Somewhere along Maxwell Avenue was the peeling green corrugated-iron community hall. It was home to a small collection of library books, and on the wall was the library torch symbol, and the words ‘Let there be light.’ But, I suppose because the selection of books was limited, we always travelled to the larger library at Hillfoot.
The community hall was also the venue for the community Halloween fancy-dress part which I once attended. I was dressed as a (not terribly convincing) wizard – my mother had fashioned me a robe using pink material, and had constructed an impressive pointy hat, made from the black-backed shiny silver paper which my father brought home from the hospital, where it had been used to wrap X-ray films prior to their being exposed.
Four things I recall about the party: bursting for the loo, not knowing where to go, and not having the gumption to ask; drinking ginger beer for the first time; growing impatient, along with the other kids, for the arrival of the food – someone began thumping their table and chanting repeatedly ‘We want grub’ and we all joined in; my mother’s subsequent realisation that it really wasn’t appropriate for the child of a Christian family to attend a Halloween party, let alone go dressed as a wizard.
And was there another hall near the station, where my mother went for badminton club sessions. I’d go and meet her there after school on the appropriate day, and sit watching while she finished her game.
Just before the old school were the shops. There was a butchers: I recall my disgust at seeing black puddings in the window. I also remember the widely-known fact that one of the assistants read The Eagle each week, despite having put his childhood behind him.
There was the Co-operative. I remember standing outside it one afternoon. My mother has just bought and given me a slice of white chocolate, and I am thinking that I have never tasted anything more delicious. I remember buying stuff from the Co when I was older, and chanting my mother’s 4-digit membership number. They’d give you a wee slip of paper with a record of what you’d spent, and every so often your divvy (dividend) would be paid, based on your total purchases.
Between the shops was a lane where we’d queue for the buses to take us to Primary school at Bearsden where I went from the summer of 1959 (Primary 3) until Christmas 1960 when, half-way through Primary 4, we moved to the new Westerton Primary school.
Behind the shops was a lane in which, in another green-painted hall, I went to playgroup. I’d take along my milk in a bottle which had contained my mother’s laxative – Agarol – although the label had been partially peeled off. Getting the white screw-cap off this bottle was far from straightforward. All that I remember about the playgroup is singing the nursery action-songs such as The farmer wants a wife and Here we go Looby Loo.
Then there was the school where I completed my first two years of primary education. I recall one lunchtime when a bunch of kids from school came home with me. We larked around the living room floor, laughing so much that I, or one of the girls wet ourselves due to the sheer joyous hilarity.
Behind the school was parkland stretching down to the railway line. It was probably quite a small area, but for me it was terra incognita – ‘there be dragons’! Once I went down there with other boys feeling very daring, very far from home, very disobedient, although I don’t think I was disobeying any particular instruction.
Finally, there was the station. Life in Westerton was punctuated by train hooters. I remember the project to electrify the line when special trains carried the construction team who erected the pylons and power cables. And when the Blue Train service was launched, I recall a trip by train with my parents into the city centre, clattering through dark, sinister tunnels.
Occasionally, just after 4, we’d walk down to the station to see the Mallaig Train, a steam monster which stopped briefly at the platform at Westerton on its way to the west coast, hissing assertively. Mallaig seemed to be a mystical place at the end of the world, remote, intriguing.
We left Westerton in May 1962. ‘We’ll never buy a number 13 again!’ my parents said. It wasn’t that they were superstitious about the number, despite the death of my brother, simply because they found the house so difficult to sell. People would phone, show an interest, and then make excuses when they were told the number. I remember the people who in the end bought the house looking into my bedroom as they were being shown round while I was supposed to be asleep. They were looking for a house, and had happened to catch sight of the ‘For Sale’ sign outside. And so the deal was done.
Excited by the prospect of the move, I wrote out on hundreds of slips of paper ‘The Dempsters are Moving’ and took them to school, clearly in self-revelatory mood. But chickening out of distributing these – I think my idea had been to scatter them on the ground - I put the whole bundle in a rubbish bin in the playground. A fellow pupil fished them out and brought them to me. ‘How strange!’ I said, feigning ignorance.
