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GI4RSI > BARNEY 21.10.04 15:45l 74 Lines 4033 Bytes #999 (0) @ WW
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Subj: Killen in the old days............................
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Sent: 041021/1507Z @:GB7FCR.#16.GBR.EU #:17802 [Blackpool] FBB-7.03a $:17802-GB
From: GI4RSI@GB7FCR.#16.GBR.EU
To : BARNEY@WW
Killen in the old days!
Hello there! How are ye all doin"?
Recently I came across an old photo (availabe via email k.allen09@ntlworld.com)
of Killen, near Castlederg, which must have been taken nearly a century ago,
and I suppose while none of the people in it are alive today, they maybe be
remembered by family descendants or at least by the names, which haven't
changed much around there.
How I got it is a story in itself.
A man came all the way from California to try to trace his roots, and he found
that there was scarcely a benweed on either side of Scraghey but was related to
him in one form or another.
He was James Mills, whose mother's name was Rutledge from Shanog, near Lisleen,
and her father was James Rutledge, from Ardbarron.
Among his scattered clan were Barclays or Ardaver, Baxters from Kilclean,
Cathers, McCutcheons, Nesbitts, Robinsons etc, and among the photo he sent me
was this one of Killen around 1910.
Like everywhere else Killen has changed a lot since then but it was a tidy
town even then, and look at all the tidy ladies in it. No shawls or bare feet
or red petticoats. Instead there are well-filled blouses with lego-mutt on
sleeves and even lace collars round the neck. Maybe they were all dressed up
for the `big day' when the man with the camera arrived and hid himself under
the hood, while shouting to all `watch out for the birdie.'
I don't know how this Californian man got the names but he said that the first
lady on the left was Jane Clarke, the next may have been Annie Rutledge and
beside her Mrs. Bob Armstrong, while on the far right was Mary Henderson
standing in the doorway of her shop, which later became that of Ernie Keatley.
Killen is a far way from Cornwall, but when this photo was first shown in the
`Con' about 1980 or so, I got a letter from a lady who was a Henderson, but who
became a Doctor Mabel Andrews and she was so interested in it that she wrote
and more or less confirmed the names, with a few additions.
She said that she spent most of her summer holidays at the farm of her
grandfather Henderson (that was before the 1914 war).
"The little shop," she wrote "was an integral part of the village community, as
one day each week my Aunt Margaret (Henderson) and Mary Jane Rutledge (or her
sister Lizzie) distributed garments sent from a firm in Glasgow to the women
around the district to be embroidered - Sprigging it was called, and at the
same time collected the articles which had been distributed last week and sent
them off to Glasgow.
"Whatever money they got they spent on groceries' from the shop. The place was
like a hive of bees on those days."
I'm sure that some readers will remember that way of life. It was much the same
as the shirt factories in Derry which sent the unfinished shirts out to the
nearby houses for finishing. Even I remember hearing about that.
You may notice in the photo that there's a man standing at the wall with his
back to the ladies. He must have been the first man in history to turn his back
on a
fine looking woman.
He was Bob Sproule, the blacksmith, who operated the forge with his son, Thomas
George, famed for doing a good job at a fair price. Indeed I remember a man
telling me that his father told him that many a time he got the whole set of
shoes - four of them - fixed on his horse for five bob.
"Of course, that wasn't the day or yesterday," he told me, "and he came all the
way from near Drumskinney, just over Scraghey."
"What's more," he said, "They always did a good job and they wouldn't let you
go home on a empty stomach - you were always sure to get a good mouthful of
strong tea and soda bread."
"Sure it was as good as a pantomime to hear the crack. "Everyone went home
laughing their heads off."
Nowadays, I suppose that would be termed good customer relationship - then it
was just good neighbourliness.
I wonder where that's gone to nowadays.
God bless you all. Barney McCool
73 - Kenny, GI4RSI @ GI4RSI
Message timed: 16:07 on 2004-Oct-21
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