by William Davie
When visiting my mother the other
day I looked out her window and thought what a wonderful historical
part of the old Pans she lived in.
From one window you looked at the
Preston Tower which has stood there despite battles and fires
since the 14th century. Out of the other window you can visualise
where one of the best school buildings stood — old PL — also destroyed
by fire. But still outside her window is the old mercat cross
which is, apart from its own history, one of the very few buildings
that has thankfully escaped the exploits of vandals and the graffiti
people. From her door you look across to the new community centre
building where once stood Schaw's Hospital or in my time Mary
Murray's Institute.
So after mentioning these places she
started to ramble on about different places; she is now 85 and
has seen quite a lot of changes in our old town, and in our memories
we started our journey around the Pans.
Going down East Loan she spoke of
men like old Ned Storrie, Bricky Tammy and Charlie Smeaton — what
a lovely garden he kept at the corner of Wilson Avenue. This scheme
was called after one of our old provosts. Opposite his house,
which is now the manse, was Mr Guild the dentist then Mr Sibbald's
or Lowes House, and on the other side was the old manse or Logan
Ayres house as we knew it. Continuing down Harlaw Hill we have
what was originally the co-op building, where can still be seen
the clasped hands or Unitas sign above the door; and farther on
is Harlaw House and on to the bottom of the hill and the Main
Street.
We now started to talk about shops
which then formed both sides of the street. To start with you
had P. Cunningham the licensed grocer, opposite Pypers Wynd, and
a house with an outside stair where it is said Sir Walter Scott
lived when recuperating from an illness.
Strolling along the street one would
come to the scout hall, with two wonderful characters as caretakers
viz, Andra the Bear and Aggie Boozie, then there was part of the
brewery and the post office with Mr Dickson as post master. The
next house was old Willie Boyd's and the store blacksmith — how
I used to like the smell when he was shoeing the
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