END OF AN ERA – by Archibald Faulds

On Friday 13 December the Saucel Iron Works of Millen Brothers, constructional engineers closes down and with it Paisleys last link with the sea.  From this yard many small vessels, such as motor launches, tugs and barges, have set out on their journey by road to the Clyde, where they were either lowered into that river or lifted aboard ocean-going cargo ships to be taken to destinations all over the world.

You may have seen some of Millens boats, they were brought out of the yard on transporters – usually in the late evening – and towed slowly across Bridge Street on their way to Glasgow.  When I visited the Millens work around 20 years ago in the late 40’s I saw a sturdy little tug almost ready to go out, it was one of three being built for river work in Russia.

Across Saucel Street in the main workshop men were hard at work welding some mysterious looking objects and I was given a pair of goggles to watch the process.
Although these shapeless things were being marked “Sugar Refinery Plant” I learned later that it was in fact part of a contract for an atomic power unit.

To round off this visit I was taken to the firms office where I saw a wonderful collection of photographs showing a wide variety of small craft – all built in the Saucel yard – being handled at the Glasgow docks.  Some of the Millens boats were sent away in sections, and shipped overseas to be assembled at or near the places that were to become their home port.

When I looked in at the Saucel yard on 1 December all I could see was Millens own motor launch the “Vanduara” sitting high on its cradle.  This boat had been used for sailing in the firth of Clyde but was laid up last spring (1967/68 ) and is now being sold.

Earlier this year we heard of the closing down of other Paisley works.  Perhaps the biggest blow of all was the final decision to close Fleming and Fergusons – the dredger specialists – whose fate had been in the balance for some time.
The workers affected by this closure could not get similar employment in the town, so they either had to travel further afield or take up a new occupation.

Also this year came the announcement that the firm of Macrae and Drew had decided to close their factory which was once better known as “ The Hair Work”.  This came as a great surprise to many, for the business was apparently keeping up to date  with the advances in the production of modern upholstery materials.
This was an old family concern, a family touched by tragedy too, when young James Drew, then one of its younger members, was killed in a plane crash near Elderslie. I think the accident happened in the late 1920’s

The closure of the Sandyford Chemical Works also in 1968 could hardly have caused any great disruption of labour, there were fewer workers involved and there are other chemical works in the neighbourhood of Paisley.

After all, this is nothing new in Paisley and as this thought occurred to me, I began to trace back , from this present year and found that I could recall many local businesses that are almost forgotten, but first let me include Reids Thread Street engineering works as a sort of intermediate subject, this business didn’t actually close down it had to give up its old building and move out to new premises in Linwood.  One of the Reids productions is ships steering gear – another branch of marine work lost to our town.

Now let me remind you of some of the firms that once flourished in Paisley.

There used to be a lot of cloth finishers and dyers in the town, and, appropriately enough Paisley Technical College was the only one in Scotland with courses on chemistry, bleaching and dyeing.  The number of works of this sort has been greatly reduced by the closing of the following firms :-

MacLardies Dyeworks - Foxbar, Pollock & Cochrane printers and mercerisers -Rowan Street,  Blacklandmill Dyework – this became a distillery depot and MacFarlanes Dyework – Well Street.

Do you remember Isdale McCallums Thistle Soap Works in Rowan Street ?  It closed down many years ago.
My earliest recollection of a free gift coupon scheme, is of one run by this firm.
The coupons were issued with their chief product – A1 Soap Powder and I got my first scholars writing set with A1 coupons.
In Isdale McCallums office window there was a statuette of a man wearing a “Tammie” taking a thistle spine from a boys bare foot.  The inscription on the base read – “Ye manna tramp on the scots thistle laddie”.
This was the firms trademark, which was reproduced on the back of the soap powder cartons.  Well someone must have tramped gey heavily on the Thistle Soap Works, for it was crushed out of existence.

Off the Hawkhead Road was Bells Laundry, this site was previously occupied by Doultons sanitary engineering works.

The SCWS shirt factory and the Artisan (Colinslee) Works have both been run down and some of their workers transferred to Shieldhall or Morrison Street Glasgow.  The former  - situated just off Lochfield Road – was often called the “Leith” factory as it had originally come to Paisley from that town.

Of course new industries have come to Paisley during the same period covered in this reminiscences but for one reason or another  (automation is a big one) these have not absorbed all the displaced and redundant workers, so that many of them had to seek employment elsewhere, and at the same time we have hundreds of people coming into town to work in our own factories, thus in my opinion a situation has been created which although on a comparatively smaller scale is something like the immigration problem which is causing so much controversy throughout the land,

Perhaps I only see it this way because I am one of the travel weary , who stand in the queues each morning waiting for buses to take them to work.

Written Circa 1968