Category: Uncategorized

The River Garnock at Grahamston Avenue #poem

Flowing to a land of peace 
We watch her gentle stream
Old Churches, schools ravished by time
Reflect her gentle beams.

Starry nights and sun-filled days
Upon her granite poised
Where children played upon the bridge
O´er shadowed now with noise.

Yet peace she brings with every stone
Where faltering birds do nest
And otters with their children come
To take their peace and rest.

In her divine appointed flow 
Fear leaves no saddened thoughts 
For change is named upon her brow 
With no heightened sense of loss.

And by her banks sweet angels flow
Attending to their wards
while we stand upon the bridge alone
With only darker thoughts.

Yet sweet repose and Love are here
For all who hear her song
Far away from bills to pay
And every sense of wrong.

Her gentle flowing higher streams
Do guide us in our thoughts
to a peaceful place of mind
flowing o´er the darker rocks. 

´Tis good for us to stop and hear
Her gentle peaceful flow
While Angels pass with quieter thoughts
Allowing us to grow.

James Clifford

James, later known as Jaime (Jamie) Clifford was a 19th century protestant missionary who went from Kilbirnie Gospel Hall to Argentina. Ironically he was born in a house which sat on the present site of the Gospel Hall at Schoolwynd.

It was noticed that he had great oratory skills when he gave speeches for the Independent Labour Party. He initially attended the red kirk across from St Columbas before his religious conversion.

He became very well known in Argentina and is buried out there. Visiting Kilbirnie a few times after he left. His son Alejandro Clifford continued his work in Argentina.

His biography in Spanish is here

Youtube clip about him (in Spanish)

“Willie Mackie´s Homecoming” #kilbirnie #northayrshire #scotland

 

Willie Mackie left Kilbirnie Scotland to emigrate to the USA as many people did before him, in search of a better life. As the title suggests, this was his homecoming celebration in Kilbirnie Gospel Hall Brethren Assembly.

This photo would be from the 1930s. I’m not sure if he returned to the USA at a later date or settled in Kilbirnie again.

Poem About The Bing (Fudstone, Kilbirnie)

The bing was a huge mound of gravel and stone which was left there after the housing estate was built in the 1950s. It was replaced with a kids play area in the 1980s. The other Warriors bing in the Largs Hills was presumably called that because of where the Battle of Largs took place,

O the years upon the bing, with cousin Margaret children played,

Climbing up with all our power by Newhouse drive where people stayed,

Amid the thorns and grey cement there seemed a moment, time well spent,

And sliding down the gravel slope, I skinned my knees without a hope,

My grannie waiting at the door, with borax, plasters by the score.

O the hills we thought were steep, when now an older life we keep,

Mountains, slopes upon our minds, perhaps a bing of different kind,

Climbing o’er our darker thoughts, just like the thistles we did trod,

Lessons from the bing well learnt, of my granny’s soothing balm

O how that Love returns to me, and brings with it a sense of calm,

And behind the trees sat Warrior’s bing, perhaps a sign of future years,

With bigger slopes and hills to climb amid the darker fading years.

Snow in Paisley December 2020

And comes a pure white blanket laid

around the river Cart

Across the darkened thoughts of man

a Love which does impart

And o´er the bogs and swamps there´s ice

up to the Abbey door

A voice says “Man with all your cares

be still for just an hour”

The darkened views of waning health,

exchanged for winter cheer

The snow reflects a gentle calm

upon the town so dear

And on the braes the deer are seen

walking proudly by

For no man can touch their safety now

upon their mountain high

Upon the tombs of rested men

lies layers of icy sense

Reflecting that the One great Mind

preserves their innocence

Calling Freedom – A Poem for Scottish Independence

Notice how strongly the fire begins to burn, fed by the air of Freedom
Who has ever fought against our Freedom and won?
See how it burns away bad opinions, and the water of our burns flood
For our betterment, our blood and our places, the water rises.

See the fire and water rise
Hear the winds of our mountains roar
See how they come to take their own, calling for us to stay faithful
Do not stem the water or extinguish the fire
Leave our land’s trees and its streams and it´s fires
To call Freedom, the voice carried in the wind

The courageous gun and sword laid down before our enemies
Shining and moving in museums of a time long ago
Quaking and shaking of cannons in castles
Water and fire is what defends us now, ancestral whispers, Fed by Freedom´s breath of air

See the fire and water rise
Hear the winds of our mountains roar
See how they come, to take their own, calling for us to stay faithful
Do not stem the water or extinguish the fire
Let our land’s trees and its streams and it´s fires, be,
To call Freedom, the voice carried in the wind

Rain at Jock’s Burn, Kibirnie

(John 5: The Pool of Bethesda)

An angel clad in white winged robes with hands upon the pool

A surge of water gushes forth, clear, transparent, cool

Children watch upon the bridge with raincoats, darkened caps

My mother calls me not to fear, the bridge’s missing slats

Like needles dropping in the stream, rain pierces to the ground

Raising thoughts in Children’ s minds with every plopping sound

And as the Angel, golf course walks, the clouds clear with his step

Revealing brighter thoughts for man with every place he treads

By Crawfurd’s castle, blue skies clear and children move away

Their raincoats filled with water still seem strange in Summer’s days

Shadows clear upon the fields and hope again appears

Within the showers, sunny glades where man has nought to fear

Long after Angels hands descend or sun upon Man’s dreams

Still the pool, it gushes forth pushing all upstream

And on the Minds of local men an Angel dares to tread

Stirring healing loving thoughts upon the dying bed.