How one man and his horse invaded Pumpherston

The Courier have teamed up with our friends at the Almond Valley Heritage Trust to bring our readers photographs and stories from West Lothian’s past.

This week: Joe, and his horse, invade Pumpherston.

In 1873, a group of shale workers formed an association to pool their resources and support their families through the hardships of strikes and depressions of trade.

This association became the West Calder Co-operative Society, one of the most progressive and effective of local co-ops which came to serve many of the shale-field communities.

By 1884 the society had a well established base in West Calder, and held plans to extend its network of branches and van services.

The new community of Pumpherston, established to serve the recently constructed oil works, appeared ripe to share the benefits.

A co-op publication tells the story of how Joe (surname unknown) and his horse (name unknown) led the“invasion of Pumpherston”.

Joe, as the society’s senior van-man, was chosen to lead this special mission.

Neatly dressed with a newly washed van, well groomed horse, and shining harness, he set off on an expedition laden with bread and groceries.

Despite the support of the company secretary, only one and a half loaves of bread were sold that day, yielding an income of ten and a half pence.

However, the twice-weekly van service to Pumpherston soon became established as one of the society’s most important.

The following year, the society opened a modest grocery store in Mid Calder.

This encouraged the society to open a store in the village and, in 1887, arrangements were made to take over the existing grocery and post office in Pumpherston.

The co-op bought this property in 1890 and set about greatly extending it, adding a bakery, stables and an electric power plant.

In about 1900, the original store was cleared to make way for an imposing three storey building with clock-tower, second only to the society’s headquarters in West Calder.

A butcher’s shop faced onto Drumshoreland Road, while the frontage onto Uphall Station road contained a draper’s, shoemakers, ironmongery and home goods store, and a grocer’s.

A further eight homes were added to Society Place.

Further major expansion took place in 1924 when a large modern bakery was constructed across the street from the main shop.

For many years, the co-op was the centre of life in Pumpherston, serving the material needs of the community and underpinning much of its social life through bodies such as the co-operative women’s guild, and other activities of the co-op education committee.

All profit was returned back to the working folk. Changing habits and styles of retailing, particularly the spread of self-service stores in the late 1950s, saw the decline of over-the-counter stores, and the gradual amalgamation of local co-op societies.

In Pumpherston, the co-op responded by converting the two storey bakery building into Krazy Kuts; a modern but basic self-service supermarket which briefly proved popular with residents of Craigshill and other early parts of Livingston new town, and bargainhunters from throughout the district.

However, the opening of Craigshill mall and the new supermarket in Livingston regional centre soon undermined this business. The Pumpherston store closed in about 1982.

Today the clock on the corner of Drumshoreland Road still tells the correct time.

The main co-op building now houses an Indian restaurant and, across the road, the old bakery building houses a number of shops and businesses.