The Courier & Advertiser (Perth and Perthshire Edition)
What a bargain!
“I was called up for National Service and spent two years in the Royal Army Medical Corps,” writes a Dunfermline reader. “Most of my time was spent at Stirling Castle.
“In the glorious summer of 1952 I was posted for 10 weeks to Cultybraggan camp in Comrie. It was where the army reservists did their fortnight camps. There was a large number of eastern Europeans who couldn’t go home for political reasons.
“I had just been promoted to Lance Corporal and, looking for a tailor, I wandered over and was told in which billet I would find one. I took my jacket and coat and was told to come back in two hours which I did and I paid 10s, 50p in today’s money. What a bargain! He did an excellent job. I have often wondered what happened to those people.
“The local doctor from Comrie looked in daily to see that everything was alright, until the medical officer from the army arrived.”
“When he was older Joseph Lee came to stay with his sister and remained there until he died. Miss Lee had a live-in housekeeper, Miss Wyllie, who helped look after him.
“I have in my possession a poetry book ‘Tales o’ our town’, printed in Dundee in 1910, which he wrote and illustrated. The poems are about Dundee and the surrounding area as well as its local characters. It is signed by him and dated August 1914 just after the start of the First World War.
“Miss Lee gave it to my aunt after he died. I enclose a photograph of Joseph Lee and his sister (see left) which I understand was taken in Airlie Place in the 1940s.” construction of the M90 and our route took us via Bridge of Earn, Glenfarg, Milnathort, Kinross, Kelty and Cowdenbeath prior to arriving at the two ports on the Firth of Forth.
“To begin with it seemed our efforts were worthwhile when we saw the smart, post-war built Danish-owned vessel London, registered at Copenhagen, berthed in Burntisland. However, the euphoria soon wore off as Kirkcaldy harbour was devoid of shipping. Returning home via Newburgh the riverside piers there too were empty.
“The question of the unidentified vessel’s name took a search of several maritime sources before I came across the possibility of the Carmarthen Coast. Built by Ardrossan Drydock & Shipbuilding Co. Ltd. in 1921 at the Ayrshire port. Laid down as the Svanfos for Oslo-based owners she was quickly re-named firstly, Langfjord then Nova, but still under the Norwegian flag.
“Coast Lines acquired her the following year operating her until the onset of the Second World War. In November 1939 she sailed from Methil, bound for London, with 1,000 tons of general cargo.
“Tragically she hit a mine three miles off East Seaham Harbour and sank with the loss of two crew members.
“The Coast Lines group, as the name suggests, ran numerous passenger and cargo services between a wide range of UK ports for many years until the upsurge in road transport put paid to coastal shipping.
“Dundee and Kirkcaldy were regular ports of call for the smart black and white liveried passenger and cargo vessels whose black funnels bore a prominent white chevron, their names ending in ‘Coast’ such as Adriatic Coast, Antrim Coast, Atlantic Coast, British Coast, Cheshire Coast, Lancashire Coast, Welsh Coast etc.”