Opinion

I must confess that I’m not a regular bus user. In fact, if I’m been honest I can barely remember the last time I was on a bus in this area.

Can there be anything worse than waiting on someone to arrive at your house with a delivery or for a meeting or to read a meter.

Can you imagine being told by an airline that you cannot fly with them because you wear prescription glasses? That would be ridiculous, even a little hard to believe, not to mention discriminatory.

This week I found myself moaning about the latest rise in gas prices until I thought of the astonishing fact that supplies of gas and electricity are delivered in wires and pipes from miles away right into our homes. Our ancestors would be utterly astonished but today we take technology so much for granted that we expect the power to heat and light our homes to be available at the flick of a switch. It is hard to imagine a world with neither gas nor electricity where houses, churches, offices and factories were lit by oil lamps or candles. That was the situation for centuries until the arrival on the scene of Scottish engineer William Murdoch who worked in Birmingham with the great James Watt. In the 1790s Murdoch discovered a way of making gas by burning coal so that it could provide continuous light and be piped from one place to another. By 1812 a small area of central London had the first gas lights and within two decades the miracle ‘‘illuminant’’ had spread throughout the land.

When I was growing up, my family had a strict “no phones at the dinner table” policy.

A £100,000 project saw trees and rocks blasted away to reinstate a road and at the same time 400 metres of water pipes were laid by hand at Barwood.

Just as 7th Falkirk (Baptist Church) were debating jam or cream first on their Devon teas at their camp 8th Falkirk (Bainsford Church) may have been pondering the delicacies of hotpot or Eccles Cakes at their camp at Kirkham in Lancashire on the campsite operated by the NW district of the BB.

The suitcases have been bundled back into the attic and it’s back to ‘auld claes and porridge’ after the holidays.

We all remember the trepidation of waiting for the postman with an envelope with our exam results, unlike today when there was no text or email.

Moana of Motunui has been our saviour this summer.

A few weeks ago we shared with you how the great support the hospice receives from Grangemouth Rotary Club has enabled us to renew equipment to bring us bang up to date with what we can offer patients and groups who use our services.

Oh I remember those moments well ... and this week it all came flooding back to me.

The scorching temperatures may have abated, hopefully only for a while, but it doesn’t appear to be detracting on the number of visitors in Falkirk.

The restoration work in the centre of Falkirk is nearing completion and the results are celebrated in an excellent exhibition in the Howgate until September.

As session 2018/19 marks the 100th anniversary of the formation of 7th Falkirk (now Baptist Church) Company they decided to have a special camp this summer.

IN this short series on the story of Barrwood we have reached the last quarter of the 20th century.

Well they came, we saw and everyone went home happy. Or at least most did.

At the bottom of High Station Road where the new Comely Park School stands there was once a huge grim institution called the Asylum for Lunatic Paupers otherwise known as the Poorhouse.