City Bakeries

( Original photo from the "Mitchell Collection.)

Is this the place Liz? Loved your story. I seem to remember taking my young sister in the pram up to Quarrybrae Street to my Aunt and Uncle's. Our parents must have trusted us back then.
Told Mum and Dad about your story and the City Bakeries.

Apparently that was were we met Grace's parents. I was in my pram and smiled and laughed at them, must have been wind, and they stopped to chat. Keep the old stories coming please.

Parkhead Cross - The City Bakeries

Thanks Stew for putting up the photo of Parkhead Cross.
Although this photo shown here was taken in Rothesay, it shows my little sister Shirley with me and our parents, Margaret & John MacWilliam. (Rothesay,circa 1960)

Who remembers The City Bakeries at Parkhead Cross? The fabulous confections made there were the stuff of dreams. My mum used to send me up there with a shopping list, and sometimes I was told to take my infant sister in her pram with me. This was supposed to give me some kind of domestic training or something. It was annoying since none of my friends were burdened with infant siblings in prams.

It was always boring to stand in the long queues in The City Bakeries. I remember one such day with great clarity. I was in a rush to get home and re-join a great game of "Rounders" that was being played in Edmiston Street - so I forgot all about the pram. I had rushed home, handed in the packages from The City Bakeries to my mum and was on my way back out the door when she called after me, asking if the baby was still asleep in her pram. What? The pram?

I had completely forgotten that I had even taken it with me in the first place.

This is my earliest memory of feeling pure terror.
I stammered out a vague reply - and I RACED back up Springfield Road to Parkhead Cross until I arrived at the City Bakery again and found my infant sister still sleeping peacefully among half a dozen other babies, all of whom were parked outside the Bakery in assorted prams. I soon returned baby and pram to the foot of our close, contrived to look and act innocent, and ran off to re-join the games.....

Now I had only to get through a couple of days of worry that some neighbour woman might have seen what happened and decide to tell my mum.

I kept this scary secret for more than two decades and my mum never knew about it until I was in my mid-thirties. It was about then she told me she had once done the same thing, leaving the pram outside Curley's on Springfield Road!

Looking back, it is amazing that our mothers regularly left infants in prams parked outside the shops, or at the close. Of course, one great thing about Glasgow was that there were plenty of fierce old battleaxes around who minded the general business of their neighbours and weren't afraid to challenge anybody who seemed out of place. (God Bless Them All.)

Did anybody from Newlands ever meet their first date at Parkhead Cross? I've heard it was a popular meeting place.
Liz.

1961 School Monitors

Top Row: Margaret Shepherd, Margaret Dearie, Ernest Lauchlan, Gary Nolan,
Margaret Law, Anne McKenzie.
Middle Row: Marjorie Meiklejohn, Mr D. Carmichael (Headmaster),
Joan Palgrave, James Dick, Mr James D. Mutch (Deputy Headmaster),
Pamela McCarron.
Bottom Row: Kenneth McMurray, June-Elizabeth MacWilliam, Robert Porteous.

A Class circa 1955(?)

Teacher at Left is Presently Unknown:
Top Row of Boys (starting at Left beside Teacher - number 5 looks like Alan Perrins who eventually was moved with many other pupils to a new school in Easterhouse.

Class of 1957/58 Miss Critchley

This Newlands class photo shows my class with our teacher, Miss Margaret Critchley, before she left to get married and, with her bridegroom, go all the way to Australia where they would work as missionaries. Missionaries being sent to Australia in 1959? I wonder why Ozzies in Sydney, Australia needed missionaries by the nineteen-sixties.

Do you remember that Miss Critchley used to hold Scipture Union classes after school on Fridays? Do you remember if you ever attended any of the Scripture Union mtgs?

The S.U. meetings were held on the upper level end classrom on the boys wing - the Music Room - and they were FUN. We would sing well-known children's choruses, memorize scripture verses for prizes (special fancy pencils etc.) and compete in guessing games for other wee treats.

Miss Critchley always tried to include every child who was willing, and gently coached those who were a bit quiet or shy.

Infant Class of August 1955

This class photo was sent in by KATHIE McGHEE, formerly of Palace Street. Kathie is in the Second row from the front, which is seated, and is fourth in from the Right (the teacher is on the far Left).

Very Young Stewart Merrilees

Came across this one. Thats me bottom right. Taken out the back of 24 Malcolm Street.
Afraid I don't know or remember any of the girls.

Parkhead Cross

Do we all remember this place? I scanned it off an old calender 1960 I think.

Ernie Lauchlan

Ernie is has toured the world with many famous acts. With Black Tie Boogie, he gives the horn section a kick that will leave you jumpin' and jivin' all over the dance floor!
Ernie has been performing with Black Tie Boogie for nearly 3 years!

