I’ve previously eluded to the huge problem of vandalism in Blantyre during 1978. In August that year, vandals turned towards the new leisure area in Springwells on what had previously been an eyesore of wasteground. A £90,000 scheme was underway to turn the ground into a play area, with landscaped grassed areas. However, shrubs […]
Over the next few months, I’ll be posting daily with extracts from my open book draft about the entire history of Glasgow Road. Collecting the social history and comments from many thousands of people on this site over the last few years, I’ll be further exploring, every Glasgow Road building through each Century, […]
A Rates shocker came through the letterboxes of Springwell’s residents in April 1978. Families from 43 to 81 Auchinraith Terrace found their rates had risen substantially for the coming year of 1978/1979, despite them having fought and won a rates reduction the year before. The resident had their rates lowered previously due to recognition […]
Bullet holes, smashed windows, broken bottles, terrified women. Young Blantyre soldier Jim Greer must have seen it all during his service in Ulster. However, when he returned home at the end of January 1978, he saw it all again! He returned home to find his mother living in terror in what was yet another […]
Pictured here in the 1960’s is the former, disused railway at Auchinraith Junction. Looking northwards, the chimneys of Whistelberry Colliery are in the background. This railway track is no longer there and today is the Springwells sliproad coming off Glasgow Road on to the East Kilbride Expressway near Lidl. How very different this scene […]
At a festive night out, my friend Tommy Leggate asked if I could help him with some ancestry. Tommy gave me the name of his grandfather Thomas Leggate and grandmother Elizabeth Izatt and confirmed they definitely had Blantyre connections. That’s usually all I need to delve into detail. It was time for me to go […]
Archibald Russell, miner, 39 Glasgow Springwells, Blantyre, was before Sheriff Anderson at the Falkirk Police Court on Monday 27th June 1927, charged with having, on 25th in a shop in Union Road, Camelon, stealing a pair of shoes. Archibald pleaded guilty, appeared genuinely remorseful and said he had no intention of taking the shoes, but […]