Well now, where to begin? This has to be one of the best sites ever done relating to "OOR TOON". Accolades to the web designer for his great work! When I found this site, I was ecstatic.

Seeing the great pictures of places in and around Paisley. Instantly my mind was flooded with memories of my childhood growing up there, from seeing the Abbey in all of it's splendor, the greatness of Coats Memorial Church. Causeyside Street, looking from Paisley Cross, the River Cart, and the magnificent views from the Gleniffer Braes, and of course the "TOON HALL" (I actually think that is where my parents met, at the dances held there).

My name is James J. Tervit (Jim), I was born at Barshaw Hospital in June of 1942. We lived with my Granny Johnstone during those days up until the end of the war. I can still recall the day the war ended! We were on the balcony of Granny's flat at 21 Craigielea Drive in Ferguslie Park. A large bonfire was set up, and from the top of the tenement across the street a life size effigy of Hitler was allowed to slide down a rope line and into the fire. To this day I could probably take you and show you the exact spot where the bonfire was! I can still remember playing as a child in the air raid shelter and finding pennies, which of course, Granny and my mother claimed were theirs that they had lost during the war.

A likely story! Finder's keepers I say! All of my uncles served in the forces during the war. Afterwards they did their own thing, Uncle Jimmy became one of the best coopers in Paisley, while Uncles Hugh & David worked for the town council and developed great skills as causey stone layers doing much of the major road construction in town.

There used to be a little variety store at the end of Craigielea Drive on Ferguslie Park Drive called Nellie's. This store belonged to my mother's Aunt Nellie Gray, and we would go down there and she would give us sweets & treats. My father's name was Robert Tervit the son of Thomas & Margaret. He had a brother Archie, and two sisters, Mamy and Cissie. They started out on Mckerrall Street, later move to Bankfoot Road during the war, and finally Granny and Grandpa Tervit move to 11 Craigielea Drive.

Dad worked at India Tyre, Inchinnan until May of 1954 when he left to set up home in Toronto, Canada. We followed him in January 1955. My Dad had three very close friends while growing up himself in Paisley. Of course I speak of the Mack brothers, Adam, Willie, and John. They also immigrated to Toronto right after the war, and made their marks there. They started a club in Toronto called the Paisley Club, and upon his arrival in Canada, my father became one of the mainstay entertainers doing all the old Scottish songs for the expats.

We affectionately called their mother Granny Mack. She made the greatest chips! I often recall going to her flat up on George Street. My mother was Maude Johnstone Tervit, a great lady! She was the eldest of seven Johnstone children, four girls and three boys. Margaret, Helen, Jimmy, Hugh, David, and Jean. Mother worked at Dobies Four Square Tobacco Co. for a while, before moving to the Anchor Mills, where at some time in their lives, all my aunts worked in some capacity.

At some later point in her working life, Mum worked at the Edgar & Creerers Bedding Factory across the road from the Anchor Mill, and then as a waitress at the Station Bar, and also the Anchor Bar. The same man owned these two bars at that time I believe. When my father was de-mobbed from the Royal Navy, we moved to a tenement on Greenhill Road, right across the street from Galbraith's food warehouse. My brother Tom and I attended nursery school on Underwood Road, and then went to Craigielea School for about two years. Yes I can still remember the single toilet on the landing, and the wash house out behind.

In 1946 my brother Robert was born and we had to get a larger home. The Hunterhill Housing Scheme was just being built, and we were one of the first families to move there. We lived at 45 Cartha Crescent, which was for us a big house with lots of new surroundings for us kids to explore. We thought we had died and gone to heaven! Before moving to Hunterhill, I can remember well the times we spent at The Racecourse.

We played in an area where there was a lot of old war aircraft, which we could get into and pretend that we were the pilots and gunners. We called it the crashed aerodrome. I believe Glasgow Airport now stands on the location. Dad & Mum set about getting the gardens in, putting up fences, creating lawns, which incidentally, I did not know my father, knew anything about. Enough on the family! Back to the real stuff. Once we had settled in our new home, it was time to get organized.

There was school to think about for Tommy & Jim, Robert was too young. We attended the South School for a while, and then, because of changes in the school system, we were transferred to Williamsburgh School on Lacy Street. The summer of 1954 was a great one, because, Mum had her holidays for the Paisley Fair, and she and my two brothers and I went by airplane down to Edinburgh, where we spent a week.

