April 24, 2005 – Scotland 2003: Coming into Cumbernauld

April 24, 2005 – Scotland 2003: Coming into Cumbernauld

The visit to the blacksmith’s place at Gretna Green during our visit to Britain in August 2003, reminded me that human’s are creatures of habit. Couples throughout the UK and beyond have been coming to the small spot on the border between England and Scotland to be married for a long time and would continue to do so. Our visit though brief was made more memorable by the heat wave that baked the small village teeming with tourists.

Back on the M74 heading north we were soon passing the town of Lockerbie. From the time we first started visiting Scotland 30 years ago, we had passed this small town on the M74—back those many years before, the M74 had been the A74, a dual carriageway that ultimately was expanded to meet the code of a Motorway. We knew Lockerbie as one of those first towns we passed as we ventured further north into Scotland. The three-syllables rolled off the tongue and it was pleasant sounding to hear spoken. With the Pan Am disaster, Lockerbie was suddenly transformed into a name everyone knew, that school children were taught about as one of the many battlefields international terrorists randomly picked to make their terrible statements. The town whose name used to give us pleasure now engendered a sense of solemnity: another milestone on the road of life.

About 30 miles north of Lockerbie, we stopped at a service area near the town of Abington. I wanted a chocolate bar and we were both anxious to find a bottle of chilled water, IM wanting still and I preferring something bubbly. We both found our water preference in the Welcome Break Concession shop, though neither bottle had achieved the level of cold we were both hoping for. Nevertheless, both were cooler than any we had thus far encountered. We had taken the precaution of renting a cell phone to go along with our Vauxhall Vectra and we took this opportunity to call our hosts on this trip, WS and his wife YS, IM's brother and sister-in-law. The occasion of our visit was to attend the wedding of YS's son and WS's adopted son MS, who was marrying his long-time companion LS—the two had lived together for nearly 10 years and had two children, Kevin and his sister, Shannon, both lovely spirited kids would be part of the wedding party. The wedding was scheduled for a week from this Saturday, on August 16th.

We have been driving up from England to visit WS and YS—on average about every four years for the past 30 odd years—and we've always had to phone for directions to their house before we get to Glasgow. The two empty nesters live in Cumbernauld, one of the early new towns Great Britain created in the aftermath of World War II. Anyone familiar with Southern California planned communities would understand Cumbernauld, though unlike in the U.S. this master planned community was developed by the British government. In its day it was an experiment in social engineering. It contained a mix of high-density housing with clusters of detached and semi-detached homes of varying price ranges mixed in. The community was built around a town centre containing a large shopping mall. Surrounding the shops was a garage to house the growing number of cars bringing patrons to the shops. The centre is accessible by foot and by a regularly scheduled bus service.

Over the years we visited WS and YS, the town centre has doubled in size, with the addition of shops inside and surrounding the original mall. Anyone in the U.S. that has visited a large enclosed shopping mall will feel right at home in the town centre complex. Outward from the town centre in concentric odd-shaped circles are the neighborhoods, serviced by roads that ring the centre in giant circles. The community planners wanted to separate pedestrian and auto so there are footpaths that lead to every corner of the planned community emanating outward from the town centre. Few of the roadways have sidewalks, except where the footpaths run parallel to the roadways. This occurs for less than a few hundred feet.

Cumbernauld is between the two major cities in Scotland, Glasgow in the west—where most of the denizens of Cumbernauld originally came from—and Edinburgh in the East. The former was, until twenty years ago, the heart of heavy industry in Scotland—blue collar, while the latter was the political heart of the country as well as the center of banking and business—white collar. Cumbernauld is about 30 miles west of Edinburgh and just under 15 miles north and east of Glasgow on the A80 toward the city of Sterling, where Robert The Bruce defeated the son of Longshanks, Edward of England.

IM’s and WS’s father drove a locomotive in the Clyde Steel Works for most of his adult life—back then IM’s family lived in Carmyle, a community on the outskirts of Glasgow. WS moved into Cumbernauld after he married YS as did many of his generation living in and around Glasgow. The elders eventually followed to be close to their children with most living in their own place, though some moved in to provide childcare for the working parents. YS's mother was among the latter with WS's mother and father being among the former.

Directions to WS’s place were straightforward. We were to proceed north on the M74 until we arrived at the M73, which we were to take until it ends onto an access road running along side of the A8. Then we proceed through three roundabouts and at the third WS would be waiting to take us on to the house. We hang up and begin the last leg of the journey. Back on the road we encounter a long line of traffic as three lanes merge into two at the outskirts of Glasgow. The stop and go eventually gives way to an open road as the M73 reaches Hamilton, ten or so miles south and east of Glasgow.

WS meets us at the appointed roundabout and we follow him back to his house on Baldorran Court. It's an attached two-bedroom place he and Silvia bought after YS's two kids, LS and MS, married and moved out into their own places nearer the town centre. The house overlooks the Balloch roundabout. We spend the rest of the afternoon catching up on one another's lives. Though still warm, the temperature had steadily declined the further north we drove and now sitting in the backyard a cooling breeze from the Atlantic had snaked its way inland and was providing us with a comfortable evening. A little after seven, WS and I walked down to the large Tesco grocery store just off the traffic circle near the house. We stock up on water and wine, a bottle of Barola—a steal at under $20 (12.99 pounds) and a bottle of red Australia wine WS was keen on. Back at the house we decide on take-out fish and chips for dinner, which WS and I drive off to collect. The fish and chips shop is in a small community center, which also holds a convenience store.

Back at the house we eat al fresco, the Barolo adding class to the fish suppers. The fish suppers are good but not as good as the ones I remember from earlier times. After dinner we retire to the living room for more catching up. The session lasted to nearly 4AM. We all retired mindful that this morning we were off to Inverness for a couple of nights after which WS and YS were going to return to finish wedding preparations. IM and I were going to continue on to the Isle of Skye. We would take two cars.


WS had retired a few years ago and the strain of getting up every day with no job to go off to weighed on both YS and him. WS missed the shared camaraderie of his work mates, three of whom he had known for three decades, first as they served together, in the Glasgow Fire Brigade and later as all three left to join British Petroleum in the fire department at the large refinery in Grangemouth. He missed the adrenalin rush he felt fighting fires and the dangers he shared with his fellow firefighters.

YS and IM had once years ago hit it off but a long distance friendship takes work from both parties to keep going and after an initial effort that kept the two in closer touch ten years ago, the two no longer made the effort. Now, as both had gotten older, each saw themselves distant from the other for others reasons. The only link holding them together was WS, the one sibling IM kept in contact with from Scotland. About the only times the four of them came together was the funeral of their father. The funeral of their mother coincided with the birth of our first granddaughter and we could not join the others. We paid our respects a few months later, visiting the cemetery where both parents now lay side by side. The cemetery is a short walk from the house of Baldorran Court.