People and places

                                    People.

12/07/20: From the Charlie Todd Collection.

Thankerton's older residents will remember Willie Paul Jnr of Biggar and his mobile shop which was emblazoned with the caption 'William Paul and Sons Fishmonger & Fruiterer' but there won't be many around who remember his father (who is referred to in that caption) Willie Paul Snr who started the business in Thankerton. It was the speed, efficiency and reliability of the railway that made this, and many other businesses possible. Willie Jnr was the youngest of a family of six and the only one not to attend Covington Primary School, the family having moved to Biggar where Willie Jnr eventually took over and successfully ran the business until his retirement. Willie was definitely ​what you would call 'a character'.

William Paul Snr - fishmonger, Thankerton appears above.

Willie Paul snr with his four daughters Catherine (1922), Elizabeth (1924), Rebecca (1925) and Christina (1928). 

Willie Paul snr with his four daughters Catherine (1922), Elizabeth (1924), Rebecca (1925) and Christina (1928) 

Willie after his move to Biggar where he opened a shop as well as continuing the mobile shop. 

The wee boy in the middle is Sammy (1929), Willie Jnrs brother, but they must have been identical at this age. 

Willie Paul Jnr (front left) during his National Service. 

Willie Paul Jnr (front row, second from left) during his National Service. 

Phone Biggar 24. Getting a tow during winter weather. 

Willie & Jean keep an immaculate garden in Biggar. 

​From the Charlie Todd Collection. Published on VE Day's 75th Anniversary, we have a photograph of Corporal George McMahon being awarded the Military Medal ​by General Bernard Montgomery. George was born out at Fallburns, in a thatched cottage which sat on the Lanark side of Fa'burns (Thankerton) Toll. Thatch may have romantic connotations but the reality was dampness and TB, so in the mid 1930's the McMahon family was one of the first to move into the two new blocks of council houses built in Millbrae Terrace (later to be renamed Mill Road). George's Military Medal was, we believe was awarded for an act of bravery at the D Day Landings in June 1944. After the war he married and settled in Hull. His brother Henry, of Sherifflats Road, who died on 16th December 2019, was the youngest of seven siblings and the last to pass away. 

Uploaded on the 18th May 2020: The Thankerton contingent at the Queen's visit to Biggar in 1956. Susan Grant and Jim Hope are fairly obvious but who else do we have here? Names suggested so far include Robert Roberts, Elizabeth O’ Brien;,Susan Grant; ,Donald McKinnon; Nora Smith; Margaret Robertson; Sheena Paterson;, Angus Smith;,Sheila Bell;, Jim Hope; Anne Watson; David Greenshields; Pat Allan,? , ?, ?, Hugh Allan, Roseanne Robertson; John Smith; Leslie O ‘ Brien. 

Uploaded on the 20th May 2020. From the Charlie Todd Collection. The McMahon Family in 1939. Just before the outbreak of war mum, Priscilla, decided to get the family together and have a professional shot taken because, having lived through the previous war with its enormous casualties, she literally didn't expect them all to make it. George Jnr, Maurice, Lucy and possibly Mary did serve but fortunately everyone did survive. Photo taken in Mill Road (l to r) (1) Mary (27.06.1924); (2) 'Pop' – George McMahon Snr; (3) George Jnr (17.12.1919); (4) Bobby (12.04.1927); (5) Henry (04.10.1932); (6) Betty (13.04.1929); (7) Maurice Albert (25.12.1914); (8) Mum Priscilla; (9) Lucy (13.03.1922) 