My brother Tom and I had lots of fun, between being at the beach at Portobello, and climbing the Sir Walter Scott Memorial, seeing Edinburgh Castle, and the Floral Clock. Mum said she wanted us to see a bit of our country before we left for Canada. It was a great holiday! My main recollections from being at school were the great teachers I had, Mrs. Mackenzie, Miss McDougall and Miss Forsythe, who later went to Australia, Mr. Bryce in woodworking and also the football (soccer) coach, who also taught my father.

Then there was the most feared two persons in the school, the assistant Headmaster Pye Muir who walked with a limp, and " Bulldog" Drummond who taught us math. These guys could make their straps stand up straight and they knew how to bring them down. Not that I ever got in trouble! I remember fondly the day Mr. Mac Innes the Headmaster presented my brother Tommy with the Dux Prize for best male student in the school. I only wish I had paid more attention to them back then. I had many good friends at school, Davie Connelly, John Hunter, Robert Fulton, Barry Jackson, John Stevenson, Billy Fox, and James Graham.

We were all in the same class much to the dismay I am sure of those who taught us. One friend Al Craig left us after his father died, and moved to America with his mother. We never heard from him again I will not forget the day King George the Sixth died, we were in class and all the teachers were called out to a meeting where they were told about it. Mrs. Mac Kenzie came back to the room crying, and then dismissed us from class, which we thought was great, because it was like getting a half day holiday.

We did not really understand at that time in our young lives, the significance of what had happened. I also remember the day that the new Queen, Elizabeth and The Duke of Edinburgh came to Paisley. It was another half-holiday! We were let out of school and given little flags and had to go up to the Glasgow Road to wave to them as they passed in their carriage. We were forever getting into trouble. If it wasn't going over to Paisley Ice Rink and creating mischief, it would be acquiring, by devious means, potato crisps from Smith's Crisp Factory, which was at the back end of the school. Being late for school after lunch hour because we forgot the time when we went Barshaw Park to play around the pond.

Going to school in the spring and autumn meant going the long way, down the Jenny's Well Lane, and catch the bus that would take us to Lacy Street. Because we lived across the street from the old railway, (one train a day) during the winter it was easier for us to go down the tracks and into the school although we were not supposed to do this. Our excuse was that we were getting coal for the fires at home. The coal fell off the train (if you can you believe that?).

We had some great families living in the housing scheme back then. The O' Donnells, Dennis, Grace, Ellen, and Mary and their parents Minnie & Jimmy. The Anderson's, Donald, Heather and Kenneth, and their parents whose names escape me. The Connells, Drew and his sister whose name I also cannot remember the Bisland's and the Patterson's who lived in Claverhouse Place.

The McGoughs, the Miller's who were our neighbours, the Burkes, Stevenson's, who all lived on Cartha Crescent. Some names of my childhood friends were the Connelly's, Tommy, Davie, and their big sister Eileen. The Jackson's, who lived next door to them, Barry, Christopher, Colin and Raymond. The Pigot's, the Orr's, and the Kyle family all lived on Whiteford Road. It was not too long before we got to know each other, and I still have many thoughts of the things we used to do, and the childhood mischief and pranks we would pull, like breaking off the heads of the gardener's prized Dahlias, stealing tomatoes and fruit from the orchards.

Because there was enough of us, we formed a gang called the BLACK MIDGIES (Scary EH!) not really, we had to do this as there were others who would have liked to take over our established territories like Jenny's Well, and the Old Castle, which I understand has had a renaissance. We were the ones responsible for setting the grass fires up on the hills and then help the firemen put them out. We were also responsible for giving the Budgie (Watchman) a hard time during the construction of the flats on Blackford Road. I was known to him as Boston Red Socks, because one of my Granny's used to knit me socks and it seemed that every time we had an encounter with him he knew me by my red socks ( was I dumb).

Yes it was me who single handedly started up the bulldozer and put it through the workmen's tea shed. Jenny's Well had to be our most favourite of all places, that is where we would spend endless hours during the summer while out of school. We would swim in the River Cart, fish in the Jenny's Well Stream, set our fires out and do our roasted potatoes as often as possible. Oh yes, I recall the times we would get our lunches packed and head to the Braes where we would spend hours at Stanely Dam, fishing, swimming and having fun getting into all sorts of mischief, kid stuff if you know what I mean! The autumn of the year was a great time for us, as we could go to the Bluebell Woods and shake and knock down our supply of chestnuts.

