Church Street was 25 years old when she married. They were married by Rev James Gibb at Stonefield Parish Church, right at the end of the bride’s home. Sadly, neither the bride nor grooms mothers were alive to see the couple married.