Barr Place/Kilmahew Street/Montgomerie Street

[Bob Bryden]

I was only 2 years old when we moved up to 3 Churchill Drive so was too young to recall it myself.

Bob

Bob I don’t know about where you lived previously but I do remember you staying in Churchhill Drive I stayed in Whitecraig Road. You stayed next to the lad Wilson who stayed in the 1000 house

We were at 3 Churchill Drive & the Wilsons next door at No.1. My maternal grandparents lived at 32 Whitecraig Rd. Dad arranged for us to swap houses with Granny & Granpa about a month before we left for New Zealand as the stairs at 3 Churchill Dr. were better for them. I have no first hand memory of living in Barr Place - just what Mum & Dad told me in later years.

[Bob Bryden]

Penny Tray, I certainly wasn’t born at home after the disaster of my brother’s birth on 25.1.1949. We were both born in Ayrshire Central Hospital at Irvine. Billy’s birth was a month overdue AND a breech delivery. The incompetent doctors supposedly looking after Mum insisted she wasn’t due for another month but Mum knew damned fine when she was due & was proved correct. Mum told me in later years that by the time Billy was born his head had grown too big to be easily born normally so why the hell these damned doctors didn’t resort to doing a caesarean I don’t know because they effectively condemned by brother to life as a helpless bed-ridden invalid. I make no apologies for my language as those doctors lack of adequate care of Mum & Billy was inexcusable. At one point they nearly lost both Mum & Billy. As a result of this cock up when I was born on 19.1.1951 I was delivered by caesarean.