Tales Of Kirrie Toon

Stacey Macauley

9 & 11 Roods

Now Lloyds Chemist

1955 James G Hall Butcher

1940s Hay’s butcher

9 Roods

1929 Hay’s For Sausages

1898 John Alexander & Son

1880s & 90s John Alexander grocer

11 Roods

1898 James Milne spirit dealer, bar & rooms

The following information is from Bob Inglis

Pre 1939 9 Roods was Hay’s the butcher, 11 Roods was a dairy, then during the war the dairy was used by Hays as a store. In the cellar was a ’big chill’, below that again was an air-raid shelter with two beds and two or three seats.

‘The air-raid warning siren was above the police station, 20 yards away, and would sound with a ‘great whoosh’, warning that German planes were overhead, on their way to bomb Clydebank or Glasgow. If we had had a telephone we could have phoned Glasgow to say the bombers were on their way.’

They would go into the shelter when the siren sounded – this happened more than ten times. Other times Bob Inglis would go into the shelter ‘just for a carryon’ with the butcher’s son who was the same age as Bob.