horses belonging to Andrew Burns or Will Knox.
Coming to where Burns Shelter is now, there used to be some houses
which, as far as I can make out, were mostly tenanted by members
of the Cunningham family and so on to old Frank Antonelli's chip
shop. Then there was a wee watchmaker's, Bert Gibbons by name, who
even engraved the watch I was presented with from the school fifty
years ago from now. Cree's dairy came next and the wee brae down
to Rock Cottage and now the shops, Borland's the Drapers, the Commercial
Bank of Scotland, David Smith's the newsagent, James Cunningham's
the grocer, McLean's the ironmonger, where you got anything from
a pound of carbide for a pit lamp to a pound of tackets for the
pit boots, next a name I never seemed to get right, Roy Diles as
I knew it, then there was Quinn and Hughes, the Ladbrokes of his
day, and then, where the butcher's is, was Mr Murray and his Danish
dairy. Before coming to Ayres Wynd you passed another building where
you had old Veitch and his famous home made pies, then Pow's later
to become Baxter's the butchers.
Around the war memorial square was a big wall with an old fashioned
well and an iron cup for drinking out of. At the other side was
our answer to the Keystone Kops — Andrew Mack's barrow for a fire
engine.
Past Innes the bakers and down a stair you came to old Gordon's
— he I believe was the oldest man in the Pans at my time; then Dod
McKenzie the barber's and the saltworks, where the old Hamer House
took up part of the street before you came to Don's the chemist
and Chris Whitelaw's two shops, then our main means of entertainment
in those days
— the Scratcher — one could write a book on that itself.
We then had Will Munro the plumber before the store — but in those
days the butcher}' was next to the opening down to the bake house
— Miss Bathgate's sweetie shop and Mr Laidlaw newsagent who, along
with the old doctor, ran the Lads' Meeting with its famous trips
in the coal lorries to the Lyers Brae.
The next group consisted of the Beehive Drapery Store and some half
dozen houses, one of which had an old sundial on the wall, and Mary
Rodger's sweetie shop where they used to say if you kicked the wee
pipe neath her window the dishes fell off her dresser.
The Black Bull was next with its two well known publicans, Charlie
Thomson, footballer international and wee Jockie Russell — what
a man. On to the Doctors Wynd and Walford where the McEwan family
had their surgery, then there was Beenie Alien's sweet shop and
one time chip shop. Next, in what was originally part of the ropery
and is now die Masonic Hall, was Malcolm Clark's billiard room.
There was a block of high houses and up one of the closes was Jock
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