The community hall was also the venue for the community Halloween fancy-dress part which I once attended. I was dressed as a (not terribly convincing) wizard – my mother had fashioned me a robe using pink material, and had constructed an impressive pointy hat, made from the black-backed shiny silver paper which my father brought home from the hospital, where it had been used to wrap X-ray films prior to their being exposed.
Four things I recall about the party: bursting for the loo, not knowing where to go, and not having the gumption to ask; drinking ginger beer for the first time; growing impatient, along with the other kids, for the arrival of the food – someone began thumping their table and chanting repeatedly ‘We want grub’ and we all joined in; my mother’s subsequent realisation that it really wasn’t appropriate for the child of a Christian family to attend a Halloween party, let alone go dressed as a wizard.
And was there another hall near the station, where my mother went for badminton club sessions. I’d go and meet her there after school on the appropriate day, and sit watching while she finished her game.
Just before the old school were the shops. There was a butchers: I recall my disgust at seeing black puddings in the window. I also remember the widely-known fact that one of the assistants read The Eagle each week, despite having put his childhood behind him.
There was the Co-operative. I remember standing outside it one afternoon. My mother has just bought and given me a slice of white chocolate, and I am thinking that I have never tasted anything more delicious. I remember buying stuff from the Co when I was older, and chanting my mother’s 4-digit membership number. They’d give you a wee slip of paper with a record of what you’d spent, and every so often your divvy (dividend) would be paid, based on your total purchases.
Between the shops was a lane where we’d queue for the buses to take us to Primary school at Bearsden where I went from the summer of 1959 (Primary 3) until Christmas 1960 when, half-way through Primary 4, we moved to the new Westerton Primary school.
Behind the shops was a lane in which, in another green-painted hall, I went to playgroup. I’d take along my milk in a bottle which had contained my mother’s laxative – Agarol – although the label had been partially peeled off. Getting the white screw-cap off this bottle was far from straightforward. All that I remember about the playgroup is singing the nursery action-songs such as The farmer wants a wife and Here we go Looby Loo.
Then there was the school where I completed my first two years of primary education. I recall one lunchtime when a bunch of kids from school came home with me. We larked around the living room floor, laughing so much that I, or one of the girls wet ourselves due to the sheer joyous hilarity.
Behind the school was parkland stretching down to the railway line. It was probably quite a small area, but for me it was terra incognita – ‘there be dragons’! Once I went down there with other boys feeling very daring, very far from home, very disobedient, although I don’t think I was disobeying any particular instruction.
Finally, there was the station. Life in Westerton was punctuated by train hooters. I remember the project to electrify the line when special trains carried the construction team who erected the pylons and power cables. And when the Blue Train service was launched, I recall a trip by train with my parents into the city centre, clattering through dark, sinister tunnels.
Occasionally, just after 4, we’d walk down to the station to see the Mallaig Train, a steam monster which stopped briefly at the platform at Westerton on its way to the west coast, hissing assertively. Mallaig seemed to be a mystical place at the end of the world, remote, intriguing.
We left Westerton in May 1962. ‘We’ll never buy a number 13 again!’ my parents said. It wasn’t that they were superstitious about the number, despite the death of my brother, simply because they found the house so difficult to sell. People would phone, show an interest, and then make excuses when they were told the number. I remember the people who in the end bought the house looking into my bedroom as they were being shown round while I was supposed to be asleep. They were looking for a house, and had happened to catch sight of the ‘For Sale’ sign outside. And so the deal was done.
Excited by the prospect of the move, I wrote out on hundreds of slips of paper ‘The Dempsters are Moving’ and took them to school, clearly in self-revelatory mood. But chickening out of distributing these – I think my idea had been to scatter them on the ground - I put the whole bundle in a rubbish bin in the playground. A fellow pupil fished them out and brought them to me. ‘How strange!’ I said, feigning ignorance.
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