Tag: kilbirnie

Jean Jeffrey McTaggart

 

This picture is of Jean Jeffrey, my Great Great Grandmother, (sometimes spelt Jeffray or Jeffries) who was married to Neil McTaggart and lived at 13 Dennyholm Street, Kilbirnie, by the mill on the site of what is now Dennyholm Wynd, Her Mother was Mary Jeffrey who married Andrew Stevenson, whose family were coal merchants in the town.

There is a family story that Neil was a twin with a brother Malcolm but I have not been able to prove that from any government records.

Jeanie had a very large family, including my Great Grandfather Neil as well as a daughter Elizabeth. Elizabeth married Samuel Cairns and two of their children are sitting on Jean´s lap. Jean was red haired and used to walk from the Dennyholm out to Glengarnock barefoot to visit some of her children

Jean died in 1927. I estimate this photo to have been taken around 1923.

 

Knox Institute, Kilbirnie

 

It is great news that the Knox Institute in Kilbirnie will be restored.

Here is a picture of the man who built it, Robert William Knox:

 

 

 

 

 

The original portrait was last seen in the “Stables Museum” underneath the Walker Hall in the 1990s. I have been trying to get information about what happened to the stuff that was in there. I have asked North Ayrshire Council but Im not getting any replies except to say they are looking into it and that was a few years ago now.

There is also a lamp which was donated to the town by RW Knox and it sat upon one of the bridges. Last seen also in the Stables museum.

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.

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.

#Poem For Our distant Cousins

Romans 8:17

In every year thats passes by, there’s friends from overseas, visiting a little town with dreams of family.

Perhaps Place castle some will say, or found in Walker Hall, perhaps a line of great descent, behind Tianna Falls.

Walking streets which long since gone, with hopes of names or face, wearily they pace around to find the slightest trace.

And when we ask about the task, the answer’s never clear, identity or Grandpa’s home or memories they hold dear.

Still there is a waiting wealth, which passed through every line, a joyful welcome and a smile to all who take the time.

And legacies of golden bowls surrendered long ago, exchanged for joy preserved in time, for future folk to know.

Heirs of joy, and stewardship still, which lasts beyond our peers, kindness, smiles remembered still throughout the passing years.

If today a search does come to wanton lonely minds, think not of watches or old clocks to search for back in time.

Instead to know their sense of joy, is shared today by all, a random act of kindness do, instead of searching halls.

For welcome, joy and happiness was theirs and ours today, there is no forgetting acts of Love which fall on minds today.

Make your mark for future lines, by random acts of good, remembered more by other folk than silver, gold or wood.

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.

Poem for #Kilbirnie

Perhaps nearby the Walker Hall or up at Jacob´s well

a random act of kindness comes from strangers who can tell?

Perhaps a gentle smile when all is grey and bland

A man in Tesco car park, who gives a helping hand?

The face of God is ne´er seen by looking to the sky

or pleading with an unseen God to ask the question “why”

But in the smaller random acts, of hope and gentle charm

Music springs from little things which keep us from all harm

And if by chance we cannot see the goodness in Schoolwynd

Let us play the Harp we think is somehow left behind

From Cochrane Street to  Loadingbank it doesn´t take a while

to offer random kindness acts or give a sincere smile

He does not see the cries and woes of bitter words well meant

He does not know the mental wounds of times much better spent

He knows only Peace and Love and wholeness of our Soul

Far above the human clouds where Man is free to Go

In Glasgow Street or Ladeside Vale, perhaps in Dalry Road

A Mind can freely choose to live in  mental sweet abode

Far above the darting arrows, foes and kin at war

There is a place, another Mind for mankind to explore

Found in silence, ne´er in hate, a Harp string sound does come

Taking man to far above from words and human glum

If Angel´s are His thoughts indeed of swirling pools of Love

Let them take us anytime to consciousness above.

In silence comes the lyre harp of goodness Peace and Love

A state of mind but Heaven is, so take yourself above

To where no siblings voices fight or hatred´s idle dreams

Free yourself from earthly ties however fair they seem

A #poem about the mountains around the #Garnock Valley #northayrshire

A poem about the mountains around the Garnock Valley north ayrshire
Some days the mountains speak to me
defending Truth and Love
like Angels climbing Jacob´s Ladder
to and from Above

With thoughts so clear and brightly shining
fields of grass and green
stretching to horizon´s line
and farms lying in between

Other days the mountains seem
an obstacle of view
which stop me seeing o´er the sky
and leave me feeling blue

Tis these weeks the hardest are
when shadows mark my way
when people´s words like arrows fly
and hinder all my days

To search for good in every thought
dispels the darkest night
for through the words and tempers flared
lie Angels in disguise

To take us higher in our thought
to bless us every day
find the Love in everyone
it is the only way.