Doon The Brae In 1950

A Memory of Mid Calder.

When my family moved here I was only 7 and there was only a cottage on the left at bottom of Brae and a row of four terraced houses on the left, they were holiday homes for my grandmother and her sisters. We lived there with no gas, only paraffin globe lamps, and the sink was outside with running cold water where we washed every day come hail or shine. The toilet was a board with a hole cut out over a bucket or pail as they called it then and my father emptied it into the river each day uggg.
We lived in the end house on far left and then we moved to the white cottage. There were five of us then, children that is. An old man called Charlie Armstrong owned an old house at the top of Brae on the right hand side that he used for kennels and chickens and he and his wife lived in an old bus on the field in front where the arches of the bridge spanned. We moved to Post Office buildings and Father worked in coal mines and got dermatitis and as the house went with the job we lost our house and lived under one of the arches for a while before we got moved to Queens Gardens, East Calder.
We moved when I was 14 to Glasgow, but I left my heart Doon the Brae as I played in the woods or paddled in the Almond - it was the best memories of my childhood and I am now 79 and still in love with that memory of sliding down the Brae on my wooden school case in winter and loving the peace and the natural beauty and tranquility of what it was.
Sadly they demolished the remaining houses by the time we left East calder. I went to the infant school that was on the road to Dedridge? COOP on the corner, then went to the primary behind Post Office Buildings. I remember having ration tickets for bread that we got from COOP, well most of the food was from there - and Sandy House the policeman lived in the square? where there was a petrol pump and place where I used to take the radio battery that got charged up with acid. I also used to go to a farm that would have been on the road towards Pumpherson to get the milk in a grey milk can - aluminium I think, and always drink some off the top. We washed our clothes in the river and when we lived in the white cottage we lay the clothes in the garden overlooking the river to dry, patches as well lol. They were wonderful days for me but very hard for my mother.
My heart is still there and I may come back but will be upset to see it has changed but am pleased that it is a tourist attraction as it is a very magical place. We also went into a home when we were homeless, so I bet many people my age may remember that. My best freind was Eileen Armstrong and when we moved to east calder and I went to secondary my best freind there was Anne Fry from Pumpherson. I have written a book a child's fantasy called 'Katy and the Emerald Key' and was going to visit Mid Calder to see if I could promote the book - it is available on Amazon . I have a book about the Calders and there are some other pics of the bridge so I will look it out and send some copies that I don't see advertised. Kind regards Doreen Knox . book by Rena Knox my nickname .

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