In complete contrast to the village’s way of life, the old autocratic regime at the top level of society still reigned. Each Sunday morning the Laird’s carriage brought the family from their mansion-house at Castlemilk, up the hill to church in Carmunnock. In the second carriage were the servants - that is, if the weather was bad. If it was dry, they walked.
In the early years village folk dutifully stood outside before morning service till the family alighted from their carriage at the church gates. Lining the entrance drive in respectful silence, men doffed their caps and women nodded politely as the Laird and his wife passed, followed by the tall slender young figure of their daughter Helen (born in 1896). Accompanied by her two brothers James and Douglas, she walked between the lines of villagers, glancing with a haughty - some say shy - smile at those she knew, her long golden-red hair the envy - or admiration - of more than would say so. The autocratic young Helen was of course the late Madam Helen Stuart Stevenson.
Until about 1920, the two services held every Sunday were morning and afternoon worship. If the weather looked like being too wet or cold for the Castlemilk family to return home between these, a lunch hamper was loaded into the servants’ carriage before they set out in the forenoon, taking up room on the floor among their feet. After morning service on those occasions the family rested in the Retiring Room (now the Session House) behind their gallery (now the organ and choir gallery) opposite the pulpit, where the coal fire was kept burning from the early hours. Then the coachman ceremonially carried the lunch hamper in, the table in the comfortably furnished Room was laid and lunch served by the maids.
There were great celebrations in 1912 when the Laird’s eldest son James was 21. A huge picnic was held in the House grounds for the Estate tenants and their families, tea for the older folk was served in a marquee and in the evening bonfires were lit on the Braes. But sadly, James was killed at Ypres in France in 1914; and little is known about his brother Douglas Rae who moved to England after marrying in 1920, and had three daughters.
In February 1916, less than two years after her elder son was killed, their mother Mrs Stirling Stuart died; and at the time of her funeral, it was ordered that the village schoolchildren should file round her open grave in Carmunnock churchyard to show their last respects. In fear and horror, sick with nervousness at this most morbid of duties, terrified that they’d fall into the big hole which was lined with a mass of snowdrops round the coffin, the children walked slowly past. The memory printed itself on their young minds for life and little Bessie Barker (Mrs Matthews till lately of Hillcrest), who had recently come north with her parents from Yorkshire, never forgot the unhappy occasion!
Everyone knows that Christmas in Scotland in those early days was much less cheerfully celebrated than New Year. The whole parish attended a special service in the church on New Year’s morning - whatever the day in the week - and on that great occasion the Sunday School prize-giving for attendance took place. As they filed out the church door after the service, each child received a little package of bun all prettily wrapped in shiny coloured paper, and with it an orange. Miss Lamont of the grocers’ and fruiterers’ in the early building (now 8A Kirk Road) was the lucky shopkeeper: it was she who got the order from the Parish Council every year to supply the children’s New Year gift. In addition a bright new penny was given to each girl and boy, donated from the elders’ own pockets. (These very same customs at the special New Year’s Day church service continued until 1960; then the date was changed to the first Sunday of the New Year. But from 1964 everything was different. No longer were there gifts of cake and fruit and now the prize-giving took place on a Sunday in June; interestingly too, from September the same year, the time of morning service was changed from noon to 11 am.)
And long ago there were other annual treats. Those at the invitation of the Stirling Stuarts when the whole village went to Castlemilk House and grounds, had ceased soon after Queen Victoria’s reign. Anyway, folk say, the cake there was always stale and the boys threw it away or stood on it! But now, in summertime the Sunday School outings to a neighbouring farm two or three miles from Carmunnock, were looked forward to with the greatest excitement.
The children piled noisily into horse-drawn carts lent by farmers in the district, Sam Little spread an old piece of carpeting on the floor of his cleaned and swept coal-cart for the annual occasion and, delighted with the treat and the transformation, they clambered aboard as though it was a royal coach! The word was given when all was ready, the horses were given a hearty slap, and off they went. Races were run in a field at the farm, and a delicious tea of a meat-pie, home-baked cakes, biscuits and sweets was enjoyed by everyone.
Sundays in pre-1914 were very strictly kept. Girls wore their clean white frocks, but their brothers complained bitterly when they had to wear the hated high white collar. Young Borland, like many another lad, said that they “scaffed y’r neck”! The War changed everything, the old ladies said, and all kinds of customs and Victorian disciplines disappeared. (I must add that while my elderly friends conversed, the War was referred to as if it had taken place last week, and I had to remind myself that the one they were talking about happened 70 years ago.)
Some regretted the changes, some welcomed them. But even in pre-war days life had become easier now that houses had running water on tap. Nevertheless many people still depended on water from the Wells. Old Miss McVeannie relied daily on the Halla’s good supply. Woe betide the cheeky youngsters who hung around it. Terrified that they would break the pump-arm, she scolded them, threateningly raising her stick. Sometimes this made them cheekier and even the younger ones on their way to school joined in. But she had one trick that worked well, and when a handful of gravel from over the garden wall suddenly showered on the youngsters, they knew who had thrown it. That made them run!
Carmunnock Burn - the Tammy Linn - dividing the north part of the village from Wellside on the south nearest the church, coursed its way mostly underground, from east at the top of the Low Green to west in Pedmyre Lane. Here and there when the field springs flooded, pools formed. For instance, the pond fed by a spring above Gallowhill Farm rarely dried up. Mrs Jessie Jamieson, youngest of the Baird family there and till lately of Ashtree Villa, told her older sister’s story of how the farm ducks loved to swim in this pond which in very wet weather flooded into the Tammy Linn, carrying the ducks downstream. Despite furious paddling, they were taken underground, then into the open stream rushing between the cottage gardens, underground once more, next to be found swimming - apparently none the worse - where the Burn reappears in Pedmyre Lane.
To catch them, someone had to wade into the pools at Pedmyre where the Burn had flooded, getting soaked with their terrified flapping. The ducks, feet tied, were then dropped into sacks. Wriggling and squawking in the heavy bulging bags, they were carried back up the road. They seemed to enjoy these occasional expeditions into new waters, and by next day had happily settled down to life on the home farm once more, just as though they had never been away!
The flood ponds benefited others too. At holiday time, young folk of the village skated on them the winter’s day long. Our old friends sometimes wonder that those ponds no longer exist even in very wet weather. The water must have been channelled into underground pipes at some time in the past 50 years, to drain the area for building.