Posts

Beith’s Sadie Denton celebrates her 90^th birthday (today) Wednesday 16^th March. Born in Barrmill in 1921 in what was known locally as the “Holy Lawn,” a tenement property located adjacent to the minor road leading to Kilwinning, no longer extant. She was raised there in a cramped flat with her father, Jacob and mother Lilly, and her younger siblings, Kate, Lilly, Robert and John, in a one bedroom flat.

Her father, Jacob, was a miner in the nearby Birsieknowe Pit located in what is now the grounds of RNAD Beith, which closed in 1923 when it became difficult to source the coal. With high hopes together with other local men, he went to Canada sailing from Greenock, aiming to establish himself in Vancouver before bringing his family out. However, he was to be disappointed on arrival discovering high levels of unemployment, many strikes and only menial low paid jobs. He gained temporary work to pay for his passage back home in 1924, disappointed that his high hopes for a brighter future in Canada had only resulted disappointment. Nevertheless, he gained work in the local quarries in Barrmill for a number of years and finally worked in RNAD Beith.

Sadie, who attended Greenhills School, worked in Crawford Brothers Mill in the village from age 15, then owned by Knox of Kilbirnie. She remembers that her first wage was 7/11d – about 40p in today’s decimal currency. She worked as a ‘doffer’ which involved cutting the threads and replacing the bobbins, the factory working flat out producing thread. It was a very busy mill and workers, mainly women, came from Beith, Gateside and the Den, many walking to the factory each day. The mill finally closed in 1946. However, Sadie left the mill in 1940 to begin work in Balfour’s West of Scotland Cabinet Works where she was employed with many other women making and repairing ammunition boxes for the war effort. At the same time other women were employed by Cottey’s, who occupied another part of the factory, where they produced perfume, talcum powder and other cosmetics, this company having relocated from London for the duration of the war.

Sadie’s husband, Leonard, died in 1994 and spent most of his working life on the local railway and will be remembered by older Beith residents as the guard on “the Wee Johnny Beith” that ran between Beith and Lugton until the line closed in 1964 with the Beeching cuts. With his passing Sadie moved into Beith, but she says that her heart will always be in Barrmill, where she was very actively involved in village life.

She is very proud of son, Terry, daughter Kathleen and grandchildren Jackie, Kevin, Nicola and Yvonne and great grandchildren, John, Kirsty, James, Greig, Cameron, Kady, Kacy, Elicia, Tammy, Robby, Ellie and son-in-law Barney and daughter-in-law, Sandra and brother John. Everyone will join in wishing this grand old lady of Barrmill and Beith many more happy years ahead surrounded by her caring family.

Related posts:

1. Annual Presentation
2. BT Fours
3. Photographic Union
4. Robert Burns, “John Anderson my Jo”?
5. Sew ‘n’ Sews