[BITList] BIT List Scotland's Forest

[HUGH]

Mike,

Birkmyres got around. The family came from very little in one generation to 
being big shots around Port Glasgow and district. They, and the shipbuilders 
who had come up the same way from very little, intermarried a lot and built 
big houses on the slopes above the town.  A couple are still standing.  In 
the late 80s the founder of the Lithgow shipbuilding fortune, a young 
draughtsman, and my great grandfather, a foreman riveter, lived up tenement 
closes on the same short street in the middle of town.  Lithgow prospered, 
while George celebrated too unwisely one New Year and fell into the Mid 
Harbour, which wasn't why the McIntyres didn't become rich. And on closes, 
Henry Murray, shipbuilder employing over 200 men, at one point lived up a 
close in a very ordinary tenement here, with no servants and possibly no 
inside toilet.  Sure enough, later on he moved to a big house recently 
vacated, but he spent a long time in the other place.  It was an odd place, 
Port Glasgow, in those days.

Hugh.