IN THIS week’s trip down West Fife’s Memory Lane, we look at Dunfermline Civic Week, an event that once played an important part in the social calendar of Dunfermline in June each year.

The first two photographs of decorated floats that took part in the annual parade were sent in by Dunfermline Press reader Linda Conway: “These photos were taken 50 years ago at Wilson and Wightman Clothing Factory in Dunfermline. I’m wearing a Marks and Spencer two-piece trouser suit with black blouse and floral headband – happy days!”

They are pictured outside the Victoria Works, which was situated where Tesco is today. Wilson and Wightman took over this building from Inglis and Co, which employed 700 people at up to 700 looms when it closed as a weaving factory in 1926, and converted it for use as an embroidery works in 1928. It later changed its name to Castleblair in 1993.

Civic Week once had an international appeal, as evidenced by this article in the Dundee Evening Telegraph from September 24, 1948: "Dunfermline Civic Week Committee have put forward a proposal that natives of Dunfermline who are living overseas be sent a card inviting them to pay a visit to their home town during next year’s Civic Week."

The proposal was subsequently adopted and the following article from the Dundee Courier in June 1952 lists some of the people who responded: "The latest additions to the list of homecomers who will attend Dunfermline Civic Week at the end of the month are Mrs Elizabeth Hedley, who will be coming from the Maitland Coal Fields in New South Wales for the first time in 40 years. Accompanied by her husband, she will stay with Mrs Gray, 218 Broad Street Cowdenbeath. Mrs Hedley was born in Queen Anne Street in Dunfermline and worked as a weaver in the town for many years. Mrs Catherine Morgan, from Adelaide in South Australia, who went abroad 36 years ago, will be paying her first visit home in 26 years. She will stay at 52 Queensferry Road in Rosyth. Mrs Morgan trained as a weaver in Dunfermline and continued this line in Australia. She became one of the founders of the Textile Workers Union of New South Wales. Other returning exiles are Mr and Mrs Oliver, from Windsor Ontario, who will stay with Mrs Masterton, 12 Clunivar Parkneuk in Dunfermline.

The next image is of a float advertising Rosyth Dockyard Musical Society's production of 'Paint your Wagon' in the Carnegie Hall that gives an indication of the efforts that went into creating such a display – it goes without saying that the chances of such a float passing modern-day health and safety regulations would hover around zero …!

The final photograph shows the Provost acknowledging the salute of a Girl Guide Company in a Civic Week parade around 1952, outside what is now the Guildhall and Linen Exchange pub on the High Street. Guests in what was then the Royal Hotel, situated next door, can be seen watching proceedings.

More photographs like this can be seen in Dunfermline Carnegie Library and Galleries as well as at facebook.com/olddunfermline.

With thanks to Frank Connelly and Linda Conway.