We would also go to Hawkehead Cemetery and do the same thing. We had an agreement that we would not do any damage to any of the graves and the Head stones. Our young lives though, were not without tragedy! One young lad whose name escapes me, was with us one day swimming in the Cart, and dove off our diving tree and never came up. My father was called to see if he could find him, but no luck, they had to get the rescue people in to recover the body. he lived in the Prefabs on Cartha Crescent just before you got to the Old Castle. One of our favourite things was to help the driver of The Scottish Farmer's dairy on his rounds, as this gave us a chance to drive his electric delivery van. I suppose the poor guy would have been fired if his boss ever found out ten and eleven year olds were behind the wheel.

Who could have lived in Hunterhill and not recall this, Carrots, Turnips, Leeks, and Parsley? Yes that was the cry of Archie Fife doing the rounds with his shop on wheels. Our family and I am sure most other families of the day were happy to have Archie around because he would let you buy things on the tick. The poorest rich man in Paisley was what my father always called him. Saturday morning was a great time for us, as we got to go to the matinee's at either the Kelburne or West end to see all of our favorites, Bud Abbot & Lou Costello, Hopalong Cassidy, Roy Rogers and of course the cartoons.

We were all members of a club, which was very popular back then called The ABC Minors. We had to sing our club theme song every Saturday morning before they started the movies. It was fun though! Someday, I will give you the words to the song, as I still remember most of them. If we were lucky during the football season, we got to go with Dad and all our Uncles to see St. Mirren play at Love Street on Saturday afternoons. Our Dad and Uncles knew all the tricks, and would hide us under their coats to get us in for free. After the game, we would then have to make our own way home, as it was time for the men to go for a few pints.

Some nights during the week, we were allowed to go to the Picture House on the High Street with Dad to see the latest Hollywood release, and be entertained by Sam Ross at the Theater's great organ which used to mesmerize me as it came up out of the floor.My Dad had a great singing voice, and I loved to hear him sing along as Sam played the latest and the old tunes. Sometimes on Saturday nights, if we were lucky, we would run into our Uncle Jimmy Johnstone (Mum's brother) at the Paisley Cross with his own best friend Pinkie Reid, and he would give us a shilling each to get into the pictures. Of course this was before he got married, things changed.

The La Scala was the other picture house we would go to. Do you remember the Astoria? Also known as the "Bug Hut" where they claimed that if you went in there with a coat, you came out with a waistcoat. When we would skip the afternoon at school, we would end up going there. It used to get all the second run movies. I can still remember the last movie I ever saw there, it was Frankie Laine starring in The Sunny Side of the Street. Many were the days that my older brother Tom and I would spend at the Paisley Museum, and the Library, we loved to see and read about things. We would also go there when Mum or Dad had to go to our Doctor, whose office was next door to the Museum. The Doctor's name was Sutherland, and he would always send home sweets for us. When I had to see him, after we were finished, Mum would take us to Burton's Tearooms for afternoon tea.

If, as was often the case, one of my brothers or I had to get medical attention over and above our regular doctor, then it was a visit to the Russell Institute. I can still re-call the medical smell, which always permeated the air in the hallways. Along came the autumn of 1954 and we had to give up the house in Hunterhill and once again move in with Granny Johnstone for a while before we left for Canada in January of 1955. While staying at Granny's, we re-acquainted ourselves with our surroundings at Craigielea Drive, and meeting new friends, Willie Fletcher, James Easton. My young brother and I still attended Williamsburgh School until we left for Canada. Tom was at Camphill School.

He was the clever one in the family! By this time, I was old enough to be a runner. Let me explain. Granny liked to put a little something on the horses and I got to take her bet down to her bookie that lived at the end of Craigielea Drive. If there was a win, I would sent to get the winnings, and keep a shilling as long as I did not let anyone know Granny had won. I would be remiss, if I did not mention my two cousins Tom & Johnny Austin, the sons of my Mum's sister Margaret and her husband, Uncle Tommy Austin, They also emigrated to Canada at the same time as us. They were a very large part of our growing up in Paisley. My family is now all deceased, and I live in the city of Barrie Ontario, Canada with my wife Margaret, and her mother. I hope that when you read this, that if you are from Paisley, it might evoke in your own minds, the memories you have of growing up there. I also know that I have a great number of cousins out there, and would be glad to hear from them, or their children.