Is this the start of the Newlands Swing Band, do we have any others out there. I play the clarinet (badly).

Stewart Merrilees Progress Report Card

It appears that we started school on 25 August 1954. I don't think I was ever destined for University.

Hey Stew: It might be said that the most Remarkable thing about this REPORT CARD is how long your parents kept it after it's date of issue! 52 years is amazing, especially since this wee Newlands Report Card travelled all the way around the world to Australia in your family's luggage, and survived very nicely for another half a century in the Land Down Under.

Your parents deserve a prize for this report card - and you can tell them we said so!

Jose Fleming with husband Brenton

Jose with husband Brenton Pettigrove in Perth,WA

What a lovely couple.

Jose (Fleming) Pettigrove - Perth, Western Australia

Here's the lovely Jose (Josie) Fleming, formerly of Palace Street, shown in this photo with her mum.

The Fleming Family decided to leave Palace Street in 1965 and so at age 15, Jose emigrated to Australia and a new life.

Jose and her husband Brenton currently live in PERTH, Western Australia.

Contact Jose via scotbandit@uniserve.com

Margaret (Shepherd) Berry

DID YOU KNOW?

The lovely Margaret Shepherd was escorted to our Eleven Plus Dance by James Dick, the 1960/61 Dux Medalist at Newlands. They were the Celebrity Couple that evening.

Margaret eventually met and married a handsome Geordie, John Berry, and they were blessed with a daughter, Annette, and a son, Gavin.

The Soccer Fans among us may have seen Gavin Berry's name in the Sunday Mail - he's a Reporter for Rangers.

June-Elizabeth MacWilliam - Newlands 1954 Infants Class

This Grannie was known in her schooldays as "June MacWilliam," to anyone who can remember me.

A switch to my middle name of Elizabeth (Liz) plus the acquisition of a married name along the way, have resulted in a totally different name than I used back in August 1954 when I marched into the Girl's Entrance at Newlands for the first time with my classmates.

I can remember as a child of 3 or 4, sometimes walking past Newlands at Playtime with my mother. She would stop for a minute or two and say Hello to one or two older girls from our close at 18 Edmiston Street.

I stared through those railings at Playtime where a really big party appeared to be going on. As the only child of my parents for their first ten years, I had no siblings to share games with at home, so I longed to start school - simply for the social aspects of course!

Another treat for me was having my wee leather satchel strapped to my back like the bigger kids. At age five, I had finally arrived.

I soon was glad to discover that I had a willing accomplice in my milk scam. Miss Bone insisted on every child collecting and consuming his or her own milk, but I couldn't drink warm milk, so the noble young GARY NOLAN came to my rescue by gurgling down his own bottle, then quietly & calmly disposing of mine, using a fair degree of skill in deception for a five year-old, for he had to avoid detection by the sharp-eyed old witch, our Headmistress. I loathed that warm white sickening stuff that everyone else was drinking like nectar.

When shortly after lunchtime, the ferocious Miss Bone dismissed our class, I felt very let down. I longed to stay the whole day in this new and exciting world of Newlands School and attend the big parties in the Playground.

A few months later I got my wish as the Infants Class day was extended to 3:00pm, an hour before the regular dismissal. This simple strategy avoided bullying by smart-alec older kids during our journey home. I think we may have been dismissed an hour earlier for the whole of our first Term, but I'm not really sure.

How about you? Can you remember anything else from our beginnings at Newlands?

...........Thanx to Stew for his magic with all of the photos in this blogsite......

RICHARD KELSO - circa 1956/57

This fine looking lad, one our Lost Bairns, has been identified as Richard Kelso and hopefully he will discover he is in this gallery and respond by telling us where he has been this past 40 years.

Class Photo 1956-57 Top Row 4

Lost bairn. Does anybody recognise. Please post details.

 

Class Photo 1956-57 Top Row Number 3

Lost bairn. Does anybody recognise. Please post details.

 

GORDON LENNOX - circa 1956/57

This turn out to be Gordon Lennox and we look forward to hearing your story Gordon...
Gordie....if you don't give us some news, we might have to invent a story for you. (Just Kidding.) It will likely turn out that you live down the road from Stew Merrilees in NANANGO........one thing about the internet:

We can Run, but we can't Hide !

Class Photo 1956-57 3rd Row number 8

Lost bairn. Does anybody recognise. Please post details.

 

DONALD SHARP c. 1956-57

Thanks to his pal BOBBY IRVINE, Donald Sharp has been identified as the wee boy in our class photo. Donald if you see this why don't you send us a wee email and let us know whereabouts in the world you are now. Your old pal Bobby Irvine is living in Ontario Canada, only an hour away from George Higgins who also lives in Ontario. I wonder how many other Newlands survivors have settled down in Ontario. There seem to be a large population of Scots there.