A Dumbarton Childhood..Introduction

A Dumbarton Childhood.

It’s hot and sunny as usual, probably around 25 degrees but here, sitting on my balcony in Southern Spain overlooking the fertile valleys of fruit orchards and vineyards in the afternoon sun it feels much hotter.

This is November, the Autumn, but here in Caravaca de la Cruz where I live the good life, the sun burns down on us for an average 320 days a year and we are truly blessed with clean, fresh air and a wonderful,healthy climate.

This small, typically Spanish, historic town in the mountains of Murcia is where I now live. I have been living here since 2006 when I arrived here from Madrid to teach English in a local school. I now have my own private language school, I am married to my beautiful Spanish wife Gracia Patricia Ureña Espa and have absorbed and integrated into the typical Spanish lifestyle of fiestas, siestas, eating paella outside all year and drinking fine wines and cold beer from a glass straight out of the freezer.

My varied, interesting and adventurous journey through life before settling here in Spain is a long story, for another time, which I´m sure will form chapters of a future book.

I sit here in quiet reflection most days having lunch, reading,listening to music and relaxing before returning to school for afternoon classes.This is my private time when my mind is free to travel and it takes full advantage, sifting out all interference and meandering through my past.........

Dumbarton,the town of my childhood..my various family homes…13, Clyde Street,

6e Carrick Terrace,Castlehill,…30, Caledonia Terrace,...44, Glencairn Road,Brucehill.

Denny's shipyard, Dumbarton Castle, Ballantines Distillery, Levengrove Park, St Patrick’s High School, Castlehill, Brucehill, Westcliff, Bellsmyre. So many varied and happy memories of a life gone by so many years ago.

Going to the minors pictures on a Saturday morning dressed as a cowboy, then buying chips from Tony Biaggi’s chip shop with lots of salt and vinegar and eating them out of a newspaper dripping vinegar through my fingers, later to be licked clean, while walking home.

Saturday nights spent dancing in the Burgh Hall.Having a wee fly drink of Eldorado “doon the quay” before going in for dutch courage to ask the girls to dance, or if you were lucky a snog and a lumber or even a wee "feelie"…these are memories etched forever in my memory.

Riding our bikes and being chased by the parkie in Levengrove Park, playing Sunday football 20 a side in the Posties Park, families having picnics “doon the shore” on the rare, hot, sunny, summer days. Days out to Helensburgh or Loch Lomond, sailing on the steamers “doon the water “ to Dunoon and Rothsay

These are the nostalgic, precious memories of a long ago, interesting and varied life in Dumbarton.

My daydreams are interrupted by my wife............

"Are you O.K. darling?”.....She asks me in her beautiful Spanish accent…

"Do you want anything?”

“Yes please baby........ a nice cold gin and tonic with ice would be fantastic please.”

The sun burns relentlessly down on the valley below,the trees are starting to turn beautiful shades of brown, orange, yellow and red. The scent of jasmine mixed with lemons and oranges hangs heavy in the air whilst a semi-transparent heat haze envelopes the distant mountains.

The fruit trees have all been harvested and the valley is preparing for what we laughingly call winter.

Two months of cooler weather lies ahead, we are thankful that the shadows are lengthening and the long, sweltering, oppressively hot summer days are now behind us and we can feel the cooler fresher air moving gently across the valley again and hoping it brings some much needed rain to replenish the dried up Rivers Argos and Segura.

The Holy City of Caravaca is a traditional Spanish town of 25.000 people nestling in the fertile foothills of the Sierra Espuña and Revolcadores mountains,green and lush in winter and burned brown in the summer. The long, sandy, tourist beaches of the south coast are just over an hour away.

The beautiful, historic Spanish cities of Madrid, Granada, Seville, Valencia, Cordoba, Toledo and Cadiz are all an easy drive from here.

This is now my life, my home where I live and have settled…..but my heart will always be in Dumbarton, my hometown where I was born and grew up.The town which shaped me into the person I am today, and armed me with the knowledge and experience which have served me so well throughout my life.

I am who I am today because of the childhood and teenage experiences I had while growing up in Dumbarton….I am proud to be a true “Son of the Rock”

I move my chair further into the shade to protect me from the blaring sun and take another long, slow sip of my gin and tonic, enjoying the cool refreshing taste and listening to the chink of the ice cubes in the glass, while in the clear, blue, cloudless sky a lone eagle circles majestically overhead.

My mind floods with the memories of my childhood.......

Stories which I recount regularly to my Spanish wife, she loves listening to them, they are incredible, funny, tragic, sad, nostalgic but unbelievably they are all true.

But how can anyone who hasn’t experienced a Scottish 1950´s and 60´s childhood understand these stories.

She knows how important my hometown is to me and how much I miss it. We visited Dumbarton two years ago because I wanted her to get some idea of the town where I grew up.....we walked along the once bustling High Street now deserted, with empty boarded up shops.....she wasn’t impressed. We went up the castle with its stunning views over the Firth of Clyde which has stood for centuries as a symbol of Dumbarton. We walked around Levengrove Park,still unchanged over the years,along the shores of the River Clyde where we as children played and families picnicked on summer Sundays. I explained that everything has changed and that the Dumbarton of today isn’t the same as when I was a child.

Some things change.......and some things stay the same.

“You should write about your life” she says

“You should share your stories with other people.”

I take another long cool sip of my drink.....

“You’re absolutely right darling.........I will someday.”

“Why someday?” she says.

“You should do it now!”

So I did.

Here it is.............

#Dumbarton #childhood #memoirs