Category: Kilbirnie / North Ayrshire

#Poem #Glengarnock Station #NorthAyrshire

Glengarnock Station

One thought I had of you today
As people crowded by
Of sending soldiers on their way
Till 1945

Mothers kissed and lover’s words
Then anxious notes you passed
Bringing news of hero’s deaths
Or home bound boys at last

Pavements wet with women’s tears
For boys, to welcome home
While others sat in darkened rooms
Both silent and alone

Then later in your ageing years
Cemented floors did bloom
With flowers, lovely colours bright
While mighty engines boomed

Then darkness came with Beeching’s words
Your branches they were slain
For all your older dearest friends
Were killed for London’s gain

Now you stand with empty home
No soldiers pass your way
A house lies derelict above
Where once a guardsman stayed

You carried folk to far off lands
To meet their boats and planes
Babies laughing, children coughed
Sheltering from smoggy rains

There’s few stand now in early morn
Upon your tired brow
Yet ne’r can match those wartime scenes
Of hundreds, cheering crowds.

Townhead, Kilbirnie, Ayrshire C.1880

This is an interesting photo of Townhead, Kilbirnie Ayrshire. The remains of Martin´s Shed (only a bit of a wall) can still be seen today just down from the supermarket (which was Morrisons), on the other side of the road in a little alcove behind some bushes.  In this picture Martin´s shed is the white building in the middle. Kilbirnie Brethren Assembly first met here in the 1800s as well as the Good Templars Hall in Bridgend, Kibirnie, before they built the Gospel Hall in Schoolwynd 1897, on the site where Jamie Clifford was born.

Townhead – pre-1900s

Townhead – today

Major General Sir. Charles Mathew and #Kilbirnie War Memorial

An article written  in the 1990s while in Dublin for the Pioneer Magazine.

What Does Wexford and a small town in the

Southwest of Scotland have in Common?

General Sir Charles Massey Mathew, a celebrated War Hero from the First World War. Sir Charles was born in Wexford, Ireland in 1866, educated privately at Portsmouth Grammar School, started his career in the Durham Light Infantry, in 1884.

Continue reading “Major General Sir. Charles Mathew and #Kilbirnie War Memorial”

To Our Friends in Canada

Brightly burns the glow of friends
constant, true and pure
No one can claim he has no kin
where Love always endures

A lamp that´s lit by Kin´s red flame
of blood spilt on the earth
for need of Love, a better life
on your land boats did berth

The boys who glowed within the light
were taken in your arms
for in the darkness their was hope
of new lives safe from harm

So to friends on distant shores
for many and the few
and a toast to those we cannot name
lost in the sea of blue

Lilac Poem

Lilac

Last night I dreamt of Lilac trees,

Upon the Garnock Stream,

amid the thorns and briars thick

a purple colour beamed

 

I thought about the folk who came

and chanced upon this sight

perhaps ancestors, long since gone

left it burning bright

 

Perhaps a bird did carry it

from far and distant lands

or from a child´s hands it fell

and grew to proudly stand

 

Or from the Castle seeds did blow

across the glade and vine

to where the lovers meet in quiet

with bodies deep entwined