The first photograph in this week’s trip down West Fife’s Memory Lane shows 'message boys' from some Dunfermline shopkeepers taking part in a Dunfermline Civic Week parade around 1950, setting off from Transy Place.
Colin Pratt recognises someone in the image: “That’s my dad, Bob Pratt, at the front and I believe there was competition from his twin but he’s not in the picture. The two of them were grocers with my dad in his travelling shop, and later a shop in Aberdour Road.”
George Paterson also has memories from that period: “I used to ride one of those bikes when I worked at Bruce and Glen's.”
Our next photograph from around 1934 shows Dunfermline's first police patrol car, an Austin 16/6 Reg FG 8981, photographed in Comely Park with drivers Jim Scott and Hector Law, both members of Dunfermline City Police.
This was taken prior to the amalgamation, in 1949, of Dunfermline City Police, Kirkcaldy Burgh Police and Fife County Police.
Ross Alexander notes the name of the police force: “It's only recently that Dunfermline was confirmed as a city, but perhaps the police had inside information regarding the awarding of this status!”
Taken around 1976, our next photograph shows a Rosyth Dockyard bus leaving St Margaret's Street bus station (known locally as 'the bottom stance').
This stance also served Charlestown, Rosyth, Inverkeithing, Burntisland, Leven and Upper Largo.
It closed in the 1970s and is now a car park. Ann Marie Hepburn remembers it: “I used the lower bus stance when I lived in Rosyth. Walking down that hill in the winter was quite tricky.”
Moira Cleeton also recalls the area: “That’s how I remember Dunfermline with the buses arriving and leaving from the lower bus station.
"I love seeing photographs of Dunfermline as it was when our family left in 1957 for Australia - so long ago now.”
Our final image is an old postcard showing the bottom entrance to Pittencrieff Park around 1909.
In 1902, Andrew Carnegie purchased Pittencrieff Estate from its then owner, Colonel James Maitland Hunt, with the intention of giving it to the people of Dunfermline.
The Dunfermline Carnegie Trust was founded for the general maintenance of the Glen and they invited proposals for the development of the area as a civic space.
Two entries were submitted in 1903–04, one of which was by the world-renowned urban planner, naturalist and educationalist Patrick Geddes (1854–1932).
His thinking about the commission was to balance preservation of heritage with regeneration and this was an important influence in the formation of his ideas in town planning and civic renaissance.
The second entry was by the landscape designer, Thomas Mawson. Although neither scheme was adopted, both influenced subsequent work on the establishment of the park as it exists today.
More photographs like these can be seen in Dunfermline Carnegie Library & Galleries as well as at facebook.com/olddunfermline. With thanks to Frank Connelly.
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