Evening Telegraph (First Edition)
Happy years living
we came across many milk bottles, broken usually.
“I also remember the park, near where the swings were positioned, was built on hollow ground. There was a hole near one swing post holding it up, and we were able to put sticks down quite some distance.
“Being maybe 11 at the time, it seemed like the hole was very deep.
“That park was used by us children for football, hide and seek, tag, and the climbing frame on the slide was popular for trying some stupid stuff on, as you do at that age.”
Building at the £20.5 million redevelopment has now resumed after being forced to shut down due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
The work will see 130 new homes to replace the 128 buildings bulldozed last year.
The original houses were built in the 1920s as temporary accommodation, but were still standing almost 100 years later.
When first announced the plans were highly controversial with Ellengowan residents.
The age of the houses meant they featured wartime shelters, which were removed a long time before the homes were demolished.
But Dave remembers them well and often wonders if any war memorabilia remained inside when they were destroyed.
He said he also has very strong memories of his neighbours.
“I remember the McDermotts lived at 73, with their two sons, Russell and Wayne,” he said.
“In the next block up the ‘middle path’ as we always called it, and first left, lived Yvonne and Avril Stewart, at number 69.
“The block upwards from them Alison Humphries lived at 99, Kenneth and Tommy Matthews stayed on our block, but at the start, 89
“Gill McCartney stayed on the top block, at number 123 and Elaine Murray stayed on the start of that block, nearest the path, at 121.”
Dave also has fond memories of working as a paper boy for the Kiosk, from the ages of 12 to 15. Run by Dave Galloway, Dave also occasionally helped out until he was 20.
“Ellengowan was certainly an area unlike any other back in the ’70s and ’80s when we first moved there,” he said.
“It never really changed in appearance, but there were less children over the years as more middle-aged couples seemed to arrive, or mothers with their grown-up children.