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1965 (Part 2)

For an experimental period of one year Castleton Junior Sunday School met at 11.30. Arnprior Juniors met at the usual time 2.30 in the afternoon.



In August the redecoration of the church was completed, as, thanks to the efforts of the Works Committee, the difficulties over the reliability of the roof had been removed.


The scrubbing and cleaning was done by some ladies of the congregation after the painters left.


During the last week in August, the ministers and the deaconess ran a very successful Youth Week, when 50 to 60 young people met each evening from Monday to Friday in the Church Hall. “There were film shows, Beat Groups, a Camp Fire evening and games in the church grounds”.


Mr Ian Turpie, Glenwood School's Principal Teacher of Music, with encouragement from the Head Teacher, Mr Gardner, formed a forty-piece orchestra. Pupils rehearsed three days a week after school hours, and had already featured in a concert in the school.


Fred and Rose Grant of Raithburn Road took a trip to the Holy Land.


Kenneth Branney of Glenace Drive and Arnprior Primary Sunday School won 1st prize in a competition for Primary pupils throughout Scotland. His winning workbook illustrated missionary stories of Calabar, told in Sunday School.


The Girls' Guildry, the oldest girls' organisation, having been in existence for 65 years, amalgamated with the Girls'Life Brigade and the Girls' Brigade of Ireland to form the Girls' Brigade.


Five members of the Youth Fellowship, Jacqueline Petrie, Sandra Dane, Lesley Crichton, Edna Steele and Ronnie Syme assisted at a Church of Scotland Seaside Mission in Campbeltown during the Fair Fortnight. The rest of the team were from the Y.F. of Blairbeth Church, Rutherglen, whose minister, Rev. A. Moyes was the leader.

In the summer, Miss Elizabeth Morton of Glenacre Quadrant, younger sister of Margaret, the Life Boy Leader, went off to Hollywood, California to live.


Celebrations for the tenth anniversary of Castlemilk East Church were deferred till the 5th November last year, instead of September as in Castlemilk West, to coincide with the 25th anniversary of the ordination of their minister, the Rev. R.D. Ross. A telegram of congratulations was sent on behalf of Castlemilk West.

To commemorate the 10th anniversary of Castlemilk West Church, Holy Communion was celebrated at 10.15, 12 noon and 6.30 in the evening on Sunday, 12th September . On Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday of that week there was a mission to the lower part of the parish. On Friday evening there was a Social and Concert in the Church Hall and on Saturday evening a Grand Anniversary Dance. On Sunday, 19th September, the congregation welcomed back Rev. Donald Macleod, the former minister, who conducted both morning services, and Miss Sheena McNaughton, the former deaconess, who addressed a Youth Rally in the afternoon.

H.W. Hewett of H.W. Hewett and Sons (Let Hewett do it!) celebrated his Diamond Jubilee in 1965, and in recognition of this and Castlemilk West's tenth anniversary he offered a “Special Concession” to the readers of the Castlemilk Crusader of a 5% discount, on any furniture they bought up to Christmas, whether cash or credit.




The first names on the Baptismal Roll, on 2nd October, 1955, were Isabelle Jones of Glenacre Quad., and James Martin of Glenacre Drive.The number of baptisms on the Baptismal Roll at June 1965, was 854.

Thanks to the Mission to the lower part of the parish during September, quite a number of people handed in “lines” and started coming to the church.


In September, Miss Grigor bought a little blue car which she called “Phoebe”, named after the woman in the Bible who was supposed to have been the first deaconess.


The sudden death of Mr Jack Millarvie in October, 1965 was a sad blow to his many friends in Castlemilk West. He had been an elder since 1959, and had taken part in the recent visitation of the parish.

The Christmas Fair, the Carnival Dance and the Coffee Morning raised the sum of £153 17s 6d towards the Organ Fund. £600 had still to be raised to add to the £875 already in the Fund. The Organ Ways and Means Committee were holding a Musical Evening to this end.


By the end of 1965 another £1000 had been repaid towards the debt for the church buildings, making the total repayment £9406 so far, and £3768 still to repay.


This is an article, entitled “Ten Momentous Years” by Mr Colin Guy which appeared in the Castlemilk Crusader in the Souvenir Issue in September 1965.


A handful of people picked their way over piles of sand and along half-built pavements early one Sunday morning in the summer of 1955, and filed into a ramshackle hut near Dougrie Road. There, amidst a jumble of workmen's tools and dungarees, they congregated on old wooden benches – to hold a service of worship. And so began the story of Castlemilk West Church.


Castlemilk itself wore the air of a raw, bustling, boom-town in those early days. Against a backcloth of bricks, mortar, and mud, a new community was being born. Like bands of settlers, families from all quarters of the city were moving in to take up the challenge of a new life in a new place.


Nowhere was this pioneering mood more in evidence than in the life of the lively, if yet small, congregation. For within a few weeks its numbers had swollen till in November the workmen's hut was vacated for the much more commodious new school building in Arnprior Road.


Rapidly, the pattern of the church's organisational life began to take shape. Leaders and teachers emerged from the fast-growing congregation to assist in Sunday School and other youth work. In January, 1957, another milestone was reached when three men, already ordained elders, were inducted to serve as ruling elders on the kirk session.


In the summer of 1957, another kind of activity was taking place up the hill on Carmunnock Road. A skeleton of steel and concrete was rising out of the ground where work was forging ahead on the erection of the new parish church.


On a wet and squally afternoon in September, 1957, a large crowd of members and visitors assembled in the church grounds for the foundation stone ceremony. The stone was laid by the late Rt. Hon. Walter Elliot, then Lord High Commissioner to the General Assembly.


Within a year the congregation had outgrown its second home in Arnprior School. In the Spring of 1957 they moved again, this time to Dougrie Road to the bright and spacious hall of Castleton School.


The significant increase in numbers attending the Sunday morning service encouraged the kirk session to experiment with adopting a second morning service. Thus began the now familiar pattern which is firmly established to-day.


At last the long-awaited day arrived when we could take up residence in our lovely new building. At a memorable service on the evening of December 12th, 1958, the new church was opened and dedicated by the late Professor Pitt-Watson, a former Moderator of the General Assembly.


Many milestones have been passed in these ten momentous years, many more than there is space to record here. A few recollections must suffice to give a glimpse of these exciting days:


The foresight and faith of that gallant band of assessor elders who helped to lay the foundation of our work and witness here; a sunny afternoon in June, 1958, when a convoy of twelve double-decker buses conveyed a thousand happy parents and children to Largs for the Sunday School outing; one Sunday morning in May seven years ago, when 16 babies were baptised; and an open-air conventicle one October morning in 1960, when the church grounds were packed with folk. No loud-speaker system was necessary, for the preacher was the redoubtable D.P. Thomson himself.


Perhaps these words spoken by The Right Hon. Walter Elliot in his address at the foundation stone service would best sum up these first ten years: “Here on the hillside is the focus of this new community, a gathering place where the people can find roots ........”


For not only has the church become the focus of this new community; from its humble origin in a workmen's hut it has grown and expanded to radiate the care and concern of Christ for all men and women in Castlemilk.

C. Guy.