by lochend » Sun Oct 16, 2011 4:04 pm
Does anybody have recollections, or pictures, of an old tenement that used to stand on it's own opposite the green where the swimming baths were subsequently built, it was called Kinloch place ? My father Angus McBain was brought up in that building being the youngest of 11 children to Robert McBain and Martha Galbraith . As a family we returned annually to visit for our Holidays (in the 40's and 50's),and stayed at Kinloch place where we were looked after very regally by my father's one remaining sibling in the town,his sister Margaret McCallum. Aunty Margaret subsequently moved to No 7 Lochend street wher we continued to visit her into the 1960's.These were very happy days for us children and I have many happy memories of the wee toon.I remember the whistle/bell of the milkman and rushing down with a large jug to get the milk and stroke his horse.I recall the smell and smoke emanating from a smokehouse at the rear of the building and being fascinated by a huge sporran hanging behind a cupboard in the kitchen! My cousin Neil used to take me fishing up to Auchalochy and the Backswater at Machrihanish for the "wee trouties" and of course the mandatory mackerel fishing from the old Quay! In the early days I remember my Grandfather sitting smoking his pipe surveying the harbour through his binoculars having a view from the second to top floor of the tall bulding which must have been second to none in the town! I have to marvel, whith the reflections of advancing age, what hardships there must have been for a family of 13 living and surviving in such a cramped living space having only one real bedroom and sharing a lavatory with another family on the same landing!