Two cases of culpable homicide (1)
Kenneth Roy
Two cases of culpable homicide (2)
Bob Cant
Photograph by the author
I like clocks, and on Hogmanay I was carefully checking my three significant examples – a wooden-cased bracket clock, built from a kit; a long-case clock dating from the mid-18th century; and a marble-cased bracket clock bought for £26 at a small local auction sale 25 years ago.
It was this last one that drew me up sharp – not for poor time-keeping (as long as its pendulum is treated kindly, all is well). I had forgotten the small silver plate mounted on the base, and on this day it had a special resonance. The engraving recorded that the clock was presented to Malcolm Mackenzie on the occasion of his marriage by his fellow workmen at Keirfield on 31 December 1902 – precisely 110 years to the day. The unfulfilled possibility of securing this latent personal connection between me and someone long-dead, of whom I had no knowledge, was immediately fired into action.
Bridge of Allan itself had been a centre of copper and silver mining before becoming a spa town of some note; one writer, Charles Roger, noted in 1853 that, ‘Bridge of Allan, though not laying claim to the high temperature of some of the English spas, claims an equability of temperature, certainly equal to any, and superior to most of them, entitling it to be regarded as the Scottish Montpellier’. Keirfield prospered; extensions were added, workers’ housing was built, and the printworks and its management and workforce became the backbone of the local community, building and running an assembly hall, reading-room, card-room, billiard-room and playing fields.
Bridge of Allan, Keirfield and Ashfield were well-endowed with railway connections; the Scottish Central Railway ran from Stirling to Perth and beyond, a halt being established at Ashfield in 1848; and the Forth and Clyde Junction Railway from Stirling to Balloch was particularly useful when, between the wars, Keirfield fell on hard times and was sold by the Pullar family to British Silk Dyers in Balloch (established under French ownership in 1929, then Swiss-owned from 1932 until 1960). Ashfield remained a working community until 1976, with some of the buildings still used for other businesses.
Whether or not the Mackenzies prospered I have not discovered; I would like to think that they did. I’m not sure if I will, or should, continue to delve – if I do, that will be a project for later. But there will always be something pleasing about having a clock that tells me the time…and a little more.
Dave Harvie was a film editor in a past life, and now writes in a variety of guises
