I was born in Falkirk on 10th September 1934 in Oswald Street then went on to live with my mother & father at Number 60 in Allandale.
My father, David had been a regular soldier in the Argylls since the early 1900s and had seen action in WW1 in France and Gallipoli where he was wounded and had recently retired when he and my mother Ella, were married.
My sister, Ann, was born in 1937 also in my grandmother’s house in Falkirk, Ann sadly died in 2024
Our father worked as a night watchman at J.G.Stein’s brickworks who owned all the houses in the village. He joined up again in 1939 when WW2 started. He never saw any action in the war because of his age and was a C.S.M. mainly concerned with training.
My mother was the daughter of a police constable in Falkirk and worked in Maxton’s shop at the steeple until she married.
My father was demobbed just before the end of the war and went back to Stein’s as a foreman where unfortunately he was killed in an accident in 1947.
My mother remarried some time later to a local man, Archie Anderson.
I attended Greenhill School until I was 12 then went on to Falkirk Technical School until I was 15.
Like many other children locally arrangements were made for a job in the brickworks and I started an apprenticeship as a patternmaker.
National Service was in operation at that time and I was called up in 1955 when my apprenticeship ended. I always fancied being in the RAF and, to ensure that I got selected for this, I signed on for three years in the RAF. After basic training at Padgate I was offered training as an armourer at RAF Kirkham and, on completion of this, I was posted to RAF Leconfield near Beverley. As this was a Fighter Weapons Station, there were many armourers there and we were kept busy. I was disappointed that I did not get the chance to move to other overseas stations but I remained at Leconfield until my three years were up. By that time the RAF were finding it difficult to keep so many stations open and our station was gradually closed.
Back in civvy street, I returned to the patternshop but then I met Eneth, my wife, in 1958 and we got married in 1960. Eneth sadly died in 2017.
I started looking for other employment but I was offered a position in a new department at Stein’s as a foreman of the sheetmetal section who made casings for metal-clad bricks.
After about 9 years Stein’s merged with another manufacturer and it became obvious the works would close so I moved to another local company which made semi-conductors and seemed like a promising career but they declined 2 years later and I was made redundant. I started in the Procion section at ICI in Grangemouth and stayed there 2 years but it wasn’t a very healthy place to work so I left to work at Glynwed in Larbert as a foreman and after 6 months I was made manager of the the stores. Later on I moved to Wrangler jeans factory at Camelon and worked there for many years as supervisor and later as manager until some of us were made redundant.
Our son, Craig was born in 1974 and when still at primary school developed an interest in computers and he has a natural aptitude with computing and is mostly self-taught. When he left school he worked for a few years with local companies but then started his own company and this has developed into a successful software enterprise.
He was also an officer with a Boys’ Brigade company. I started a small one-man printing company with the help of Craig and this kept me busy for 14 years. I enjoyed doing printing but I also enjoy being semi-retired. I wrote and published my book about Allandale Cottages mainly so that records remained of the life of the small village and at first, printed about 50 copies, some of which I gave away to people who had given me stories or photos. But more and more people kept asking for them and I had to charge a small amount to pay for the paper and ink. I also gave donations to a charity I was interested in, Sightsavers International. Copies of the book have found their way to many other countries, including, England, Canada, USA, Australia, New Zealand and others.
This edition of the book will be distributed on this website and we hope that as many people enjoy reading it as read the first edition. I thank all the people who went to the trouble to search out their old photos so that I could copy them.
James Jamieson
