coatbridge

People may sneer at the old coke-in-the-fridge. But for all the mud there were always the stars and dreams of a better world to come in this world or some life. Some say Coatbridge is the most dismal town in Britain and there some very dism...al things about it. But. But. But.

My Dad was born there along with 5 Aunts and an Uncle. The erudite snob may sneer but all kids have no choice in where they live or how they live and who they live with. Oliver Twist would not speak the way he speaks but only in a musical would he speak in such a manner rather than share the same vowel arrangements as old Artful Dodger. Ken what I mean, likesay.

My grandparents fled here to escape the rural poverty and the sectarian trench wars of County Down and Armagh. My Granda an orphan wooed my farm girl grandmother not with dreams of wealth beyond avarice but with dreams of adequate needs on the whole fulfilled. Coatbridge was a wild west boom town but most of the wealth flowed to the few not too the many. People drunk hard to remember, drunk hard to forget. Beasts of burden muscle monkeys to forge the infrastructure of Scotland. Ever thus.

All my Father's generation are now dead. Everytime I see the Old Monkland Graveyard from the motorway I feel sad that the Coatbridge that I knew as I boy is one utterly gone. Buildings are beautiful and the best ones will hopefully endure long after we have gone. But the memories of those gone can never endure but nor can they be replaced. Dismally sad I know.