IN THIS week's trip down West Fife's Memory Lane, we take a look at the legacy of Andrew Carnegie, one of the world’s greatest ever philanthropists, born in Dunfermline in 1835.

There will be a musical event in the Carnegie Birthplace on the life of Carnegie over the weekend of October 7 and 8 featuring the great-great-great-grandson of Carnegie himself, Joe Whiteman, playing the lead role.

Ian Hammond Brown (music and lyrics, ‘Whisky Galore a Musical’) created the event and outlines how it developed: “The full musical was staged in the Edinburgh Fringe in 2016 and in the Carnegie Hall in Dunfermline in 2019. The story is narrated by Sharron McColl and is set in the last two hours of Andrew Carnegie’s life. John, a steelworker killed in the infamous Carnegie Steel’s Homestead plant dispute of 1892, is brought back from the afterlife by Peterson, the embodiment of St Peter. John is charged with reviewing Andrew Carnegie’s life and must decide on Carnegie’s eternal fate.”.

‘The Star Spangled Scotchman – Songs from the Carnegie musical’ also features Donna Hazelton (who performed in ‘Musicality’ and ‘Chicago’ in the West End) as Mrs Carnegie, and a cast of other talented performers, accompanied by live musicians, that will bring this performance back to the place where it all began for the first time.

Carnegie, in his autobiography, mentions how important a role music played in his life: “I must not, however, forget that a very good foundation was laid for my love of sweet sounds in the unsurpassed minstrelsy of my native land sung by my father. There was scarcely an old Scottish song with which I was not familiar, both words and tune.”

The Carnegie Dunfermline Trust, mindful of that aspect of Carnegie’s life, bought the building that features in our next photograph in 1933 that is situated beside the Carnegie Hall and still stands today. This building was originally called ‘Hawthornbank’ before it was acquired in 1909 by the Robertson family, who changed the name to ‘Benachie House’. The blue plaque on the building explains the reason why the Carnegie Dunfermline Trust later took over the property: "This house was a 19th century dwelling house before it was purchased by the Carnegie Dunfermline Trust in 1933 and converted into a music institute for the benefit of Dunfermline’s citizens."

The next early photograph shows the Carnegie baths in Pilmuir Street that still stand and function today as the Carnegie Leisure Centre. This building replaced the original baths (also funded by Andrew Carnegie) that were located further up Pilmuir Street at its junction with Carnegie Drive (at that time called Carnegie Street).

Our final photograph is of Andrew Carnegie and his brother, Tom, in 1851 in Allegheny City, Pittsburgh, where they had emigrated with their father and mother in 1847. Andrew was 16 and his brother 10 when the photograph was taken.

Tickets for ‘The Star Spangled Scotchman – Songs from the Carnegie musical’, priced £15, are on sale online at Bit.ly/ACBMEvent or in person from the Carnegie Birthplace between 11am and 3pm each day.

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

With thanks to Frank Connelly.