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Dalneigh & Ferry Memories


Guest Jock Watt

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Yeah - I had Mrs Davidson as my P6 & P7 teacher too .... would have posted earlier but couldnt remember room numbers. I didnt realise she had only been there a short time though as she had a fearsome reputation by the time I was in her class and I am only a year or two younger than DJS .....

I still call her 'Mrs Davidson' when I see her in the street and it was the same when I used to go round to her house to see if her son Phil was going for a pint !!!

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It is numbers 62 and 64 that are missing from St Valery Ave.  They are missing where one of the paths are not mid block, but the space is not big enough to have had an additional 2 houses in so they have never existed.

I don't remember the pavilion but I wasn't born till 76, the hostel that was there is no more and new flats are now taking it's place after it sitting as a derelict eyesore for far too long.  The community centre is now there as well.

I too had the pleasure of Mrs Davidson as a teacher - will never forget the poster she had on the wall that said "A Winner Never Quits - A Quitter Never Wins" and her saying one day that "the older you get the faster time passes" which seemed like a strange concept back then, but proved to be so true.  Funniest memory of her was one day when we were doing something we shouldn't in the playground at the back corner near the end of Hawthorn Drive.  Think we were playing British Bulldogs which had been banned after someone breaking a collar bone.  Anyway, she was wrapping on the window with her key to get our attention and put her hand clean through it..... :015:

I'll nip out over the weekend and take some pics if I get a chance for those now in far flung corners of the world.  If anyone has any specific requests for areas/streets (in Dalneigh as I will be on foot) they'd like a pic of let me know.

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Alex 's book "The Lads from The Ferry" is highly recommended reading. Very funny indeed.

As for Dalneigh I would like a photo please of the last private bungalow on the left of Fairfield road (if it still exists- very close to the Bumbers lane which was opposite) which adjoins the first Dalneigh house in that row on Fairfield road which leads up to the canal. I have a feeling looking at the satellite location map that Lauraness either lives in that self-same bungalow or the Council houses next to it?

My reason for wanting this is that when I was a very young lad I had a friend, Johnny Cooper ,who lived in that house -his dad was a Major in the army. Johnny and I smuggled his rifle out of the bathroom window with live ammo to play in the sand which had been dumped there as they commenced building Dalneigh and how we did not do damage is beyond me on reflection.We somehow climbed back in the window before Dad appeared again and never got caught..whew , that would have been a real stramash had he found out and my Dad would have heard about it too I am certain. He subsequently left for Maidstone in Kent and then apparently went off to Australia  so unless Jock knows about him in Australia  I will have to wait until I die to meet up with Johhny again! :002:

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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 3 weeks later...
  • 4 weeks later...
Guest Jock Watt

I'll nip out over the weekend and take some pics if I get a chance for those now in far flung corners of the world.  If anyone has any specific requests for areas/streets (in Dalneigh as I will be on foot) they'd like a pic of let me know.

YEAH, YEAH, YEAH.

PROMISES, PROMISES !!!!!!!!!

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  • 3 weeks later...

Your a hard man Jock  :015:

Just finished 9 days of 12 hour shifts, and for someone who has been out of work for so long it is taking it's toll a bit.  Don't panic though, I am reliably informed that Dalneigh isn't going anywhere so the photo opportunity will not vanish  :016:

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  • 3 months later...

guess i must be the youngest person on this thread now but just wanted to say that i actually remember massive games of rounders both down the ferry and in dalneigh from when i was young(er), last ones mustve been about 1993ish.  yes i lived in both areas  :017:

apart from that ive no seriously old school memories to compete with you minkers efforts, ill just say that pretty much everything youve talked about doing while you were growing up was done by my generation aswell.

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...suppose i have memories of inverness from a snotty nosed kids perspective that you guys wouldve experienced as adults, which would make them different.

the railway bridge falling down or the carse being redeveloped were events that at the time i could never get my head round, even the changes that have gone on along anderson street at the time seemed earth shattering.  was a crazy world for an 8 year old

i always thought the bon accord warehouse at the end of maclennan crescent was the biggest place in the world,which it wasnt for me even then!

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  • 3 weeks later...

Just noticed this thread, expanding rapidly as it does at this time of year but couln't help notice the words "Kavvies back........." and have many fond memories of that area behind St Valery (my mother still lives there).

Yes Charlie, the kids of today were not as fit as we were then. The TV only started at 5pm with Children's hour and we stopped our football or comandoes or whatever and back out again running mad until it got dark. Yes and jumping the garages and the cinders !!

Date of Dalneigh School - I went to P1 in 1954, Miss Bain, remember her well. But it was only the infant section that was complete, some kids went to central until P5-7 was completed.

Yes, Rev Hamish MacIntyre, ex Japanese POW with that rug on his head.

He had 2 sons, Duncan and Hamish and a few girls, Sheila was in my class.

Must go and take in the new year, but will be back to this thread again

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een.... must have been Elizabeth MacIntyre that was in your class. Sheila was my age but I didn't know the Rev Hamish had been a POW.

Aye... football and commandoes at the Back of Kavvies. I wonder how often we "killed" each other! It's funny, a couple of years ago I had a long discussion with some old Caley folk in the Social Club but none of them could remember Paddy Kavanagh. They could remember Brian (who I believe was a Rebel) but i have a clear recollection of a Supporters' Club membership card on which the club committee was listed, including the miss spelled "P Cavani".

I think it was also on that card that they printed some supporters' club songs, including the cringeworthy "Come Away The Caley" to the tune of Mairi's Wedding which included the legendary lines "Parkhead, Brockville and Dens Park, Found our football was no lark."

Mind you, even that might be better than some of the silence we get down by these days!

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  • 2 months later...

Charles, the ''even'' numbers missing in St. Valery Ave are #62 &#64. The MacBrier's lived in #60 (end of block) and the Shands started the next block at #66.Willie Shand was in the fire service.

I vividly remember the young Charles Bannerman decked in his  royal academy blazer jumping onto his bike heading for school! Who else would remember these things other than the old ''postie?''

Canuck.

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They could remember Brian (who I believe was a Rebel)

Brian  a rebel ??? ..... just a tad !!!

However, fair play to Kavs, I remember him from the Muirtown days (and the Portland - for Pool rather than football after the Muirtown closed !!). He has never wavered in his anti-merger feelings but I think he does at least give grudging respect to those who chose to follow ICT from the start.

His comments to me were something like "his team had died and he could not bring himself to follow the b@stard creation that sprung up in its place". He knew I was an ICT supporter from day one of the club and although he is a consumate wind-up artist and wasted no opportunity to deride ICT, he once (and only once) told me that he could at least respect my choice and the fact that I stuck with it. I think this was more the fact that I dumped my 'big' team (Celtic) the same day I started supporting ICT in the senior leagues.

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God! Were you the old Dalneigh postie? That old bike of mine was a wreck! Willie Shand eventually became Firemaster and then a Highland Regional Councillor for Nairn.

Do you remember on Saturday night, when you asked about my family being from Lilac Grove, I told you that I used to travel on the basket on the front of the posties bike for the 2nd post of the day.  :014: :014: 

If you mean old as in previous, then you are probably right, but he was probably actually quite a young postie at that time.  :003:

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