Uploaded on the 23rd May 2020. From the Charlie Todd Collection:- A bit of reading outlining the history with this one. Felix Morris Born Felician Moroz in Borynia, which was then just inside the border of southern Poland (but is now in northern Ukraine) on 18th May 1921. Felix volunteered for the Polish Army just before the outbreak of World War 2. For Poland, as a nation, the war was a short one starting on 1st September and ending in surrender on 19th September. As a member of the 2nd Line Battalion - Home Defence (the 1st Line Battalion were the Polish Regular Army) Felix and many of his colleagues chose to escape across the Hungarian border. During their 6 month stay there the Poles were issued with papers from the Polish Embassy in Budapest which enabled them to travel through Yugoslavia to the port of Split (in modern day Croatia) where they boarded a Polish ship for France. Docking firstly at Toulon, then Marseilles they were taken to the town of Coqecdan in Northern France. As we all know the German Blitzkrieg tactics again swept all before them in France which surrendered after 40 days fighting in June 1940. Again the Poles were evacuated by ship, this time on a small British liner to the UK, docking firstly at Liverpool but disembarking at Plymouth. They then boarded a train for Glasgow Central, marched to St Enoch Station and after a short stopover in Coatbridge arrived at Symington on 13th June 1940 where they were accommodated temporarily in a tented encampment. The fighting in Continental Europe was over at that point but Free Polish Forces had at their disposal three destroyers and one submarine from their own fleet which had escaped the clutch of the Nazis. Manning them, and such planes as had escaped, could have an immediate benefit therefore volunteers were requested to transfer into the Polish Navy and Air Force. Felix was one of those who volunteered to move to the Navy. Eventually, in addition to their own ships (one of which was lost in the Narvik Raid in Norway), Poles manned several other vessels loaned to them by the Royal Navy. And so it was for the next four years that Felix served in the engine room of various destroyers of the Polish Navy, but principally the O.R.P. Piorun ( translates as Ship of the Polish Navy Lightening) on escort duty with the convoys criss-crossing the Atlantic and trying to outwit or destroy the U-boat menace. He was also involved in Mediterranean convoys supplying the 8th Army (The Desert Rats) in North Africa, and twice on the worst route of all to the Russian port of Murmansk on the Barents Sea. He declined to say anything about his experiences during those years but I imagine it would be along the lines of those contained in that excellent novel “The Cruel Sea” by Nicholas Monserrat which dealt with convoy duties on those routes. For his efforts he was awarded the Polish Cross of Merit (awarded for saving lives at sea), the Polish Navy Medal, and from the UK the 1939-45 Star, the Atlantic Star, the Africa Star and the Defence Medal together with a medal finally awarded by the U.S.S.R. 40 years after the end of the war to recognise the heroism of the men involved in the Russian Convoys. Incidentally the two surviving destroyers and the submarine were handed back to Poland in 1948 since despite everything that had happened they were still Polish property. Demobbed in 1947 Felix could not return to his homeland which was by this time in the grip of the Communists. Knowing and liking the area Felix decided to settle in the Upperward of Lanarkshire. His first job was briefly with Chucky Prentice at his garage in Symington, then over the next 39 years with Davie Dargie the coal merchant in Thankerton, Malcolm Tait’s tomato houses in Perryflatts Road, Thankerton, Tam Brown at Lockhart Mill farm and tomato houses near Lanark and Wullie Russell’s tomato houses in Carnwath before finally taking a job with the Council as a quarryman at Cairngryffe Quarry for 15 years till his retirement in 1986. For several years Felix stayed in the cottage attached to Number 72 Thornbank, Station Road in Thankerton before moving to Kennels Cottage near Pettinain. Felix lived for a while at Thornbank Cottage, Thankerton (nowadays part of Thornbank) but for some years he had been on the lookout for more permanent accommodation and in the late fifties / early sixties he had done some odd jobs for the Laird at Carmichael, Sir Wyndham Carmichael-Anstruther whom he persuaded in 1962 to allow him to live at the Kennels Cottages (rent free if he paid the rates and did his own repairs) which is where he’s been ever since. For a time both before and after retirement it flourished as a part time market garden renowned in particular for its strawberries and daffodils. He is still fluent in his native tongue partly through attending the Polish Club in Glasgow for many years where he met and married Diana in 1972. Diana is originally from Leicester but moved to Glasgow with her first husband who was a Pole, hence the connection. Over the years Felix has been able to visit his homeland on a few occasions, particularly after things eased slightly with Stalin’s death in 1953. Now in his 86th year Felix has been at Kennels Cottage for the last 46 years and although the property passed from Carmichael Estates to Eagle Star Insurance and then to Zurich Insurance before more recently being acquired by a private developer from Bishopbriggs, he and Diana have the use of the property for as long as they wish. Felix died on 21st July 2010 in Wishaw General. He had stayed for many years at Kennels Cottage (a small nursery between Millhill Farm​and Pettinain where the new housing development is). 

Uploaded on the 12th June 2020. From the Charlie Todd Collection. At first glance it might not look like it, but this is one of the most interesting and remarkable photographs in the collection. Firstly to explain why it looks as it does - it's a scan, of a photocopy, of a newspaper cutting which used an original photograph taken on 4th May 1917 at the sinking of the SS Transylvania. The full story is given below but Private McMahon is in that lifeboat and he marked himself with a cross. He also added a brief account of what had happened in pencil on the newspaper cutting. But I'll leave it to Wikipedia to tell the story. SS Transylvania was a passenger liner of the Cunard subsidiary Anchor Line, and a sister ship to SS Tuscania. She was torpedoed and sunk on 4 May 1917 by the German U-boat SM U-63 at 44°15′N 8°30′ECoordinates: 44°15′N 8°30′E while carrying Allied troops to Egypt and sank with a loss of 412 lives. Completed just before the outbreak of World War I, Transylvania was taken over for service as a troopship upon completion. She was designed to accommodate 1,379 passengers but the Admiralty fixed her capacity at 200 officers and 2,860 men, besides crew, when she was commissioned in May 1915. Loss On 3 May 1917, Transylvania sailed from Marseille to Alexandria with a full complement of troops, escorted by the Japanese destroyers Matsu and Sakaki. At 10 am on 4 May Transylvania was struck in the port engine room by a torpedo fired by the German U-boat SM U-63 under the command of Otto Schultze. At the time the ship was about 2.5 miles (2.2 nmi; 4.0 km) south of Cape Vado near Savona, in the Gulf of Genoa. Matsu came alongside Transylvania and began to take on board troops while Sakaki circled to force the submarine to remain submerged. Twenty minutes later a second torpedo was seen coming straight for Matsu, which saved herself by going astern at full speed. The torpedo hit Transylvania instead, which sank immediately. Ten crew members, 29 army officers and 373 soldiers lost their lives. Many bodies of victims were recovered at Savona and buried two days later, in a special plot in the town cemetery. Others are buried elsewhere in Italy, France, Monaco and Spain. Savona Town Cemetery contains 85 Commonwealth burials from the First World War, all but two of them casualties from Transylvania. Within the cemetery is the Savona Memorial which commemorates a further 275 casualties who died when Transylvania sank, but whose graves are unknown. Transylvania was discovered by the Italian Carabinieri on 7 October 2011 off the coast of the island of Bergeggi at an approximate depth of 630 metres (2,070 ft). 

Uploaded 12 June 2020. From the Charlie Todd Collection. The SS Transylvania in happier times.