WAY Durrockstock deserves to remain a haven for the beauty of nature

WE REVISIT DEREK PARKER’S RAMBLES THROUGH RENFREWSHIRE

It was encouraging to read that Foxbar’s Durrockstock Dam will become a local nature reserve.

The Renfrewshire Council move partially offsets its planners’ environmentally-unfriendly approval of the destruction of mature trees at a cycle path in Glenburn and Stoddard’s carpet factory in Elderslie.

Urban-based planning officers seem unaware that fully-grown trees provide food and shelter for birds, bats, squirrels, insects, butterflies and moths.

One of the saddest ecological losses in my lifetime was the filling-in of Foxbar Dam and felling of neighbouring trees 40 years ago. Those of us old enough will remember Foxbar Dam was an aquatic jewel in the bright diadem of bucolic beauty on Paisley’s doorstep.

Situated at what’s now the junction of Foxbar and Brediland Roads, the reservoir’s waters reflected woodland surrounded by fields and meadows.

Nearby was a row of tenement buildings occupied by workers at Stoddards carpet factory. A narrow track led from the

Derek Parker knew many of Paisley’s secrets – the grimy and the good.

He wandered every corner in search of the clues that would unlock Renfrewshire’s rich history.

These tales were shared with readers in his hugely popular Parker’s Way column.

We’ve opened our vault to handpick our favourites for you.

tenements alongside a purling stream towards Foxbar Dairy Farm and Murray’s Cottage, backing on to golden fields autumnally gilded with barley sheaves and oat stooks.

Summertime swallows skimmed low across the dam, feeding on insects, while herons paddled in the shallows.

I heard my first-ever cuckoo in the Foxbar Dam woods. Another childhood memory was hearing beautiful birdsong one summer sunset among the trees.

I tracked down the sylvan singer, expecting to see an exotic species from distant shores. Incredibly, the heavenly herald was a humble song-thrush. I couldn’t believe such an ordinary bird was the extraordinary source of such divine music.

I later discovered that Foxbar’s mavises or throstles – as thrushes are also known – beguiled Paisley poet Robert Tannahill 150 years earlier and inspired his writings.

Foxbar Woods were a tribute in trees to Tannahill.

There he encountered many dainty blossoms which gladdened his tormented soul during its darkest nights, including the crawflower (bluebell), blackbyde (bramble), brume (broom) and blaeberry (bilberry).

In Tannahill’s time – and mine – doves croodled (cooed) in Foxbar Woods where the burnie wimpled (meandered) and the wind murmured through the saughs (willows) in a Paisley paradise now long destroyed.

When planners and politicians annihilate our countryside they destroy its wildlife – along with the souls of communities and the artistic and literary talents of their creative geniuses.

Mine of information