Gone but not forgotten

Here is the village photograph from 1985. 

 

 We started a project to put names to faces. The first step was to copy the photograph and number everybody.  

 Then several people helped in the identification process. That produced the following list.

The tables show the surnames that people had in 1985. That is because those names might appear in other documents and photographs held by the NL Trust and others.

New Lanark was a very different place then.

The village still had a strong community spirit and villagers organised a range of activities. These included the annual games on the Caithness Row green, meals and dances in the church, coach trips, walks and many others. See this post.

Several of the 75 people in the photograph had worked in the mills until they closed in 1966.

Five of the people in the photograph still live in the village but most have gone to a better place, or Lanark.

Who is missing? Who lived in the village in 1985 but is not in the photograph?

I know of the following

Alveys - 1 Braxfield Row
Kellys - 2 Braxfield Row
Rances - Long Row [still in village]
Hardies  - 4 Braxfield Row

Please leave a comment if you have any additions or corrections.

Note - photographs from 1989 and 2000 are in an earlier post.

The New Lanark community cooperative

 In 1985 the residents of New Lanark tried to form a cooperative to operate a small cafe for visitors. The cafe would have been in the two-storey building next to the Wildlife Trust premises. At the time the village did not have any catering facilities for visitors.

The scheme had the backing of fifty-nine residents and funding from Strathclyde Community Business. It would have created ten part time jobs and been under the control of the village community. It would also have created a healthy annual surplus for community projects.

The only suitable property [like almost all land and buildings in the village] is controlled by the New Lanark Conservation Trust and they refused to give a lease.

The scheme therefor failed.

The following article appeared in the Glasgow Herald on the 24th January 1985.

The article quoted Harry Smith saying the Trust would open a restaurant on the same common good basis as the cooperative. It certainly opened a restaurant but as a commercial operation with its profits going to the Trust. There was no “common good” element.

Scotland Direct did not open a “gourmet restaurant” and the company left the village years ago when it got cheaper premises elsewhere.

In 1993 the Trust was host to the Cooperative Movement on International CO-OP Day and a smirking Jim Arnold made much of New Lanark’s role in the founding of the cooperative movement.