A couple of years ago, Hamish Dow, passed on a chapter of his own father’s tale about how he was liberated from a Japanese WW2 Camp. Malcolm Dow, a Blantyre man had been captured by the Japanese during the war and this excerpt is just part of his overall, incredible story of capture and later […]
We’ve been enjoying Penny Robertson’s photos this week. Penny who lives overseas shared this 1910’s photo and told me, “My grandfather Daniel Sprott, a Blantyre man is in the front row on the left. It must have been taken during the war years because of the man in military uniform. I gather my grandfather was […]
Friday 24th September 1915, saw the Blantyre Bowling Green close at Stonefield Road. It was not just the last game of the season, but the prevailing difficult and escalating WW1 conditions, was generally making sports and recreation a thing less on people’s minds. The last games were carried out quietly and instead of the usual […]
Still looking at today’s theme of Remembrance. As you can imagine the announcement that World War II had ended, caused some speculation until it was officially announced on the radio. Blantyre was no different. Neither the time of the announcement, nor the speculations and false alarms which preceded it, seemed to affect the celebrations […]
This photo was amongst Margaret Stewart’s family album of photos. It may be that a family member was part of the WW1 Tank troops, or this had simply been such an interesting development of “modern warfare” that it was put into the album. Certainly seeing tanks in WW1 like these would have given an […]
Today I received a wonderful message from Australian, George Cochrane, whose father fought in the First World War and after being injured, was attended to at Caldergrove House, right on the boundary of Blantyre and Cambuslang. For those not aware of Caldergrove, it was a large detached villa in its own grounds by the Rotten Calder […]
Jim Cochrane shared this photo from 1947. Pictured is High Blantyre Primary School. Jim told me, “High Blantyre Primary 1947 or 48 ,my Dads not sure . My Dad is 4th from the right in the 3rd row back. William Douglas Cochrane.“ Kids most likely born during wartime. These children would now be in their […]